Just one dumb question. In the Setup room, after you use the arrow thingies to make bones, and use the grouping tool to make groups, how do you link one group to one bone? It must be obvious, but the PDF and the Setup Room help box in P5 don't give the secret.

Lol, I gave up on the set-up room ages ago. I do it all in the hierarchy editor or by hand in the CR2. The setup room always gives me strange results, and I assume that may be because, like you, I couldn't figure out basic things like that.

I agree with numanoid. Better to use the hierarchy editor or PhiBuilder to get the hierarchy and a basic 'rig'. Then you can more easily edit JPs.

If you make the bones first then autogroup them you can make your own groups after that.

Whoa! Don't you think that's a bit personal to be asking about?! Oh, wait... Oh, I get it! "Boning" as in "rigging"... Gotcha! wanders off to hide in embarrassed silence

It says in the manual somewhere....I think the group name has to be identical to the bone name. Then Poser will match them up.

Great point there, face_off. Poser is very particular about naming body parts (and groups and bones) so that they correlate properly. These should use internal names when applicable (lFoot instead of Left Foot). Daz3D uses an interesting approach for particular rigging: although the collar and shoulder or buttock and thigh have their own bones (but are divided oddly), the JPs are set to make the movement of the shoulder or thigh encompass both parts. So, the thigh bone actually moves the thigh and most of the buttock (which actually occupies have the thigh). The bone extends between the two and the parent-child relationship is exploited to allow the use of one major bone for bending/twisting. And that brings up an important point: no matter how much you extend the spherical falloff zone or twistbar or joint angles, they only affect the current body part and its parent. A spherical falloff zone for a pinky3 that covers the entire figure still only affects pinky3 and pinky2. (I'll just keep repeating that until the scales fall from the eyes.) ;)

re: Setup Room Just to confirm what face_off said: yes, the group must have the exact same name as the bone's internal name, and it is case-sensitive. For example: groupname: lFoot bone, internal name: lFoot bone, name: Left Foot

I find the PHI method faster and easier and I also find it gets better results. A google search will turn up PHI builder for you pretty quickly.

Even faster than google is to look at the right and go to Roy's Poser MAX tutorials, it's in the webring Top 15 and has been so for ages. Phi Builder is available there. Great tool, I could never make the setup room work properly either, EVEN with exact naming I sometimes end up with ungrouped bones :o/ But Phi builder works every time!

Attached Link: http://www.3-AXIS.com

When using the Setup room the fastest way to get a rig is to use a already existing figure from the library. Example: 1. Import your model into Poser. Lets say it's a model of a "Bear". 2. Once the model is in the scene and centered, switch to the setup room. 3. Open the figures library and double click the figure that resembles your model the closest. In this case I would use the dog. When you do this the RIG of the figure loads into the setup room. All the bones are named corrctly. This saves a ton of work. 4. Adjust the bones so they are in the place for the center bones as well as the right front leg and right rear leg. You can also delete bone segments for the tail that aren't needed. You would only wan 1 or 2 for a short tail on a bear. 5. Now use symetry from right to left to place the bones on the left side of the body. This saves a bunch of time too. Because of the correct naming that is on the bones already the symetry works. Another advantage to using existing rigs. You don't need to worry about naming. 6. Now that the bones are placed correctly do an auto group with the grouping tool. Now you have a pretty good grouping of the polygons to the bones. 7. Now systematically go through each bone and adjust the group by "ADDING" polygons to the group that need to be added. DON'T REMOVE POLYGONS FROM A GROUP! They end up in the no bone group and create confusing extra steps. No bone group is a bucket for unassigned polygons. If you need a polygon removed from a group, go to the group that should contain that polygon and ADD it to that correct group. This will remove it from the incorrect group and it is in the right place as opposed to being in limbo in the nobone group. 8. Once this is complete just go to the Pose room to see your new figure. Tips: Wireframe display modes select polygons straight through the model. It punches through so to speak. Solid display modes select only the polygons in the front (polys that you can see in the display). If you go into the Pose room with your model and see that you need to adjust which polygons are in what group. Move back to the Setup room and make the changes. Once you make the changes needed be sure and WELD the groups that have added or removed polygons. Happy rigging! Joe P.S. Once you learn the ins and outs and shortcuts to the Setup room you'll never go back.

That's one of the things I REALLY DISLIKE about the set-up room. It encourages people to rip off other people's rigging set ups and in the process it copys any and all code in the cr2, including all the handwritten modifications the original maker may have put into it. People do it without thinking and then they find they've breached somebody's copyright. Not good.

Ajax: That's an interesting point. I never had much need to think about that since I don't sell figures. I can certainly understand that you wouldn't like this aspect of it.

The bones of the poser 4 figures are allowed to be used in the setup room, these are the only ones I use anyway.