Hi,

  I'm having a big problem with something I thought would be much more simple.  I have a smart prop (Just a simple object, which is one part of a 3 part object),  that I want to convert to a figure so I can create poses and animations with that prop, then distribute the new figure/poses together.  The prop is not mine, I have no experience at all with figure creation/setup, but I've received permission from the author to do this and include their item in my pose pack.

 What I did was load the prop in Poser, then use the hierarchy editor to "Create New Figure." This sort of worked. But instead of being its own figure the prop has both a Body and a hip. The body and hip both control the prop the same, but when changing the rotation.. the body has the center way off, making it rotate around a center point way off, while the hip behaves like I want it to, with the center point right in the middle of the mesh.

 After trying to fix it in the setup room unsuccessfully, I figured okay.. I'll just live with it and use the hip to make the poses. This worked for the still poses, but I've just completed an animation.. and every time I save the animation to the library and then load it onto the figure, it doesn't work. It puts the figure into the air, and there is no animation whatsoever... every frame is keyframed for it, with no change.

 I don't understand what's going on.. and I'm very frustrated. I've already made like 30 poses using the new figure I created out of it.. but it's a waste if I can't use the figure to make the animation.

 I'd really appreciate any help. Thanks!

You may be able to fix it using the Joint Editor rather than the Setup Room.  That's how I rig my Dalek models, anyhow.

Click on the body part you want to correct, then go to the Joint Parameters window.  You should see a bunch of X Y Z coords and your model should show a couple of cross hairs, corresponding to the start and end points of the joint in question.

The top row of x y z coords  are most likely the ones you want.  Edit those until your (I think it's green) cross hair is in the correct position.  Then save your model again.  That should be it.

 Is there any way to make the figure just ONE body part? I don't understand why it has a hip.

 Also any idea why the animation is not saving correctly?

Thanks.

You can't have one body part, else it's a prop, not a figure.

"Hip" is just a convention, I believe Poser puts that in automatically, in lieu of a suitable alternative.

 Here's a quick "how to" on figure creation, if it helps any.  It's derived from a tutorial by billy-home, over at Project Dalek, so all due credit and thanks to him.

My models use:

Base, Middle, Neck, Head, Gun, Arm1, Arm2, Arm3, Eye, these being all the moving parts of my models.  

I name them as such before I actually build the model, though.

I import each separate bit into Poser as obj files, line them all up together, then go to the Hierarchy Editor and set up their relationships to each other.  In my case, Base is the main part, to which all others connect.  In your case, Hip is the main part.  You then drag and drop the other parts - in the order which they connect to each other - onto the main part.

Once that's done, select the main part - Hip, in your case - and click on Create New Figure.  Sometimes you have to de select and re select Hip in order for the Create New Figure button to work.  You'll be asked to name your figure, so give it something meaningful and away you go.

When that's done, go back to the Pose Room, delete the obj files in there and go to the New Figures folder.  Your newly created figure will be there.  That's when you start to play with the joint parameters.

Now, maybe I have misunderstood what you're doing, because it seems your "figure" has no apparent moving parts.  If that's the case, you'd need to select "Hip" for the poses anyhow, because that's the bit Poser references for coordinates when lining up a pose.

As far as animation goes, I have absolutely no idea; I haven't ever tried any.  Sorry bout that.

 I think I've got it working, thank you!

No worries. :) 

The only thing to make sure is that the bones name is the same name as the obj's internal name. If your object was named "hip" then hip is what you want. If it was called lv247, you would name the bone lv427.......