When importing my own created props in *.obj format I can't set them parent to the body parts I wish to. I'm doing just as written in the guide, but in the hierarchy list there only appear the camera positions and "universe" without a tree. Further transparency maps don't seem to work on them. So what am I doing wrong??? Any hint would be appreciated!

I've seen the problem you are talking about, and being new to the Poser world, I don't know what causes it. I can tell you that the way I've found around it sometimes is to not pick the parent using the Menu, but using the popup window when you double click the prop. For some reason, when I do that, it then allows me to pick from the tree. Dragontales

heyas; you're trying to set the figure parent, not the prop parent. you can't parent a figure to itself or any of its own body parts, naturally. ;) grab the prop and hit ctrl-i, and everything will become clear... ;)

Yeah, that's it! But I still can't get the transparency to work correctly, i.e. at all, though I'm using proper transparency maps. Those are supposed to be the sting to all this, for I'm trying to create authentic eyebrows. I created them by cutting out the brows from the original face and saving them as *.obj. Is there anything that has to be considered while making them (I already did all the usual stuff -> UVMapper etc.)?

heyas; by all accounts, you should be fine. what did you do to them in uvmapper? if you gave them a new map (ie: made the eyebrows take up the whole page), first be sure you saved your obj again after doing so. (well, it happens, people forget that part.) if you changed the obj/uvmapping after you saved them as a prop, you need to import the new obj and save that. the geometry is stored in the prop file, it does not read the new obj info. your trans map should be greyscale, and white is opaque. black is transparent. (which is backwards from most apps.) after that, grab the eyebrow prop and set the transparency to 0% minimum and 100% maximum. be sure you set the correct material (if you have an eyebrow material, make sure you're not setting the preview material instead). set the falloff to 0. load your trans map in the appropriate material box. if that doesn't work... um... your eyebrows hate you? :)