I'd like to move V4 into Max. Easy to get the mesh over, by .obj export/import.

1)   But the morph targets....can they be moved into Max and function as legit deformers there? Even a gross way of moving them would be okay with me.

1. What is a path to reducing the poly count? I'd like to reduce the count on the body, especially, if not on the face (want as much precision there as possible for facial animation.) 

Any suggestions welcome.

::::: Opera :::::

JoePublic has created a low res version of Miki.  He posted some comments about the process he used, in a few threads.  The morph transfer scrips he used in his process is available at the Python scripts link in my sigline, as TDMT.

Here's a link to search results for JoePublic and Miki.

link

**Operaguy,**I think it depents on your plan's for v4 in max,
are you gonna rig and skin her ? 
do  you just need her for rendering your animations?

Pomax transfers body and facial morphs.  (Doesn't bodystudio do the same?)

When in Max you can decimate the mesh, but then you have to do the same on each morph target, or they will no longer work. Could be a LOT of work.

However, if you morph the bod ythe way you want it, you do have an option to only import facial morphs. Then you can decimate the body mesh any way you like, and not worry about body morph targets.

Under this plan, I am going to rig and skin V4 in Max for use in Max, if I can reduce the poly count and preserve the facial morphs.

I've more or less given up on the idea of working in Poser and attempting to host my Poser scene in Max simply for render. I want the advanced animation tools native to Max, plus a special plug-in for facial animation.

Connie, Bodystudio does not transfer anything....it just hosts your Poser scene for render in Max, and I have not had a lot of luck getting it working...it drops texture maps and does not move shaders over.

Decimate all but face...that seems the right path to what I want. I'll look up that word in Max help. Thanks.

Cage...I'll follow that link and see what he did with Miki.

Thank you all for posting.

:::::: Opera :::::

Conniekat, by decimate do you mean the optimize modifier?

Operaguy, Are you trying to skinwrap the hi-res version to the optimized one?
If so, i would split the mesh in 2 skindrivers so you could morphanimate the low-res and render the high-res and not get a huge filesize and you could use pointcache.
Have you thought of a collada route?
Bring in the meshmorphs{baked} and your animation.
The animation is still editable in max and if you want more control link the skininstance to a biped.
You animate the biped and the mesh "follows" with pretty good weightmaps { the best i have seen of all the "plugin's".
 

Attached Link: ColladaMax

You get a similar thing with body morphs with Pomax import, but you also get sliders so you can change morphs (they're not animated).  Sorry, I don't have a figre with facial morphs imported handy here at the office, and I'm short of time at the moment to make one.

Also, this export was for modelling, so I didn't import maps (on purpose).

Oh, and in Max the command is called Mesh Optimize. In Hexagon it's called decimate. Sorry about the mixup.
Both of them end up triangulating the mesh... You may not like that much. But once it's smoothed, you can't tell in the rendering. If you're making an animation, the bends can look little unexpected.

klozen those seem important schemes, i'll be looking into them.

Meanwhile, Im having trouble getting registered at Feeling Software to get the download...their automatic responder to registration is apparently not working.

I'll try sending them an email.

::::: Opera :::::

It worked fine for me about half an hour ago. Maybe your email spam block snatch your email - if you have a spam block.

i got my email, delayed for some reason, and have downloaded collada...will try later tonight.

:: og ::

in case anyone is curious, I have a quick and dirty animation of apollo exported out of poser, into max. In this case just some basic arm poses and bends in order to run max cloth simulation on it.
http://www.cb-design.net/Dynamic%20Tester%20005.avi
I dunno if it's visible enough in a tiny clip like that, but the texture came through as well (see the nipples). I can post a screenshot that shows it better.
After I had the poser animation done, it took me whopping three button clicks to export out of poser, and another three to or so to import into Max.
With use of Pomax.

Looks good conniekat,
The only problem now is your stuck with the basic animation out of poser.
I thought operaguy wanted to animate in max  as well.
So he has still to rig and skin the character, that's the reason i pointed him to the collada route.
With collada you export the animation out the same way you do with pomax { only 1 button click ....grins....},import into max and you have the benefit of the same animation only with keyframes intact , a animatable mesh with pretty good skin applied {which you can adjust with vertex weighting/blendweights}.
The biggest plus this way a believe is that you can link the mesh {skininstance with collada} to a biped and animate further your animation with the biped { Mocap or keyframing}.
The second plus with the biped is the use of skinmorph { the other reason to link to a biped because collada exports helpers not bones}.

BTW:I noticed you allready downloaded the exporter,{what do you think of it so far?}

Good morning all.....

I am actually not looking to port any animation from Poser to Max. 

Having abandoned the "hosting the scene" idea, I am pushing towards the other extreme....just get the mesh, morphs and texturemap jpgs over to Max in a competent way.

I'll rig in Max. Unless, that is, I find a 'transporter' that moves Poser bones into Max an creates an actual Max-advantaged rig. I highly doubt this is possible.

I have the Collada download, but "real life" may prevent me from pursuing this until the weekend.

::::: Opera :::::

Morning Operaguy,

I'll rig in Max. Unless, that is, I find a 'transporter' that moves Poser bones into Max an creates an actual Max-advantaged rig. I highly doubt this is possible.

That's the idea of collada !!

I haven't had a chance to play with collada yet.

Pomax transfers rigging too, when you want it, but there's some falloff zone adjusting left to do after the import. (see discussion about it in max forums) It gives you an option to bring rigging in as max bones or a biped.
I don't know how to do the falloff zone adjustments and fine tune rigging in max yet, past the basics, so for now I just export poser animation. Eventually I'll learn more about max rigging, but I'm also working around other priorities. My particular goals are different from Operaguys, at the moment.

I saw some collada screenshots, and it looks like it lets you import morphs, right?

Conniekat,
Yes as **dvlenk6 **mentioned above you can import every morph you wish.{they don't have to baked, that's just a personal preference}
Don't freak out over the fallof zone's, all you need to do is paint some blendweights so the transsision from one envelope to the next one is smoother.
Since the vertexweight is baked in you don't need to tweak the envelopes.
Don't paint to much vertexweights because you get in trouble fast with that much vertices.
Rigging is almost zero, all you need is a biped with the same figure structure as you import.
If you wanna give it a try i good give you the fig.file and your ready to go.   

Eventually I want to rig Apollo (perhaps other figures I want to make content for) in Max.
I'm not sure when exactly I'll have time to do it. When I do dig into it, It's very likely I'll be huffing and puffing and whining and begging for help!

What exactly is a fig file?

Or having the time of your live doing it !!!!
A fig file is basically a biped preset.{structure file, 5 spine links, 3 finger links etc}
Say you have made a custom biped for apollo and rigged him, you can then save your biped as a fig file.
 So when you make an other character like apollo you load your fig file and the biped is created for you.
Another plus of fig files is loading mocap on it, when loading for example a bip,bvh etc you specify your fig file and the mocap is transfered to your bipedstructure.

Ah, interesting :)  Thanks for that info.
I'll have to tinker with it sooner rather then later :)