I just moved a prop I created in Max to Poser, and now it is giving me all sorts of problems.  I hope someone can point me to a resource or give me a helpful comment.

I exported the prop by way of a 3ds file, btw.

I parented it to the hand of a male figure (ie so that he is holding it).  Now when I try to rotate the prop, it does crazy things.  It will skew wildly about the axis, distorting the shape.

The axis of the prop has been reset to the center of the object, when I had it on one end in MAX.  when I try to move the axis to its original position in Poser, it moves (very quickly) away from the parented hand, and changes shape and rotates.

What did I do wrong?  Is another export format more stable?  Can I fix this in Poser or is there something I have to do to the original MAX prop?

Thanks!
s.d.

Custom axis center information might not be retained by 3DS format, it doesn't seem to be in OBJ format.  You can fix this after importing the prop in Poser with the Joint Editor.  IMO the safest way is to model the prop at 0/0/0, export it, import it to Poser and LEAVE IT at 0/0/0; once you have the axis set at 0/0/0 and lined up positionally, then you can move the entire prop and the axis will follow.  When you save the prop to the library the axis information and translations/rotations will be saved also.

The reason you need the axis center to be 0/0/0 is that when you make the prop a child of a figure's bodypart e.g. the hand, then the hand will be considered the origin and the center of the bone will be local 0/0/0.

Ah! I'll try that instead!  Thanks!

For an example you can take a look at the Death Wing sword prop I have listed in my freebies, that's one where I got it right (smart parented to V4's right hand).

Open the joint editor in the preview window and check that the green + sign is within the object. thats the pivot point .

I always export as .OBJ from MAX using the gw exporters (those don't screw up the UV mappling like the HABware exporters do).
And pjz99 is right about modeling at (0,,0,0) - works much better.

Quote - The axis of the prop has been reset to the center of the object, when I had it on one end in MAX.  when I try to move the axis to its original position in Poser, it moves (very quickly) away from the parented hand, and changes shape and rotates.

First work out where the origin (center of rotation) of the prop needs to be in relation to the geometry of the prop. Import the prop's obj into an empty Poser document. Without translating, rotating, or scaling the prop, adjust it's origin to the desired location. You can now save the prop to a Props palette, or load a figure, parent the prop to the figure, position it as desired, then save it to a Props palette as a smart prop.

In other words, before you adjust the origin of a prop, it's translations and and rotations should be zero, and it's scale should be 100%.

If a parented prop deforms when rotated this is may be because part of the figure it is parented to is scaled, and the prop is inheriting the scale from the figure. If you used the "Inherit bends of parent" check box when parenting the prop, this could also be causing deformations.