heya; for the second part remember these poser obj-editing commandments: DONT MOVE THE MESH DONT SIZE THE MESH also, if you are using ray dream, make sure the object is at position 0,0,0. not sure why the first two segments would be mangled. did you look at their joint parameters? are you cutting out pieces in the middle, or at the end? hmmm... do they have the 'curve' attribute? sometimes things with the curve attribute set start out twisted, but straighten themselves out when you move them. or you can set the curve parameter to 0.