I'm trying to replicate an object along a terrain surface. The objects are much smaller than the original and they are floating in the air. If I move the hot point to the bottom of my object, I get the dreaded error in line 44. Does the original object have to be touching the terrain or does it matter where it is in the scene?

I can get primitives to hug terrain. But not my vertex objects. They insist on floating around. Well... I have to take a break from playing around and do some work for 8 hours.

Make sure when you create your vertex object that it is at the center of the modeler room at creation. Or setting up the hot point and replicating won't get you the results your are expecting.

Or to put it another way: move the model around in the model room until it (they) rests where you want in the assembly room.

Ok. So what you're saying is, just because I import an OBJ model from Amapi into Carrara (which gets auto-positioned at the center of the scene), if I double-click the model and have to look for it in the modeling room (because it's not centered there) then it won't align correctly with a terrain using Replica?

Align the center to the hotpoint. And then try it.

Sorry, I made the assumption the model was generated in Carrara.

In Juliens tute (Inagoni) for Replica he suggests that the item you wish to replicate should first have its location, X,Y anZ, all set at "0". Some models come in at such wierd locations that you would go mad trying to find them with the camera. Just typing in 0 for the three locations has become my standard "search" proceedure. Brian

Well I was not quite right about Juliens tute. Dont know where I got the 000 idea from but I use it. At least Juliens tute confirms the idea of moving the hot point to the base of the object. Further on this location of an object, if I am working in a way out part of the space I use the location XYZ of another object in view to type into the "lost" objects location to bring it into view. Hope that makes sense. Brian

Shonner the tute is in English! Have only seen English on Juliens Site?

Yes please. p.s.I'me in my seventies and only two and a half years into computers--let alone 3D. I'me having the time of my life with all you clever people but take anything I suggest with the appropriate pinch of salt! Brian

I'm trying to figure out this stuff too, Brian, as I go along. So you are not alone. I think I figured it out. Replica doesn't work with grouped objects when it comes to populating a terrain because only the group name gets replicated a zillion times and not the actual objects within the group. A Poser figure imported using Transposer counts as one object rather than a group of objects. So I was able to replicate one along a terrain. Importing an Amapi figure (so far) using AmapiImporter results in a grouped figure which won't do. This picture has lots of the default Poser 5 dude. Make sure you have 4GB RAM with just this many instead of only 1GB RAM before hitting that render button.

This one used an Amapi model that was Poserized into one object that Carrara could then replicate along the terrain.

This may be worth an experiment. With your Poser group sellected go to Edit and click Promote to master. Then try Replica on that. It was a suggestion made by Julien for another problem.

Thank you. "Promote to master" seems to be the missing three magic words for solving this puzzle. I can replicate car models now and make traffic jams all day. Thanks again.