OK here's the deal: I'm making a prop that has several attachments. The prop is originally made for M4 but I've now converted the base prop to V4 (and later on to several other as well)

The Base is parented to Mike/Vickie. The attachments are parented to the prop itself.

The problem: When I use the prop on V4, the attachments still load in the position that would make them fit the M4 version.

Is there a way to make the attachments fit any version of the base? Should I make the Base a conforming item?  I'd rather not as it works great in it's prop state and I'd rather not have to futz around with Joint Parameters. Is making a second, aligned version of every one of the attachments really my only option?

(oh and I know the above may sound cryptic,but due to the nature of the props I'm not sure I can safely post pictures of the thing here...)

OOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo.......................

Lessssseee the pics ... jus post a warning dat dere are some naughty bits here ... k? :lol:

Actually, I would make multiple bases (as required) rather than try to make a one-size-fits-all type thingy.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

*"OK here's the deal: I'm making a prop that has several attachments ....."
                              

• LOLOLOLOL !!!

yeah  I wanna see, too !!!!!

Uh oh, trekkie .......... looks like you may have opened a can of worms here, ha, ha. :lol:

I think it would be helpful to selct a few polys fom the figure X's body and call them" base for character X", and make it a prop and dont bother to materialize it, move your prop  (he he he) into position onto this base with your character X zeroed in the scene........... export an .obj, and select your prop  and the "base" to be the parts of the .obj. ......name it "prop that fits character X". .......then you can bring it back in and save it in your library. When you load this prop, it will always fit character X snug as a bug.

repeat process for character's Y and Z, changing prop names as appropriate

Doc did I do good?

P.S.   I might be totally wrong about what your goal is here....how about a hint ...can this  prop be enjoyed by one,  two, or more figures  at   one time?????

I doubt that there's a fully automatic way to do it.  You could have the prop
call a python to set the various parameters, but that couldn't be automatic
because there's no guaranteed way to distinguish one figure from another. 
The script can check if the name of the currently selected figure is "Mike",
but that would fail if the user had renamed the figure, which is a common
practice.  Aside from names, there may be some parameter that is
fairly reliable as a "distinguishing mark", but again the user could have
rescaled or modified the figure.

Completely separate props is the only way to avoid confusion.

Hey Santino, you done good kid.

Thanks!
Although Trekkie no doubt already knows that stuff!!

 TG why not think hair props and do like the hair vendors do and provide a mat pose that shifts and scales the prop to fit M3, M4, V3, V4, S3P. Most multi figure hair props, the hair loads high or low and bigger or smaller then the characters head (except the base figure it was designed for. Then the vendor provides a mat pose file that shifts-scales it ti fit correctly on the new target figure.

Um, ... I don't think she is talking about THAT kind of "head." :blushing:

Hehehe Geep.. as a matter of fact it IS something that is attached to the head. the one with two eyes and a nose and all ROFL But I know what YOU thought it was ;)

So ok... I'll give ya'll a link to a picture of it and it's YOUR risk to click it. Some may find it totally innocuous, some may find it decidedly NSFW.

And I AM moving the main prop with a fit pose just like hair. The problem is the attachments, they still load it "Mike Height" (since he was the base for the prop)

Here ya go... nice picture of a drink... and a tray: http://trekkiegrrrl.dk/Drink.png

But I guess I 'll just have to go with multiple versions of the attachments then. At least they'll all call the same obj file so it won't take up too much unnecessary space.. I'll just divide it into folders for each Poser character.

LOL -- LOVE the umbrella.....

OH  the "attachments"  are  like  the drink glass and the umbrella  which are  separate entities  sitting on the prop : the table mask thingy   (" *shut up and get me a drink, bitch !!!!!  " ) *

I did not understand that.

NOW I see what your problem  is / was

BTW  I love that prop    .......Just wondering if you considered resting the drink on top of the figures head - that is believed by some to be very convenient.

Quote - Hehehe Geep.. as a matter of fact it IS something that is attached to the head. the one with two eyes and a nose and all ROFL But I know what YOU thought it was ;)

So ok... I'll give ya'll a link to a picture of it and it's YOUR risk to click it. Some may find it totally innocuous, some may find it decidedly NSFW.

And I AM moving the main prop with a fit pose just like hair. The problem is the attachments, they still load it "Mike Height" (since he was the base for the prop)

Here ya go... nice picture of a drink... and a tray: http://trekkiegrrrl.dk/Drink.png

But I guess I 'll just have to go with multiple versions of the attachments then. At least they'll all call the same obj file so it won't take up too much unnecessary space.. I'll just divide it into folders for each Poser character.

So, um, it is something attached to the head so that something else could be attached to the other head, right? :lol:  Sorry ... could NOT resist, ha ha.

 Santicor... actually the mask thing is the Main Prop (the base) the tray is the exchangeable part. And the glass is an extra th8ing parented to the tray in this case.. it's a whole chain of parented objects. However, the glass isn't part of the product, it's just something I had made a long tiome ago and I thought it would look nice on the tray.

But in any case, they mask is parented to Mike/other character, and the tray (or other, more unmentionable things) are parented to the mask. And while I can supply a FIT morph to make the mask fir other characters, the same way as a hair prop works... well.. I guess I could make a fit morph on all the props, but that would make the individual attachment props loaded with morphs - some, most users would never use anyway.

So I guess I'll just have to make a version of each prop that fits into whatever height the mask prop loads in when used on different figures :)

I wonder if there's any use ion doing fit poses for the G2 figures? Does anyone actually use them - besides myself?

Du lieber Himmel, girl...  Was'n das???  LOLLOL...

Let's see if I understand the situation.

You have various versions of a base prop. You have attachments that you want to smartparent (smart prop) to the various bases, but they must parent at a different relative position for each different base. Am I with you so far?

I'll assume the above is the case. I think this should work, so long as the bases have not been distributed already, and you are free to change them. For each base make a ghost prop (ghost = without any geometry), let's call the ghost prop "ParentA_1". You can use a primitive with an empty geometry reference as ParentA_1. Parent the ParentA_1 to the base, smart parent the attachments to ParentA_1.

When you parent something it is parented to the 'origin' of the parent item. You can position the ParentA_1 prop anywhere you like relitive to the base, the position of the ParentA_1 prop determines the position that the smart props will load relative to the base. Once the ParentA_1 is in the right position it should be Memorized, then locked so it does not get moved accidentally. The ParentA_1 prop is saved with each version of the base, in the same pp2 as the base, but in a different position relative to each different base.

When you save the base and ParentA_1 to the props pallet (using Select Subset) the base will not save as a smart prop, using "Select Subset" prevents that. You will need to edit the 'parent' line in the base prop to re-establish it as a smart prop. Replace;

parent UNIVERSE

with;

smartparent [name of parent]

I hope this helps, or did I completely misunderstand the question?

 @ Lesbentley: I think you've understood the problem. I'm not sure I understands what to do :)

I have the base prop, the mask/gag (shown in the picture link I posted previously). The attachments are thigs that goes in the "attachment tube" of the mask. In the picture it's a little tray. It could be anything, like a brush or similar.

So I make a geometry-less prop (The ParentA prop) and parent it to the mask? 

Thing is, the mask changes origin when it's FIT posed (via a fit-morph) from the original M4 to V4 (since she's not as tall) - so what shold the origin of the geometry-less prop be? the M4 height or the V4 height? That's where my own brain starts to short-circuit.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense btw.. It's getting late and while I feel pretty coherent, chances are that what I type might not be...

Quote - I think you've understood the problem.

Perhaps not :(

I thought you had different versions of the base as separate pp2s, but it looks like you are using only one version, and applying a fit pose to make it fit the other figures. Still the same basic principal should apply. You need a moveable point that that you can parent the smart-props to, and this movable point can be a ghost prop parented to the base. As you are using a fit pose rather than separate versions of the base, you would just use the fit pose to to translate the ghost into the right position relative to the base. I'm assuming that the attachment (tube) is a smart-prop, loaded after the mask is in place.

Quote - so what should the origin of the geometry-less prop be? the M4 height or the V4 height?

I don't think it really matters as long as it is somewhere in the "ball park". If the attachments (and thus the ghost) only need translation to put them in the right place, then the origin of the ghost could be absolutely anywhere. If the attachment also needs rotation in order to fit, then having the origin close to where that rotation needs to occur makes things easier, but you can still giggle the the position to fit via a combination of rotation and translation, even if the origin is not in the optimal location. It's a little more fiddly if the origin is not in the optimal place, but you only need to set the position the ghost once (for each figure).

I should add that this is all just theory, I haven't actually tested this idea.

@lesbentley

A question, wouldn't it be easier to use a dummy character. In this case for example 1 polygon hidden in the head. This character could conform to the head and the parented props goes straight in place.

Has also the advantage that in fact of deleting the character the props will go too. As same all could be loaded from the cr2.

Can remember there was a dummy.cr2 somethere in freeware but should work with each similary done polygons.

Quote - A question, wouldn't it be easier to use a dummy character. In this case for example 1 polygon hidden in the head. This character could conform to the head and the parented props goes straight in place.

Well I guess you could do it that way, and I don't think you would need 1 polygon, just use a blank geometry statement for the head. Problem is the attachment (tube) should move with the mask (base), not the head, though perhaps it does not matter much in this case. Also you have added another file to load, now you need to load the conforming figure, then the mask, then the smart-prop. Where as before you only needed to load the mask pp2 (which contains the ghost) and the smart-prop.

You are correct in pointing out that my method adds an extra prop that requires deleting if the base (mask) is deleted, but this seems no big deal to me. Your method requires loading an extra item mine may require deleting an extra item (if you decide you don't want the mask in the scene any longer).

If you were going to go down the route of making a conforming figure, I guess you might as well make the mask a conforming figure (or a conforming figure with the mask included in it as a prop), with a ghost actor to smartparent the props to. This is not a bad idea, but reading the first post it seems that TrekkieGrrrl would rather implement this as a prop, quote: "Should I make the Base a conforming item? I'd rather not...".

P.S. Also I'm not sure if a fit pose would work with a conforming figure, perhaps it would, but I'm not certain.

I wouldn't parent the prop to another prop. I would parent all props directly to the dummy character.
This is possible cause they have everytime the same relative positions to each other.
And so they could be deleted as single choice independently.

If you have all loaded once in right default position, you can save the complete thingie as one character file including props. This will load all with one click. I have done so with my V4 swordbelt and it's props.

And yes, conforming or moving that character will move also the parented props.
The props will not follow if you use a morph or scaling to change the character in it's size.

You are right TrekkieGrrrl opted for a prop. But I have understood that she wanted to avoid additional trouble in making the mask a character. Therefor I mentioned a dummy character.
Otherwise I would have opted to make the mask a cr2 instead of a dummy, though that's also not really complicated. It's only for one figure part and no big deal's with bending/welding some bodyparts.

Are you sure that a empty geometry will work fine as a character, even if only dummy.
I have done something with alternate geometry and have found that poser is sometimes very picky with a empty part only being a place holder in start position. If you than turn to a filled alternation and goes back the mesh will not disappear.

 Wow a lot of interesting and long-haired options here :D

I guess the easiest way to do it would be to make the mask inot a conformer. It's just that I have bad expiriences with things that conform to the head/neck. They often bend in a weird way. In this case where it's a prop, the "inherit bend" thing works nicely. And this way there's no joint parameters to worry about. Doing versions for different characters is also a lot easier. 

I'll try the geometry-less idea, if I can figure out how :) And otherwise I'll just save a repositioned version of each of the attachments :)

If you want to avoid that weird bendings with this easy character, have it conformed to the head and clear out all the joints working with the neighbors like neck in example.
Than the part will follow only the heads movements and isn't stretched or twisted with neck movements.

That's easiest done by editing the cr2. All that parameter blocks like Twisty... , Smoothy... , etc. can be deleted. For easy looking in that blocks the referenced actor is named. So in head you will find references to neck and in neck are some to head. Kill these parent-child parameters and you will be fine with this mask as character, I guess.

 I'll consider this. For now I'm continuing the work on it in its prop state.

And that leads me to another question:

How can you parent something to whatever the selected character in a scene is? Like hair does, it snaps to the character also when it's not the one the hair is made for...

So that no matter if I load Simon or V4, the prop will parent itself to the head and all that is left is to set the fit morph...

 Ah disregard my last question. I can see that it actually does parent itself to whatever figure is selected. Didn't know that... :) That's one problem solved then ^_^