Attached Link: http://homepage.mac.com/kflach/first.html

I've looked at the Greenbriar plug ins but it looks like I'd have to re-rig and then animate everything in LW. I don't want to have to go through that much work (and at this point I can't afford them). I had a bit of difficulty getting the Poser2LW installed but once I did, I found everything it installed, noted where it was, and then archived the components (with a Readme listing their proper locations) on a CD so I didn't have to use the installer again. I don't think it works on any LightWave versions later than 7.0. I'm still using 6.5. I didn't buy Poser 5 because they never came out with a LW plugin. I haven't got 6 yet either and it's partially for the same reason. There are things that the high end animating apps have that I passionately love - like bezier-based keyframes and a much better lighting system. As far as it working, yes, it does (for me). Once the plugin is installed you use the "Load Scene" from Lightwave. That dialog box defaults to "LightWave Scenes" but you have to change that to "All Documents." I can then navigate to my PZ3 file and select it. LightWave will give me some kind of loading status display and then after a bit it gives me the option of triangulating the meshes or leaving them "as is." I tend to triangulate them - it seems to work better. What it is doing at that point is creating a folder with .lwo versions of all the Poser objects in the scene. Once it gets done it displays the first frame in the layout window. I go in to the meshes (within LW's layout) and change the surfaces. The actual changes are done on the .lwo files and I can change them *as desired* - as long as I don't rename or delete them. This is great! I've found that if I'm going to use a character in several scenes I can use the same "saved" .lwo as long as I start him in the same first frame location in each scene. Thus, I now use my Poser first frame as a "staging" area, keeping my characters in default poses. I still have to load the Poser scene and it creates new meshes for each one, but I simply swap them out with the one's I initially surfaced for LightWave and I don't have to resurface them again. My basic workflow is oriented toward animation. I usually set up the initial scene in Poser (starting at Frame 2) with just the characters. If there's a prop or other element that's integral to the scene and it's not a Poser prop I'll create a very low res version of it in Lightwave and import it. For example, in my LW Drum Test Animation (via the link or in the Animation Outlet - it's one of the first one's posted) I modified the drums that came with LW and then created some simple non-textured cylinders that matched the locations and sizes of the drum heads, cymbals and the drummer's seat top. I exported the low res versions out of LightWave as OBJ files and imported them into Poser. [Note: I made sure the drums (both high and low res) were centered on the x and z axis]. In Poser I scaled them down to fit the figure and kept them centered (I wrote down how much I had to scale them so I could scale the high res version the same amount). I imported a sound file of the drums to use as a reference and animated the character playing the drums in Poser using Poser primitive cylinders as drum sticks. When the animation was complete, I saved it and made a copy (just in case). At this point I could have deleted the low res drums. The drum sticks were parented to the Poser figure's hands so I kept them. I opened and imported the Poser scene in LW. In addition to the scene itself, LW allows you to manipulate the objects themselves so I could have rotated or resized the scene or any of it's elements. I also can delete unwanted elements like the low res drums. Anyway, next I imported and scaled the high res drums. Since everything is based on the same x=0, y=0, and z=0 coordinates, my Poser character fit right in to the drums in the LW scene. I animated the high res cymbal in LW to move as required. I also Imported the floor and set up my own lighting in LW. I can add and scale any element I want to within LW. I'm pretty sure I can parent things to individual Poser objects, but I haven't done much testing on that. Since the Poser2LW plugin appears to act as some sort of displacement plugin (displacing the .lwo in accordance with how Poser moves it's corresponding element) within LW, I'm not sure how it would work if you parented something to a part that moved (like a hand which LW considers a part of the Poser character .lwo and not an object by itself). I've done things like have the Poser characters walk in place in Poser but move the whole Poser scene within LightWave so they appear to move across the scene (the Poser2LW plug in doesn't handle Poser's Walk Designer paths). I also can easily apply .BVH files to the character within Poser and have it animate perfectly in LW. I do work out my basic camera angles in Poser - sometimes I use stills of that as a story boarding tool. I rarely draw a story board, however, My drawing is so poor it just confuses me (grin). I'm very fond of the Poser2LW plugin. With the exception of having to resurface things it works great for me. I rarely use the Walk Designer so the "Motion Path" limitation doesn't impact me. Lightwave renders faster than ProPack - which is an added bonus. I kind of worry about the future. I don't want to have to learn rigging etc. but it looks like CL - I mean e-frontier - is not too committed to making sure Poser stays compatible with LW. I really don't want to have to learn another 3D software package - even if I could afford it. This was the biggest reason I didn't buy a G5 for my last computer - it was important to me to be able to start up in Mac OS9 to use PPP and LW 6.5. I am curious how this compares with the workflow of those using some of the other high end apps and whatever they use to integrate Poser with that app. This has been a bit of a long post. Sorry about that. I'm perfectly willing to answer more specific questions if you have them! ;-)

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/