Just wondering if there is an easy way to get a hand to hold a weapon (pistol) with the proper grip. Does everyone just adjust each finger as required? Is there a way to keep the fingers from "sinking" into the form of the weapon like maybe telling Poser the weapon is solid and don't let the fingers sink into it? Just a shot in the dark... no pun intended. Thanks!

Don't click on the fingers. Click on the palm or select hand in the body parts menu. Then you can use the grasp and thumb grasp dials. As far as the fingers sinking in the weapon goes you'll have to eye ball it. There isn't a collision feature in P4. That would be a nice feature for P5.

and the nice part.. once you have it all set and looking good.. you can save the hand settings intot he hands library..that way you'll hhave it available and for either hand.. Cheers

Attached Link: http://schlabber.critical-depth.net

hate to say it - but I mostly have to re-arrange each finger different (by using the dials) - but Wizzard is right - finally you can save it in the hand-section ... (I've got enough hands available - hopefully they will be included in the fall - poses - CD) At least there is no other way to make the hands correct (but with the hand-camera you will be really quick) If you want you can try some of my weapon-poses over at my site ...

Highly reccomended Neb... Schlabber has some of the best poses availiable anywhere 8 ) very very little "clean up"

CyberMunk, I never thought of the grasp and thumb dials.. DUH!!! Tunnel-vision I guess. You know if anyone has suggested collision detection for Poser 5? I agree that would be great. Schlabber, looking forward to checking out your site here shortly. To everyone, thanks for you input!!

The grasp and thumb dials give you a basic hand movement that closes the fingers, but for some weapons, like firearms you still need to get in with the hand camera and manually tweak the fingers using the dials. There's currently no collision detection in Poser so it doesn't know when something solid is encountered, in this case you have to judge where best to stop. If you change the tracking option to full you'll see the figure rather than the bounding boxes which will help a lot to judging when the fingers encounter an object. Don't worry about some collision because the fingers will naturally crush and appear thinner when grasping an item. All in all, I tend to use the dials almost exclusively for hand poses and will spend more time on the hands than the rest of the pose. But I've always found that full tracking when posing hands with/on/around an item is essential as it's all but impossible to judge by having the default setting active. That is only useful for broad movements where finesse isn't needed but speed and smoothness is.

The grasp and thumb grasp dials are pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned. For my rapier poses, I've had to do each joint of each digit individually and I still run into a basic flaw of Poser. Flex your palm--no, not your FINGERS--flex your PALM while keeping your fingers STRAIGHT! Yes, normal human beings can do that, and it makes up a VERY important part of the grip, but the way the joints are set up, the Poser palm stays rigid at all times with no flex.

The palm can be bent, either through a morph or (I think) via JCM or whatever they call it now. It's a matter of linking through the wrist to the first finger joint somehow. However, the problem being that you can only move it very small increments as the top of the hand tends to warp too. A carefull and clever morph target would probably be the best but I have tried and failed dismally to make anything that works even remotely well. To be honest I'm rather surprised that nobody has done one yet, though I guess most people just don't get that close to their model's hands to worry about such a small thing. :)

Hello again, As always, thanks for your help. I would like to get your input on this image. I'm no expert at lighting yet so no need to critique that. What I was looking for is opinions on the hand setup itself. Let me know what you think..... and please.. be kind. Constructive criticism helps a lot more than negative input. I would like to mention that the hand belongs to Cheyene from DebbieM's ABC Trio. AWESOME textures! Way to go Deb. The weapon is from DAZ3D by Christopher Johnson.

No need for criticism - it's quite perfect :o) (how long did you need to make this pose ?)

Thank you for the kind words. I guess I have about 2 hours involved. The interesting thing is that the gun itself has moving parts. I am currently working on an animation of her squeezing the trigger and the gun firing. As I noted above,Christopher Johnson made the gun and he did an exceptional job if it! Thank you again. It's the first thing I have ever posted. I never thought it really mattered that much. But I have to say that I was rather excited to check and see if anyone had responded. It's quite a thrill! :)

that's really good neb 8 ) and animating the trigger finger should be relatively easy as you only have to move the last 2 joints... and if you "tighten" the other 3 fingers as it fires.. you're golden 8 ) very well done.. and only 2 houres eh?

2 hours - well you have to train a little bit then ... but don't worry it'll come ...

Im a little late here, but one great way to start your pose is to parent the gun to the hand, and then use the 'pick' hand pose, it will give you the basic pose and from there you just need a little bit of tweaking. Ken btw, nice grip ya got there:)