I am currently working on some Hand (.hd2) files for Antonia. A few things have come up that I think are worth mentioning. I am just thinking aloud here. Not saying that things should change. Just wondering if they should or not, and perhaps playing devil's advocate for the "should" argument.

This is about the ERC "CTRL" hand dials that control the bend and spread of the fingers and thumb. This ERC system is different than that used in say the P4 figured, which use special Grasp and Spread channels that work differently than ERC. The main difference with the true Grasp channels is that they set the bend parameters in the finger joints themselves, then return to a zero state once you release them.

There are two advantages that I see in the P4 type system, as compared to the ERC system used in Antonia:

**1). Hand files (.hd2) saved after using P4 type Grasp or Spread can be applied to the opposite hand without problems. The same operation will not work successfully in Antonia if Grasp or Spread has been used (there is a fix, see below).

2). Pose files (.pz2) will record P4 type Grasp and Spread, even if the "Include morph ..." option is not used. With Antonia you would have to use "Include morph ..." to save data for the Grasp and Spread channels.**

That's the plus side for using P4 type Grasp in Antonia, but there are downsides.  With the P4 type dials, using Restore on the hand will not undo the action of the Grasp and Spread dials, you would need to restore each finger joint individually. Also with the P4 type dials using them in reverse won't exactly undo what was done using them forwards, this is most noticeable with the Spread dial. The Spread dial has never worked well with any figure. Th P4 type Thumb Grasp does not work well with Antonia, and this seems to be down to Antonia and the the rigging of her thumbs. Possibly the 'orientation' lines are at the root of this, but it would probably take someone who knows a lot more about rigging than I do to sort it out.

The "CTRL" dials are named differently in each of Antonia's hands. Dropping the "L" and "R" from theri names would probably take care of point #1 above, as a hd2 file automatically saves data for a targetGeom channel without the need for user intervention. I would recommend that you make this change.

As to the broader question of ERC versus P4 style Grasp and spread channels. I just wanted to raise it for consideration and debate.