I Have a number of questions. I am teaching myself (through attrition and time) modeling and poser. I have been at it, off and on, for a couple of years mixed in with "quitting". Recently I am seeing some real progress but I am far from getting much of anywhere. So I need your help if you would be so kind.

1. What are poser tubes. This one has me baffled. I just started again a few months ago and saw these as I was hunting stuff.

2. Does a model actually "NEED" to be in the T position to prep for poser rigging.

3. What does need to be done to a model to make it poser ready. Does it need to be broken up in some specific way, or welded somehow. Do specific body parts need to be labled.

4. Could you point me to a place that can explain in plain or fairly plain English how to do rigging of a model so that it is a poserable model.

I am sure there will be more, if it is not too much of an imposition I will ask as I remember

1. What are poser tubes. As far as I know, these are image brushes that can be used in PhotoShop or similar programs, either consisting of images useful for Poser scenes or images created with Poser. 2. Does a model actually "NEED" to be in the T position to prep for poser rigging. No. If you're making a human, a case could be made to have the arms down and twisted outward, since this initial pose results in less problems with the shoulders when the arms are bent. 3. What needs to be done to a model to make it poser ready. The model needs to consist of parts. The internal names of the parts must be the same as the internal names of the bones that will move them. 4. Could you point me to a place that can explain in plain or fairly plain English how to do rigging of a model so that it is a pose-able model. The Poser manual is a good start, but the best way to learn is to actually do it. Be warned, though: Poser's Setup Room is very unstable and filled with bugs. It will take time and the patience of Job to get through with you sanity intact, but it can be done.. I did it. (insane laughter)

There was a document available for download from e-frontier for Poser 3 . It was on creating figures using a phi file and what was needed to do it . Doing it that way gets you a rigged figure that just needs some tweaks .

I have some on screen video tutorials that explain Poser rigging and joint parameters. If you go to http://www.philc.net/tutorialsIndex.htm and scroll to the bottom of the page you'll see the links.

Thanks all for the (fast) replies!

DC

Quote - 2. Does a model actually "NEED" to be in the T position to prep for poser rigging.

No. If you're making a human, a case could be made to have the arms down and twisted outward, since this initial pose results in less problems with the shoulders when the arms are bent.

To expand on that a little bit, it is the common standard to model human figures in a T pose, but I think I agree with Paloth, people don't walk around in a T pose, they normally stand and interact with the world with their arms down - there are many, many examples of terrible rigging at the shoulders in the world, and all those models were done in a T pose.  Very commonly when the user brings the figure's arms down, the mesh will deform in unpleasant ways, and you need to bring the arms down practically all the time.  Although what do I know, I think rigging is the most mystifying and difficult aspect of 3D there is.

Quote -

1. What are poser tubes. This one has me baffled. I just started again a few months ago and saw these as I was hunting stuff.

A tube is an image that has no background in a graphic program. It's an image that is saved as a layer basically. However the term "tube" is a misnomer really.  Because while any backgroundless image is often referred to as a "tube", a true "tube" image is an image bearing the extension ".tub" and used through the "tube tool" of Paint Shop Pro.

Paintshop Pro has a .tub extension that allows these types of images to be used within its "tube tool", and applied to various images or backgrounds using that tool at various sizes. It's like a brush tool, but it's loaded with backgroundless images instead of brushes.  Kind of like a tube of toothpaste. You can choose to squeeze the tube and apply a small amount once, or a small amount here and there, or you can squeeze the tube and apply a line of toothpaste. The same with the tube tool in PSP.

Any graphic program can make and save backgroundless images (note: this is not a .gif image. A .gif image has a background when opened in a graphic program).

While the following aren't technically "tubes" according to the PSP, they are without backgrounds in a graphic program and are quite often referred to as "tubes":

.psp
.pspimage
.png
.psd

The following once you load a mask from an alpha channel, will be backgroundless:

.tiff

Paintshop Pro allows you to export a .psp or .pspimage extensions image into its "tube tool" . The extension then changes to .tub 

Here is an image of a "tube" in use.  I have shown the same image in varies backgroundless formats, and how the image looks when used with the 'tube tool"

A nice thing about the tube tool in Paint Shop Pro is that when you apply an image using it, it's treated like it is a vector meaning  that you can dial in the size you want to apply the image and it won't affect the quality of the image, unlike if you were to just resize the image and paste it to where you want.

So basically when you see "Poser Tube", all they are telling you is that the image is not a flattened merged layer, and that it is in fact  backgroundless and  can be placed on any background or environment that you want..

Quote - > Quote - 2. Does a model actually "NEED" to be in the T position to prep for poser rigging.

No. If you're making a human, a case could be made to have the arms down and twisted outward, since this initial pose results in less problems with the shoulders when the arms are bent.

To expand on that a little bit, it is the common standard to model human figures in a T pose, but I think I agree with Paloth, people don't walk around in a T pose, they normally stand and interact with the world with their arms down - there are many, many examples of terrible rigging at the shoulders in the world, and all those models were done in a T pose.  Very commonly when the user brings the figure's arms down, the mesh will deform in unpleasant ways, and you need to bring the arms down practically all the time.  Although what do I know, I think rigging is the most mystifying and difficult aspect of 3D there is.

To add further, the T pose standard is an erroneous practice.  It was standardized based upon the idea that the full range of arm motion from the shoulder joint was from directly 'down' to directly 'up'.  And it was done to keep the arms on one of the major system axes.  Why horizontal was chosen over vertical may have something to do with weighting (who knows).

In reality, the shoulder joint allows a range of motion from directly down (only limited by the arm hitting the chest side) to about 10-20d above the horizontal (depending upon the person - some people are more flexible than others).  Remember that this is shoulder joint rotation only - not including rotation of the collar to raise the arm further.

So, that would put the middle of the rotation somewhere at about -45d or -50d from horizontal, not at 0d.   Just like Apollo Maximus - which has great bending properties at the shoulders.  The deltoid muscle is actually relaxed when your arms are at your sides, so it may even be better (considering advancements in rigging - in other applications, anyway) to start there and deform the shoulder as it would realistically do - as it raises the arm.