Assume I am dumb as a stump cause it's true. I have several sets I love-- the Mars series and more sci-fi housing by that merchant-- none of the doors open. The sets would be 100% more useful if they did. I have no modeling skills or modeling program. No talent either. Hey, I'm honest. If it's dead easy or even close, I might be able to do it. Can someone help? Remember you are talking to a virtual blonde here-- heavily sedated as well. Emily

It is a royal pain Emily Try these. http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=24090

Assuming the doors are static parts of the mesh, several possibilities come to mind. Most involve modeling, but if you don't have access to or skills in a 3D Modeling program, you might check a good tutorial on using the grouping tool in poser. Create a group by selecting the polys of the door you want to open, then make that group invisible (conversly you can use a transmap to do the same thing, but I find the grouping tools easier). Use another simple prop of appropriate shape to simulate a swinging or sliding door. Hope this was useful . . .

If you just need an open doorway, you could make the door transparent. See? Lateral thinking, and look where it got me. :)

That assumes the door has a separate material - which probably it does, but not necessarily. With a 3D modeller you could separate the parts of the mesh and rotate the door, but you may not want to go to such lengths.

"That assumes the door has a separate material - which probably it does, but not necessarily" Nup. Transmap. :)

True - if the door DOESN'T have a separate material, there should be a texture map for the whole building, in which case one could make a transmap.

I'm assuming the doors are just painted on the texture, I don't have the firewire drive hooked up that has them on it right now. Trying to find a reason to do so, ya see.:))This place is one of those claustrophobic, paranoic places where people would ideally be peering out of half opened doorways with just a hand and half a face showing. Making it invisible-- some way-- I've never used the grouping tools so, who knows if my brain has the cells to deal with those-- then using a rectangle appropriately textured seems the most possible. Textures I can do so a transmap on the side where the door is located seems the most likely for me to handle. I can just wedge the rectangle in there at the right angle, I suppose. I had more sense and daring before I got disabled but-- did ya know your brain actually shrinks under chronic pain. Yeah, it's true and I'm living proof. Oh gods, I'm on Poser 5-- what works, single sided square or double? I seem to remember single sided. And thank you bunches for taking me at my word and not throwing a ton of tech stuff that would crush me. You guys are great. Emily by the way, it will take a long time for me to actually put this into action but if I can get the pain under some kind of control, I will eventually do it and show you here. Just have tons of patience.

"That assumes the door has a separate material - which probably it does, but not necessarily" You can also use the grouping tool in poser to create a new mat group for the door and make it invisible (as leather-guy pointed out :D) I've highlighted the grouping tool here incase you don't know wher it is queri 1: Create a new group and call it 'door' or something... 2: Add and remove polygons to the group using the + and - symbols....You may have to 'remove' the door group from any existing groups as well using the 'remove group' button. 3: When the area you want to be the door is a distinct and separate group of polygons use the 'assign material' button to create a new material zone. You can then make this zone transparent in the material room and substitute a prop for your door.

It's at times like this when I wish we were all in a huge room together, so we could walk over and show the other person exactly what we mean. Still, we get there in the end. Usually. :)

Export the set as an obj, then go to SAMS3d and get their free tutorial on making a posable figure from an obj, and make the doors posable...

There are two parts in this problem:

1. You need to make a hole in the wall.
2. You need a door with frame prop that opens and match with the rest of the building, a gothic door in a spaceship doesn't combine too much!

For making the hole you have some ways:

1. If in the model exist the door material you can make it transparent.
2. If in the model the door exist as a group with no sepparated material, you can assign to it a new material an make it transparent. Use the Poser group tool for this.

Probably is not any of these cases so you can do:

1. Create a transparency map for the material of the wall, if you are able to locate the door.
2. Using the Poser group tool in wireframe mode you can create a new group where the door is, probably the door is not defined so you select the faces that are in the door area, it will be an irregular shape that can be covered by the door prop. Once selected the hole, invert the selection and save it as a new prop, then delete or hide the original prop/figure. You will have the building with an irregular hole, remaining only to find a good door prop.
   Beware with two sided walls, you have to repeat the process with the external wall, making a hole in only the internal side is not enough!

Message edited on: 02/19/2005 20:49

You guys are great! I actually understood Hawke and Kawecki. Both!! You're right Hawke, I didn't have a clue where the grouping tool was. This actually looks possible. I'm certain this is a one sided wall. Though I could be wrong. There's no interior. There is a simple but kinda elegant rectangular door drawn on the outside so I can fudge that on very simple primitive I think. I can't believe I'm saying any of these things.LOL!I don't mind if this can only be seen in middle range-- and I certainly don't mind fixing in post. I'm one of those texture people who run kicking and screaming from modeling but-- Hawke-- you should do tutorials, lots. You're good. You probably have, come to think of it. what do I know? You're right, SamTherapy, but we did get there finally. I am so thrilled, god, I love to learn things. If I screw up, well, I come back and say, I screwed up. But I still learned today. Thank you so much again, Emily

I've always found a really big hammer, or well placed 12ga slug placement works best for unopenable doors.

Thanks for the compliment :) And i'm glad the pic helped. In answer to your question I haven't done any tutorials - I do read quite a few though lol Maybe I'll try my hand at a few if I get time :P Good luck with your project ^_^

I find the grouping tool to be unreliable in cases like this. It depends very much on the mesh as to whether the polys you want to select can be selected without much frustration. Often you leave some out, or include others you don't want.

I find it's easiest to use in 'hidden line' mode as you don't have to worry about selecting poly's behind something by accident and one's you have selected show up v clearly. If there are lots of small polys then it can become v frustrating v fast lol It's not the best tool in the world but it can usually cope with making holes in things :P

The grouping tool can do a lot, once you're used to how it works, but it has a few quirks. If the door is visible on the texturemap, you can do a lot with a paint program -- I use a quite old copy of Paint Shop Pro. What you're trying to do is take the texture map and convert it to black-and-white. The white parts will be visible, the black parts transparent, when the result is used as a transparency map. A dark grey is good for windows -- not 100% transparent. How to do that conversion? I'd recommend you look at how "layers" work. Put the original texture as the background layer, and paint the transparency map on another layer. If the doorway doesn't match the model's mesh, there's no advantage in using a UV template as a guide.

I'd also advise you to look through Dr. Geep's tutorials (you can access most of them via the side panel, under "Featured Columns"). He has several which involve using the grouping tool, they're easy to understand and fun to read:-) Cheers, Diolma

Thanks, Antonia, I understand layers. I've been using PS longer than Poser and am a 100 times more comfortable in it-- which is why I never mind postwork, I guess. That sounds like the easiest way to blank out the door. And get the black a true black.-- thank you for the window tip too, would not have thought of that. Emily

Hope I didn't sound snarky on that last post-- I'm a bit tired. I am grateful to AntoniaTiger. Emily