I just purchased Poser 8 and I'm hoping it could help me articulate (rig?) some 3rd-party mesh animal models I also purchased.

The models are in OBJ and 3DS format. I hear that "bones" are what you use to articulate/pose Poser models. Just two general questions here:

1) Is adding bones the answer to articulating a mesh?

1. Is it something that someone like myself, experienced with Bryce, Vue, and to a lesser extent 3DS Max, would want to attempt right off the bat?

Thanks.

It depends on what you are trying to ultimately accomplish, but in a short answer kind of way...yes.
Let's say you have a head with 2 ears, but the whole head is only grouped as "head", ie; the ears are not individually grouped. You can add 2 bones to the head, move those into position for the ears, create some Sphere Zones and have them influence each ear with dials.

However, because the ears are not grouped if/when you pressed the joint editors ZeroFigure button the ear dials would not zero out, you would have to do those by hand.
Hope this helps!

Yes you'll be able to do this. I have a number of video tutorials that explain the process.

http://www.philc.net/index.php

Click the left hand menu Tutorials > Rigging.

Hope that helps.

Attached Link: maybe someone can fix this for me cause im tired and i dont think i did this rig

1. It is not easy to rig a figure. It's a very big step for someone just starting out in Poser, I won't say that you should not attempt it, or will not be successful if you do, but you should be prepared for a lot of work and study, with no certainty of a successful result in the short term.

In the thread linked above akura was after some help in rigging a mesh he had made. The thread turned into a mini tutorial on rigging. You may be able to gather some pointers from it. But note that there is more than one way to proceed when rigging a figure, and that I am no expert on the subject.

Thanks everybody for your responses. PhilC--I already found your tutorials on YouTube. I look forward to checking them out. Thanks again!

-- Walt

You can get part way fairly quickly by grouping your mesh in a modelling program and then use the phi file method to generate a figure. Its in the manual I believe, and there is a tutorial on rigging a figure.  Once the figure is generated via an obj and phi file you can work on setting up the joint bend zones.

Quote -
In the thread linked above akura was after some help in rigging a mesh he had made. The thread turned into a mini tutorial on rigging. You may be able to gather some pointers from it. But note that there is more than one way to proceed when rigging a figure, and that I am no expert on the subject.

I followed that thread and found it very helpful indeed. I highly recommend it. Again...Thanks lesbently