Is there somewhere which has all the detailed info on rotation orders? I seem to have lost alot of my url's. That'll teach me not to keep them all in a folder and delete them from "Favorites". --Mike

Attached Link: http://www.bushi3d.com

bushi's PHIfactory program has an internal guide for rotation orders. Poser4 does too in a way; there is a lookup table within the Poser directory in text form: "Runtime:figures:StdGimbals.txt" Some people have said the rotations in the text file are incorrect, but then a look-up table is fully editable. -JH.

Thanks, Jeff. Incorrect? In what way? I'm assuming this "look-up table" is referenced by Poser during the operation of the program? Meaning that it's placed in the memory and couldn't be edited during the use of a character? This belongs in Poser Tachnical, doesn't it? Feel free to move it there if you like. I think I'm going to have ALOT of tech questions today, LOL --Mike

The basic rule of thumb is that the first rotation must be the twist. For the head, neck, chest, abdomem, hip and legs this will be "Y". For the arms this will be "X". The order of the remaining two rotations is less important.

OK. Makes sense Phil. So, the arms, are rotating on the X axis. They chose to make it that way, due to the more likely event that arms will usually be more horizontal than vertical? And the legs, etc, rotate on the Y axis because they're being viewed as vertical structures? And can I assume that if I were to cahnge the rotation order on a limb I could get them to act differently than they do now? Thanks, Mike

If you look at the deformers you will see that the one for twisting is very different from the other two. It is for this reason that it must go down the axis of the limb. Unless, of course you were trying for something funky :)

I'm gonna say something shocking Mike. You've never heard this before. So get ready ;-) It makes no difference what order you use on a body part. Those orders are used to orient the locations of the JP handels. They don't do anything else. That's why the StdGimbals.txt file can be wrong. Yet the Walk designer still work. Poser uses It to refrence body parts. Not refrence Rotation orders for the walk desiner. Rotation orders are only there to use as tools to set up the bending characteristics of a figure. Poser doesn't look at them in any way. And will attempt to pose a figure the same way. Regardless of how you have the Rotation orders. So if you have them set up wrong. Poser won't know any better. And will try to bend it anyway causing a mess. The twist axis is that funny looking JP that looks like a line with two ends on it. As long as that is running down the length of the body part (that's what twisting is afterall) The other two don't matter. If you get the twist right. But the other two are wrong. All you need to do is open the JP editor. And move the dials for the centers until you spin them around so the JP handles are faceing the correct way. Being new at it. It's always best to learn how to do it the right way and use the right rotation orders initially. But if you can't figure it out. Or make a mistake after you've created a figure. Don't remake the whole thing. Just open the JP editor. And rotate the center points around so the JP's face the right way. I have good picture's of that in my tutorial. http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/tyrell/769/poser.html ScottA

Thanks Scott. I'll have a look at it in a bit. I'm beginning to (GASP!!) get bored with only posing and exporting characters---now it's getting time to start screwing with their make-up, LOL Thank you and Phil for the info. This should keep me going for a while. One thing though: How does one open a .obj file in PHI Factory, bushi's app? --Mike

Twist, Side-Side, Bend! say it ten times, now...! :) always use twist, side-side, bend. except when you want to use a different order for some reason. now the xyz/zyx/whatever, of course depends on which way your body part is facing.

I don't remember if that App opens .obj files. I don't think it does. But it will convert a .cr2 file to a .phi file. And .phi files are what you use combined with .obj's to create figures. The nicest thing about Bushi's app for newbies is that it has a bunch of examples of what the rotation orders should be for many different types of figure's ranging from two legged humans. To animals with four legs. The stdGimbals.txt only lists the x,y,z orders for a human. So if you want to make an animal. Bushi's app is a good refrence for rotation orders. ScottA

I don't know, but YYZ is a Rush song....