I have 3 rather simple figures I modeled in truespace-3DS max, and have finally got the grouping, hierarchy and joints completed. The figures now work fine, but they store all of the object information in the .CR2! I have searched and searched, but all of the tutorials and information I can find for editing to use external geometry are for Props and doesn't work on Figures. Please, does anyone know where I can find a tutorial or the information I need for this?

cr2s store the joint information. this line: figureResFile :Runtime:Geometries:P4NudeWoman:P4NudeWom.obj is where the cr2 stores geometry. this from posette obviously. :)

Whereas all your CR2 parts will be referred to as 'actors' in the CR2 itself, you just need to change the words a little bit to get any prop part held externally .. like this
prop ring:11
{
storageOffset 0 0 0
objFileGeom 0 0 :Runtime:Geometries:MoochieTail:ring2.obj
}

This is taken from a model consisting of dozens of CR2s, and one prop. The ":11" part just refers to the Body number of the prop. Just keep using whatever number Poser has allocated to your prop. hth

Message edited on: 11/28/2004 11:00

The easiest way to get an external OBJ is simply to re-save the figure from Poser. I'm assuming that you brought in a set of separate OBJ files, then made the figure by hitting the "Create Figure" button in the hierarchy window. At this point Poser always makes a figure with the object information contained inside the CR2. When you RE-LOAD this CR2 and save it directly to a figure library (using the + sign in the library) Poser will separate out the OBJ for you. The new OBJ files will be in the same folder with the CR2. This is not the way most people want the figure, so you should move the OBJ files into a Geometries folder and edit the two figureResFile lines to match. (This is optional, though.)

Thank you all for the responces but I don't think I was clear enough for some. The figure is a humanoid, 1 object, no props. I grouped the parts and materials and used "Create Figure" to produce the .CR2. Then reloaded it and exported a new copy of the .OBJ (just to be certain it was 100% accurate to the .CR2) I understand they all use FigureResFile, but adding that and stripping out the vertice information causes Poser to report the file as invalid. There is obviously some reformatting that needs to be done, which I cannot find the information on. Ockham, I tried reloading and using +, but that just makes another .CR2 containing everything the other did and does not seperate out the .OBJ. Using Poser 4.03 on PC.

See if this helps. Here's one "paragraph" in the internal form. I've put ....... to represent a whole bunch of v, vt, and f lines. Basically you take out everything after storageOffset 0 0 0 and replace it by the geomHandlerGeom line. ----------------------- Internal form: actor clothespinspringclosed { storageOffset 0 0 0 geomCustom { numbVerts 468 numbTVerts 468 numbTSets 1872 numbElems 472 numbSets 1872 v -0.002010 0.065789 0.005752 .............. f 264/264 263/263 467/467 468/468 f 253/253 264/264 468/468 457/457 } } ------------------------------ External form: actor clothespinspringclosed:1 { storageOffset 0 0 0 geomHandlerGeom 13 clothespinspringclosed }

That's more the information I'm looking for. :) Where did you get the 13 from for "geomHandlerGeom 13 clothespinspringclosed" ? And I'm guessing that the name following it is the actual internal geometry group name from the obj file?

The 13 seems to be a standard number. One of those mysterious things that are always the same in Poser files, like figureType 1318 and setGeomHandlerOffset 0 0.3487 0. I suspect there must have been an original notion of using those numbers for different things, but the different things never panned out??? And yes, the name after it is the group name within the OBJ file.

Well I'm making some progress, I have it reading from the .OBJ now, but it is only loading the hip and nothing else. hehe at least the hip is in the right place. :p Why is this sort of information so hard to come by?

Check my responce over at the DAZ forums to your request on this. A simple edit to the OBJ should fix your "Hip Only" problem. Happy figure creation and welcome to the advanced end of Poser. :)

Thank you so Very much! :) It works perfectly now! Well almost.. It works, poses, and can even use the walk designer except for special options. It wasnts IK for those. Anyone care to point me to the IK information desk? :D

P4 Manual page 300. You set IK up in the Hierarchy editor.