I have posted the old Poser 3 document at sharecg HERE 

It describes using phi files for figure creation. This is an old but simple method that works very well for mechanical things.

*The pdf is  posted with permission from Smith Micro *

Thanks!  Downloaded and stored for reference! 

Thanks for that.  Dowloaded.

When I first used Poser Artist ( Poser 4.03 ) several years ago, I wondered what those PHI thingies were.....

Cool, thank you... between you and Dr. Geep, I may get the hang of this yet...

And for those more daring I have a video tutorial coming out with over 2 hours of instruction showing how I rigged this lirttle creature. I explain grouping, hierarchies, bone editing, joint editing, morphs, ERC coding, inverse kinematics, CR2 editing, customizing dials and more!

I will be waiting for that DarkEdge.  Phi files are sort of the beginning edge of the subject.

Thanks Markschum, forgot to mention that I use the marvelous PHI Build for this...great little app.

Isn't PHI just an older way of doing what the setup room does? I always thought so... well it never mattered, when PHI was in use and common I was too much of a newbie at Poser to make use of it, and now that I know what I'm doing I don't need it anymore. Although it should be an interesting look though for nostalgia.

An older way, nostalgic? I was able to completely rig SpiderBot in under an hour (joint parameters, IK's, etc). Good luck doing that from scratch in the setup room...can you say, "system crash?"

If you happen to use someone elses rig, that has the same number of limbs and such as your creation...then what you say may be true. But you are using someone elses rig as your own at that point.

Because something is old doesn't mean it isn't useful. PHI Build gives you the steering wheel, not the other way around. Anyways, I look forward to seeing your creations.

phi files set the hierarchy of body parts , and using that file poser creates a bone structure for you and allocates the parts to the bones.  All thats left is the joint tweaking or setting centers for rotation if you are doing machines.   Much nicer than trying to draw bones in the right places manually.     I use it mainly for machinery so once its run I only have centers to set , and set limits and hide dials .

The hierarchy editor is close to what phi files do.

Quote - An older way, nostalgic? I was able to completely rig SpiderBot in under an hour (joint parameters, IK's, etc). Good luck doing that from scratch in the setup room...can you say, "system crash?"

System Crash... system crash... system cras... God D*MN It!
Yes, many a time actually. It was very frustrating actually. Was why I wanted to throw my computer out the window.

Quote - Isn't PHI just an older way of doing what the setup room does? ... and now that I know what I'm doing I don't need it anymore.

PHI Build may be nostalgic...but it's reliable.

> " Because something is old doesn't mean it isn't useful."

I look in the mirror every morning and say that.

There is also a lot of information in the Poser 7 /tutorials folder.