Ok - here's the problem... I want to remap the latch worm so that the head and the body segments have a top and bottom texture, I want the small fang in the head to have their own material, I want the tail fins to have their own materials (top and bottom) so that they can be transmapped more easily, etc.

Here's what I want to do:

#1, Move the geometry .obj model into wings 3d.

#2, Assign NEW material zones.

#3, export the new remapped .obj.

#4, replace the OLD .obj with the NEW RE-MAPPED .obj in the Latchworm's Poser Runtime Geometry folder.

#5, Start poser - and have the model work just fine without any hinky crap happening.
       Apply new materials thusly...
    

Question - is the procedure this simple, or would I end up having to re-rig and re-poserize the whole darn thing?

As you can see by this map template of the Latchworm, the material zones are simply:

Head,
Mandibles,
Body,
Eyes,
Legs.

That's it basically in a nut shell - any thoughts?
 

If all your doing is redoing the UVMapping and reassigning material zones That should work.  I don't use Wings 3D, but I've often remapped and reassigned materials without having to reposerize or rerig the figure.  As long as the grouping remains unchanged and none of the mesh gets moved the rigging should still work as it did before.

Ok Chris - THANK YOU BUDDY!

Whenever you remap, ALWAYS save the Object file under a NEW name, so as to have the old one to refer to if you screw up!!!
You'll have to hack your Cr2 to point to the new Object file.
DPH

Hey David, how do I hack the CR2 file? Is there a tutorial?

You do not have to change the OBJ's name.  But making a backup copy of the OBJ is a very good idea.  When I'm working on a figure I find it easier to make backup copies of the OBJ under new names rather then repointing the CR2 to the latest version of the OBJ.

However, to change what OBJ a CR2 file is looking for you need to edit 2 lines in the CR2 file.  Both lines are the same and look like this:

figureResFile :Runtime:Geometries:DAZPeople:LOD:V4_LOD_4K.obj

In this example
:Runtime:Geometries:DAZPeople:LOD:  is the relative path to the OBJ and
V4_LOD_4K.obj is the OBJ

Ok - what if I create a new UV MAPPED .obj - and I give it the exact name as the old .obj file I want to replace. I store the NEW .obj in a desktop folder somewhere - go and delete the old file from the runtime for the figure - and just stick the new file with the exact same name back in the runtime? would I still have to even mess with the CR2 at all?

Quote - Ok - what if I create a new UV MAPPED .obj - and I give it the exact name as the old .obj file I want to replace. I store the NEW .obj in a desktop folder somewhere - go and delete the old file from the runtime for the figure - and just stick the new file with the exact same name back in the runtime? would I still have to even mess with the CR2 at all?

No, you would not need to edit the CR2 file.

Quote - Ok - what if I create a new UV MAPPED .obj - and I give it the exact name as the old .obj file I want to replace. I store the NEW .obj in a desktop folder somewhere - go and delete the old file from the runtime for the figure - and just stick the new file with the exact same name back in the runtime? would I still have to even mess with the CR2 at all?

No, but if you somehow screwed up the remapped object while remapping it, you'll have deleted your prototype without first having made sure of viable replacement.  Better by far to 1st rename the object file, and then to hack a renamed copy of the Cr2 when doing this (That way you also have two versions of your figure for comparison purposes). 

Hacking a Cr2 is not rocket science, and is truly one of those basic skills that all Poser users should acquire: there are hundreds of threads here that explain this simple procedure.  Best is to use a simple Text Editor, such as EditPad Lite, which is FREE.  It comes with a nifty search and replace feature that makes the whole procedure easy.
DPH

I'll use windows notepad because I'm a creature of habit and I'm used to it - thank you David, that was certainly helpful.

Better to use Edit Pad Lite because some Cr2's exceed Notepad's capacity to load them.
DPH

Ok David - thanks.

Please excuse the crudity of this model - Emmet Brown...;) If you already know this stuff, ignore it. If you're someone else that wants to try Wings, stay tuned...;)

Just in general;

I've found you can import an object into Wings 3d, and it will lose all the texture info (most times; especially if you don't bring along the .mtl file...;)

I'm about middling amateur at Uvmapping in Wings; you could do it, but you'll need to select the faces carefully, and then the fun part - cutting.

To get new material zones -Select the polys/faces you want to use to be a single material zone, then Rightclick to get your menu, Right click again  Create UVMap; this will give you a new uvmap segment, based on which polys you've selected. They should appear in the Outliner window (window, Outliner) that keeps track of objects and uvmaps. I strongly recommend 

a) renaming them - 'right_mandible' is a lot more easy to keep track of than 'cylinder32_copy91'...;)

b) when done - go into the outliner window, Right-click on each material, and select Edit materials and turn down the ambience, and usually bump down the specularity some too...unless they're supposed to be shiny...;) You can even do some transparency here if you want. (If you've ever imported something from Wings into Poser and it displays blinding white, it's because ambience is all the way up)

To get a top and bottom texture, you'd need to cut the two apart. The choice of texture is what's bugging me at this point on the learning curve; so far, the idea seems to be 'the more complex the geometry, the simpler the pattern to use'...;) How you cut your segments will affect how the jpgs are used as  Uvmap; I try to get them to be flat, and use either projection camera or unfolding, with wildly improbable results...;) If you cut too much of a curve in the 3d sense, you will be stretched when you apply the jpg.

I.e., nothing shows a pattern stretching in unforseen directions like jpgs with lots of lines, plaids, and details...;)

Getting the whole thing to work in Poser - ah, now that's the 64 megabit question...;) I'm assuming (and we know what that means) that the model is already set up for Poser. If so, you're probably fine.

If not, Poser does 2 things to models

1. Make them organic - sharp edges dissappear, cylinders tend to bloat in the higher resolution mode. May not be a problem here, it's more the things with sharp edges and straight lines.. Sometimes you can preserve hard edges by beveling them a tiny amount (.005 or so) in Wings. Not guaranteed. I've discovered if you just go into Poser and uncheck 'smooth polygons', you can fix it that way. There's another way to do it in the text of a Poser file (cr2, I think), but I don't have that on me)

2. Scale - Poser will import most objects at biggie size, so you have to fiddle with the scaling; either before you leave Wings, or once you're in Poser. I use 30-40% to import into Poser, but mileage may vary. (Similarly, if you import body parts into Wings to model around like me, that smudge in the center of the screen is your Poser model. Group them all together, then scale universal until they're the 'right' size)

Hope this helps someone....btw...we gotta Wings forum too, if you want to stop by...;)

I prefer the name change on the obj , and revise the cr2 , and rename the cr2.

mything.obj  >> mything_rev.obj
mything.cr2 >> mything_rev.cr2

That makes it very clear that this is not the original model and helps avoid confusion later.

I use wordpad to edit , it will handle bigger files than notepad and its free with windows.

I'm joining this late, but a couple of things:

1. UVmapperPro has a free Windows version, and is easy to use to make changes to materials zones and assignments.  Although it has less tools than Hexagon for actually altering the UVs, it has none of the potential import/export issues.

2. If you are trying to change textures on something that is already a distinct BODY part, there are two quite easy ways to edit so that body part ("Actor") will have a unique material.  One is within the cr2; you need to insert a set of lines that defines a unique material.

The revised actor looks something like this:

...
actor head:1
   {
   customMaterial 1
   material OldMaterialName
         {
        (material definitions here, identical in format to that found at the bottom of a cr2)
        }
...

The other way is simpler for an item you will be using yourself; take that same text editor and open the .obj file.  Do a search for "g".  Each actor has a unique "g" entry; all you need to do is find the actor you want and change (or add) a new "usemtl" entry to it.

It will look something like this:

...
f 1/1/1 2/2/2 5/5/5
f 2/2/2 3/3/3 5/5/5
f 3/3/3 4/4/4 5/5/5

g head
usemtl MyNewMaterial'sName

f 4/4/4 1/1/1 5/5/5
f 6/6/6 2/2/2 1/1/1
f 6/6/6 3/3/3 2/2/2
f 6/6/6 4/4/4 3/3/3
f 6/6/6 1/1/1 4/4/4
...

Pakled is correct.  If you want separate textures top and bottom, you will be remapping to split the top and bottom of the body.  The map shown above uses the same texture for the top and bottom.