I'm (still) working on a dragon character in P5, and though I've learned a lot about joint parameters from studying other figures, I can't figure out why this keeps happening. When I place the center crosshair (for neck 5 here) on the joint where it's supposed to be, it bends the section *behind* it (in this case, neck 4).

The only way I can make the section bend right is to move the center point back quite a ways. But the problem is that I can't get the *selected* part to bend. It becomes a problem once I get back to the chect area, since bending the chest actually bends the hip. The whole figure is doing this. What the squid is going on here?? x_x Any advice would be much appreciated. I can email the figure if it's needed.

If I were guessing I'd say that you have the parameters backwards... ie, the green should point towards the head and the red toward the body... it looks like its the other way around. (which often happens when poser creates a model with hornlike projections from a hierarchy file). I think it gets confused. Anyhow, select the bend property for the joint and then see if thats the problem luck BT

That makes it worse. The red crosshair on ends of chains (like the head) indicates the end away from the body. The green crosshair is the one the section rotates around.

nope, not what I mean... this one--bend(shown in the picture) not the centers hth :) BT

The green one should be at the back ( or bottom )of the neck 5, the pivot point is usually the green centre point. It looks to me like the settings for the joint are wrong in your first picture. Sometimes the bend can be set to too much and that is why it can affect other parts. Can you show the same picture with the neck 5 selected and the joint editor opened with bend selected?

I haven't given names to the rotation orders yet, Bend is still X Rotate. I've tried different rotation orders, and they don't seem to change anything.

EDIT: BTW, neck5 is selected in all the pics, except for the one with the center points. The head is selected in that one.

What really irritates me about this model is that the arms, hands, etc perform perfectly, without needing any altering at all. But even the bones for everything else gets thrown all over the place >=/ BTW, I realigned the bones to match their groups. Also, the spines on the head are props, so they're not affected by the JPs at all. I used to have them as part of the head, but they deformed badly because they wouldn't fit in the joint area.

Message edited on: 10/31/2004 00:23

Attached Link: http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/n/snowfox102/dragonposable4.zip

Here's the files, hopefully one of y'all can make sense of it =/

The first order of rotation must be axial to the body part. If your dragon is facing forward with his neck horizontal then the neck rotation order must be ZYX or ZXY.

The x rotate bend looks like the red parts are too straight, they probably should be more restricted. I usually find that the less area you allow for the red parts the more the bending affects other body parts. I hope I explained that okay.

Message edited on: 10/31/2004 10:19

I would also switch on the use spherical falloff zones and check where they are.

i downloaded your little dragon and took a look it is very unusual how it is bending before the body part that its suposed to bend. the joints are set up like how i would if i were making a model and the groups look like they're correct too. when i first started bending i looked at it in wireframe mode... and this is what got me confused... the red outline is the neck 5 when selected... the blue outline is what shows as neck 4 when i put the cursor over it. it doesn't even follow the mesh according to the wireframe. i tried everything i know to try and see what was the problem... i even brought your model into rhino to see if maybe there was a problem with the acutal mesh... but i can't seem to find anything wrong. i know this doesn't solve your problem... but i thought posting this pic might spark a solution to fix it in one of the better model makers. i hope you can get it figured out

Thanks for going through the trouble MoonRose. You did a much better job of explaining what's going on than I did. I can't figure out why it's doing that either. I've checked it in Wings where I modeled it, PHI Builder and Poser's hierarchy editor, and everything looks right. The only thing that's odd is if I go into the setup room. The bones are all over the place. But there's no change to the figure if they're moved. I kind of wonder if Poser just doesn't like having so many "necks". That doesn't make much sense though, because the MilDragon has 4 neck sections labeled neck1 - neck4. I've loaded and studied several different models, especially creatures with long necks, and those with the same "zero" position. I tried mimicing their setups, but I still encounter the same problem. This doesn't happen with other figures, or even other objects I've made. I experimented with something akin to Dr. Geep's Boxman last night. I stuck three cylinders together and messed with the joints on it. Even with rediculously out-of-whack parameters, it still behaved as I expected it to. About every other neck section on my dragon bends correctly. The "twist" and "sideside" movements are fine on all of them. I think my dragon is possessed >_> ;P

I've looked over the dragon, fun model :)

Here are some pointer:-

• The first order of rotation must be axial to the body part. The only exceptions will be things like feet where the twisting is done in the shin. All the tail sections are currently XYZ. They need to be ZYX. The head also needs to be ZYX. You have tried to correct it by setting the center orientation dials. Anything above 45 degrees and you are looking for trouble.
• I'd suggest adding more annular vertices to the neck. Currently you have each section made up of three rings. This means that each ring has to work exteremly hard. I tend to use a minimum of four rings in these situations.
• Try adding more polygons where the legs meet the hip. You only have one taking the strain between the thigh and the tail.
• You currently have the body scaled 41%. If that is to be your default size it may be best to scale the OBJ file first and create the figure based on that.

What I would do is to start over by writing a new hierarch file and bring the dragon into Poser that way.

However, take heart I know what you are going through, I've been there. Hopefully the above will be helpful. Good luck :)

Thanks PhilC, I'll work on the mesh some more. Glad you think it's a fun model too ^_^ I haven't started working on any body part other than the neck area, because it's what's not working. And I will be scaling it down in my modeller obviously, its default loading size is way too big ;) I know the neck especially needs more polygons, but I don't think that's what's causing the deformation.

I know I should have started working out the JPs from the hip outward. Maybe If I start there it'll behave itself. EDIT: Thanks Dr. Geep ;) Several of the bones are stretched out like that, adjusting/recreating them hasn't done anything yet.

Message edited on: 10/31/2004 18:54

Yep you got this far don't stop :)

Whilst I think of it, you have a lot of polygons with more than 4 sides. Whilst sometimes you can get away with it, its best not to. Particularly at the intersection of joints.

*waves to Dr Geep :)

*waves back @ PhilC ;=] (glad to see you survived the hurricanes (and himmicanes) ;=]

Sorry SnowFox, ;=[ It would appear that my "magic potion" was a bit premature. When I tried to do some bone surgery on the neck ... neck4 and neck5 appeared to "snap" together. One observation though: You have 2 different (external) geometry files and, also, some embedded geometry in the .cr2 file. I don't know but it is possible that there is a conflict in there somewhere. PhilC ??? ... Any thoughts on this matter???. I shall try to investigate further ... later on. cheers, dr geep ;=]

Well I remade ALL the bones in the neck, and they automatically had ZYX joint order, and behaved much better. Several sections are still only affecting their parent, but at least it looks a lot better. Hopefully I'll be able to straighten out all the kinks (pun intended ;P ) eventually. Thanks for y'all's patience with me and my dragon...I'm not giving up on it. It's based on a character of mine - Seraphina, my dragoness alter ego, and I'd like to see her in a 3D environment. Besides the little test renders I did with the static version in Bryce. Besides being a favored character, she's been my "first" for a lot of things. UV mapping, polygon modeling, jointing, etc. I've been posting pics of my misadventures with her in my gallery, if any of y'all want to laugh some more at my lack of skill ;)

Yeah.....
........go SnowFox
................go SnowFox
........................go SnowFox :)

LOL Thanks for the encouragement ^_^ I deleted all the bones and redid them in Poser, and it worked! I obviously need to do some tweaking, but it's predictable now! Apparantly Poser didn't like the setup that PHI Builder gave it. I wish I had thought of "reboning" sooner. Aside from it being a bit tedious to assign the group names to the bones, it wasn't all that hard :P Now that that hurdle seems clear, I can move on with this project. This version of the mesh will be going in freestuff once the joints are set, a few morphs have been made, and some of the mesh problems fixed. If I ever get it done the way I want it I'll sell it, but I have to redisgn part of the body first. Thanks again for all the help =)

thats great news :) i've never used PHI builder so i wasn't aware that these problems can happen when using it glad you got it figured out

Seraphina showing off ;) Now I can work on the mesh itself...Need to add more edge loops to the neck and tail, among other things, and find out why tail1 isn't parented to the hip o_O Many thanks everyone! Don't know what I'd do without y'all and these forums! :)

Congrats !!! ... and ... You Go Girl !!! cheers, dr geep ;=]

For the record...bone 5 wasn't parented properly to bone 4. That could have been fixed in the set up room by selecting bone 5, then going to the Objects menu, selecting change parent and selecting bone 4 from the hierarchy. You can change joint rotations with the joint editor. And Les said that it looks like a lot of your JP are pointed backwards. Have fun and good luck.... --Rebekah-- Hope my 2 belated cents might be of some help in the future. :)

You might want to reparent tail1 to the hip :) --Rebekah-- Maybe useful after all. :)

Wow, first Dr. Geep posted, then Rebekah?? faints Heh, thanks for the tip, I fixed the parenting problem. I keep forgeting that the hierarchy can be adjusted in the setup room. Now all the joints are working the way they're supposed to. Thanks a million everyone!

NaySayGuy sez: "Da quitten guy nebber quits, an, uh, da winnin' guyz nebber winz ... or sumthin' lahk dat ... Ah thinks ... maybe ... Any-whoo, Da Doc, he sayin' dat all da time." Well, NSG was close but didn't quite hit the mark (as usual). This is what he was trying to say: "A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins." You're a winner Rachel, and your dragon looks excellent. Never give up and you will do just fine! ;=] cheers, dr geep ;=]