I've got XSI, C4D, and Mudbox (as well as P6), and was thinking of making some characters to use in Poser (as opposed to just my props and environments).

Yes, I completely realize this is a "tip of the iceberg" question, but how should I rig them for Poser? Do I actually rig them IN Poser, or in one of my other apps in a way for Poser to read it?

Thanks for any suggestions-
-Lew ;-)

You need to rig them in poser.

Buy the book "secrets of figure creation" from amazon by bl render

Attached Link: Using Poser's Setup Room To Rig A Figure

Hi thundering1,

While you're waiting for the book ...

You might find some useful info in this tutorial.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

I had no idea Poser had a "bones" function/tool - huh...

Well, sweet! Thanks folks - I guess it's time to do a lot of research!
Have a great rest of the weekend-

-Lew ;-)

Been covered many a time before.

But, hey, I've got a day off so I can take the chance to work on my typing!

The only place to finish a rig is in Poser.   You can inspect your work in DAZStudio, but you can't edit it there.  And the final stage to any Poser rig is the test-and-tweak.

That said, there are several different methods to create the basic rigging.  Each has trade-offs.  I find, for instance, that the simplicity of the Hierarchy Editor method works in its favor when you have a very simple figure (for instance, a car with four tires and a boot.)  As another for-instance, the best place to start any conforming clothing item is with the bones of the figure it is being conformed to.  Starting a new rig from scratch for a conforming clothing item is taking the long way around indeed.

So.  In no particular order:

Hierarchy Window Method.  Doctor Geep's tutorials will tell you all you need to know to work with this method.  Basically, you open the Hierarchy Window, drag body parts on to each other to set their relationship, drag the rotation order around to suit, and hit "create new figure."  As I said, this is great for something like a simple articulated prop.

(As an addition, there is a hidden secret to making this work with outside meshes.  If you import a grouped mesh into Poser, it will show up as a single object.  You need to use the Grouping Tool and the button "spawn props" in order to split off the body parts in a way that allows you to manipulate them individually in the Hierarchy Window.)

Setup Room Method:  Go into Poser's Setup Room, and either A) borrow a skeleton from another figure (good method for conforming clothes), or B) drag and drop your own bones.  The Autogroup function, however, is not to be trusted; better to group the mesh outside Poser, or if you must, use the Grouping Tool.

Donor cr2 Method:  This is the preferred method for many conforming clothing creators.  This method, unlike all the others, is done entirely outside of Poser.  Take the cr2 of the original figure (DAZ often makes available a stripped-down, re-distributable cr2 just for this purpose).  Strip out morphs (you may want to leave the JCM channels intact.)  Remove materials,  Cut off all body parts one part further from the last body part of your clothing; aka, if you are doing a short-sleeve shirt, the final body part of the shirt is "arm" but you leave "forearm" in the cr2 anyhow.

Now edit the geometry pointer to point at the mesh of your clothing item.  If you've done everything right (as in, the correct body part names in your new mesh), it will now open in Poser as a new figure.

Phi File Method:  At one time the most popular method, and still the superior method for creating any custom figure with any more than a small number of body parts; say, a spider with eight articulated legs, or a piano with 88 playable keys.  For this method you create a text file in a specific format that acts as an instruction set for Poser to create a new figure.  You can create the Phi file by hand, or there is a program or two to make it a little more automated.

In all of these methods, the result is a rough figure.  At the very least you are going to want to open it in Poser and tweak the joint parameters until it works properly.

However, to really do stuff with custom figures -- true even for conforming clothing, but really true for articulated props -- you should become comfortable with editing the cr2 directly, either with the appropriate software tools or with a basic text editor.  There are simply tricks you can only do by directly manipulating the cr2; such as hiding and unhiding dials, creating ERC chains, and so forth.