Hello

I am doing an animation in a wrestling ring.  Now it is above the ground plane in Poser and it has steps that the figures have climbed in order to step into the ring.

Okay I loaded up the Freak Wrestling Animation bundle both the attacker and the receiver.  They are both lined up perfectly and the animations work but the are BELOW the ring on the ground plane. 

I have tried elevating them to the proper positions but when the animation starts they again both sink below the ring.

Any assistance would be truly appreciated.

Thank you.

Solution #1.
Leave the figures on the ground, apply the poses. Load a Poser square primitive, make it invisible, parent both figures to the primitive (from the menu bar, Figure > Set Figure Parent). Raise the primitive until the figures are level with the ring.

Solution #2.
Most poses don't contain translation data for the Body actor. If that is so in your case, you can just yTran the Body until it is at the correct hight.

Solution #3.
In frame one, lower the ring until it is level with the ground. Hide the ground plain, and use a scaled Poser one sided square as a false ground.

Lower the ring (yTran) so that the canvas is at Poser's "Floor" level (NOT the GROUND*  level)

• Note - Poser's GROUND is NOT, repeat NOT at yTran 0.000 in the Poser studio.

When you do a "Drop to Floor" (from the Figure menu) the bottom of a figure (or prop)
will be moved to yTran = 0.000, i.e., be placed on the "Floor."

Poser's GROUND is at a fixed location of yTran -0.001 in the Poser studio.
That is 1/10 of an inch (DGS) below Poser's "Floor."

Hope this helps.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

DGS = Dr Geep's Scale where 1.000 Poser native unit = 100.0 inches

 I would move the ring rather than futzing with the animations. :) 

If you insist on moving the figures, I'd suggest you parent them to something (I usually use the Po0ser ball*) and move THAT downwards. remember to make the ball invisible :)

Solution #4 (requires P6 or above).

Save the attached file to a pose folder. Remove the ".TXT" part of the file extension.  You may need to change your Windows Folder options so that it does not hide file extensions. In Windows Control Panel, Folder Options, view tab, un-tick "Hide file extensions for known file types".

Apply the pose to your figures. You should find two new dials in the Body actor.

"Altitude_STATIC". You can use this dial to apply a correction factor to the altitude (yTran) of the Body actor. The channel is static, meaning that what ever you set it to, in which ever frame you set ti, it will maintain that setting throughout all frames of the animation. It works the same as when you turn off animating for a light or camera.

"Altitude_DYNAMIC". This works like an extra normal yTran dial (not static), so you can adjust the yTran independently of any yTran that a pose may be applying to the Body actor.

After applying this pose, you should not attempt to move the Body actor by dragging with the cursor in the document window, as you would get strange results. Instead, move it via the dials in parameters pallet only (it's OK to drag the hip).

Hi Les, thanks for your 4th solution, that might be very useful for correcting the upward drift I find in some bvh files, particularly where "drop to floor- all frames" would harm the motion

Thank you for the assistance.

Hi Dave, I'm glad you found Solution #4 useful. The same technique can be extended to the feet to apply a correction to the foot bend when the figure is using high heels and being used in the walk designer. In that case the foot's xrot is slaved to a master dial. Before touching any dials the walk cycle is applied in the walk designer, then the Body's altitude and foot bend are adjusted via the master dials. If you need to apply the walk cycle again, zero the dials first.

Many thanks for that Les. Copying and pasting those notes to my Python readme folder!

How to use.
HeelHelper can be applied either before or after the walk cycle has been applied, but its dials should remain set at zero untill after the walk cycle has been applied. Make sure the character, NOT a shoe, is selected when you apply HeelHelper. After applying the walk cycle advance the animation a few frames untill the thighs are lined up approximatly side by side, use the yHip dial to raise the figure, use the FootBend dial to set the shoes parralel to the floor, if necessary readjust the yHip dial. Advance the animation and see if the toes dig into the floor, if so find a frame where the toe dig is at its worst and use the 'NoToeDig' dial to correct this.

If you need to reapply the walk cycle remember to zero the HeelHelper dials first. It's also a good idea to zero the dials  first if you are going to save the figure back to a palette.

Wow! Double-big thankyou! I'll be trying this as soon as my current anim finishes rendering. sigh, maybe tomorrow...

That and clearing out a couple of poses I inadvertantly saved in the Walk Designer folder which load as presets but seem to throw the whole rig out, Another Poser lesson learnt by mistake lol

cheers and thanks again

I can attest to les' heelhelper.  the problem of climbing the steel steps to the ring, and
elevating the body element to that level, are easily solved, as shown in the above posts.

Or you could turn the IK off on both figures, open the graph editor and select the hip. Click and drag on the graph editor to select all the key frames and then hold the control button down and you can then move the hip (and the figure) up and down at will until you get them where you want them.

I found that I cannot lower the wrestling ring because you would have to lower the stairs and the ropes and it becomes painfully obvious from an animation standpoint that it wont work because you now have the ropes at the wrestlers knees and there is no way for anything but an extreme (very extreme closeup,)

Any other ideas and thank you.

I have also played with altitute static and nothing happens.  The figure does not move up or down.  Please advise.

Even more trouble how do I load a poser square primitive..a google search revealed nothing..the same for the manual.  Thank you.

Quote - Even more trouble how do I load a poser square primitive..a google search revealed nothing..the same for the manual.  Thank you.

In the "props" folder under "primitives." There are several options: a ball, cube, torus, etc. Just pick any of them. I always use a box so I can better judge rotation and whatnot. But you can use anything you want since you'll be turning it invisible. Remember, to parent a figure to a prop is a little different than parenting a prop to, well, anything. You need to do it by the menu: Figure/Set Figure Parent. I suppose you can also parent it in the hierarchy editor as well.

Have you tried my method? I promise you it works and is pretty simple to do. Once you try it, you'll never use another method for changing elevation of your figures!

I have attempted your method and in the key editor I am unable to find the hip it keeps changing to body.  Perhaps if you outlined it for me step by step I wouldnt be making these mistakes...thank you.

No problem.

First step is to turn off the IK on the figures (Figure/Use Inverse Kinematics - all should be unchecked). Next select the "Hip" of the first figure just by clicking on it or be selecting it from the drop down menu in the Parameter window. Next open the graph editor (Window/Graph). At this point, you should still have the hip selected. If you have anything other than the hip of the figure, go back and try again.

On the graph editor, there are two gray slider bars with little marks on either end. Click on the end mark on the bottom bar and still holding the mouse button, pull it out so it compresses the graph so you can see all the key frames. Then, still with the graph open, select the "yTran" from the parameter window simply by clicking on it. Then go back to the graph and click anywhere in it with the SHIFT key held. Then drag out to one end and release the button (but not the shift key). This will highlight the key frames in black. Then click somewhere in the highlighted frames and drag out to the other end (still holding the shift key). This should highlight all the key frames, beginning to end. If you don't have them all highlighted in black, try this step over.

Now, if everything went as planned, you should have the hip's yTran selected and all the key frames highlighted. To move the figure up and down, hold down the CONTROL key and drag the mouse up or down until you've placed it where you want.

WARNING: This is not undoable with the Undo command (control z).

Then simply repeat for the next figure.

I use Poser 7. Don't know what version you have or if there are any differences but this is pretty basic so it shouldn't have changed between versions too much. It is much simpler once you've done it a few times, I don't know how I got by without this before!

Let me know if you still have problems and I'll work up a graphic tutorial for it.

p.s. the same method could work on the BODY of a figure as well. Just do the same thing only with the body selected. But I prefer to move the hip since it is easier to store and use later.

Drewradley

Wow that was ez once I got the hang of it and it works so well...thank you.  Another question..I am using James because I created a face in the face room and put it on him...the conforming clothing doesnt work that well and I am using conforming clothes on him..the jeans dont seem to fit that well and I have worked and worked on getting the tennis shoes on the feet..is there an easier way to do with conforming clothing?  Yes I am using the conforming clothing designed for James.

thank you.

Do you have a pic you can upload? without seeing it we'd only be guessing.

Got that fixed also it was fairly simple compared to keeping the y axis online.