I have a mesh here that is an Elemental that I like to make Posable in Poser. I tried with another mesh, and I messed up. After using the setup room. Some of the Mesh was splitting apart. I gave up, so I been waiting for a good tutorial on doing this. I can group, material a mesh no problem now. Can someone help me on this? Elemental's; from the Battletech/Mechwarrior series, game are genetically engineered giants, encased in a hardened fireproof armoured suit and equipped with flamers, lasers, claws and sometimes satchel charges to kneecap. They make excellent headhunters as well. Since they can climb up to the mech cockpit and destroy it

That'll be interesting. I suggest splitting off the pauldrons, faulds, couters, and any other piece that should really be stiff and jointed. Rig the underlying body with standard body parts (that makes it easier to take poses and use walk designer). Then, rig the "flapping bits" as independent body parts, using ERC to slave them to the underlying limbs. That way, you can keep the stiffness and shape in them, yet allow the basic body to bend properly. Remember, in Poser, it doesn't matter where the cut is between two pieces with a joint -- it matters where the joint parameters are set. It really is not possible to get an overlapping effect like those thigh pieces without adding some extra body parts.

If the parts don`t bend then switching off bend for each part should help with making the figure. If the body parts are not seperate then tearing will result.

Can you post a wire? Be nice to see what the actual mesh looks like -- without textures or smoothing.

The file is actually in 3DS format. It wasn't easy to capture a good WireFrame in poser(6). Here is a poser image.

So, I took the 3DS file in Wing3D and took some quick screenshots.

Oh, my. You've got a few problem areas there. One of the biggest, that it isn't in anatomical position. That's gonna make it tougher already. You have any mesh editing tools available?

I kinda figured a response will be sorta like, "Not going to happen".

Played around with texturing.

"You have any mesh editing tools available?"

I only know little about meshes. But maybe some help will be ok.

I have "Shade 7 E designer LE", "Wings3D", "PoseRay", and of course "Poser6".

Message edited on: 11/19/2005 15:56

Shade or Wings will do. See if you can at least grab the arms and move them up. That'll make rigging a bit easier. From the looks of it, the only spot that will really bend smoothly is the inner elbow....for everything else, turn off bending first thing. As long as you have bending turned off the fact that this model is really a bunch of unlinked primitives will not be a big problem. Creating groups in Poser would be difficult for this one. With any luck the original model or even your conversion has different poly groups for all the little technical bits. Your best bet in any case is to set up your groups outside Poser. Again, try Wings or Shade for that task.

"See if you can at least grab the arms and move them up. That'll make rigging a bit easier." Yes..will do. Give a day on this. Will give results when done. I am really not good in Shade. I do not know why I have it installed. Came with Poser(6). So, wings3D will be the solution on this at the moment. :-)

Ok..found this out in Wing3D. Imported the 3DS file in Wing3D, and was able to take apart the mesh, by surprise. Their is 44 parts to the Mesh. And I thought it was one Complete mesh. Wow! And the one problem is the Mech' is facing on the X-Axis.

If the object is grouped ... In Poser, use the Group Edit Tool to "Spawn Props." This will give you a separate object for each group. Now you can go into the setup room and assign bones to the groups as required. cheers, dr geep ;=]

Hey Kewl!..Worked "Spawn Props". Thought about taking each piece and "parent" to the character, like Vic, and/or Micheal. The elemental is a outfit (armoured suit). Or go for the setup room and make posable. No/Yes? What do you think will be better?

"Now you can go into the setup room and assign bones to the groups as required" This is what I did. 1.) Went into "PoseRay". Got all the materials in the 3DS file. Saved as Obj format. 2.) In Poser(6), imported obj file, "Rotated -90 to face on Z-axis. Scaled down to fit V3 (11.5%). 3.) Exported the Mesh checked marked: "Include Figure names in Polygon groups" and "Include existing groups in Polygon groups" 4.) Import Mesh. Now is all at 100% :-) 5.) Using the grouping tool; "Spawn Props" Now, I am stuck.

11.5% is small. So my mind is going at million miles an hour trying to figure out how I am going to get this to work in poser. Fit characters and such.

You usually have to scale down meshes in poser to fit the figure, it shouldn`t be a problem if you scaled it down and then exported the mesh, when you reimport it, it will be the right size.

I found a good size which is about 12.5%. Exported with group names and what I written above. Post #15.