Hi!
After making some scenes and animations with Poser / Daz3d, creating and importing  objects with Cinema4d,  I`m looking for any thread or tutorial telling the basics how to create real poser content on my own. Means how to convert the objects into .ps2 files with all features like morphs and textures.Quite like the professional stuff sold here.
Anyone has a link or hint ?
Thanks
Reinhard

Yup, you might want to check out Dr Geep Studios for tons of tuts.
... and some more fun reading The Adventures of Dr Geep.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Quote - Yup, you might want to check out Dr Geep Studios for tons of tuts.
... and some more fun reading The Adventures of Dr Geep.

No More info needed ......................................................................................................

Check the Poser folder on your pc C:Program Filese frontierPoser 7Tutorials for example. There are a few tutorials there.

Quote - how to create real poser content on my own

I'm going to be a little bit nosy here, and ask why you want to create Poser content, to what end or purpose?

My tutorials show you everything you need to know, they have been very sucessful at CP, or you can purchase through my website.
www.contentparadise.com/searchimageviewdetail.aspx

And DarkEdge's tutorials are a godsend, let me tell you...

VERY well worth the meager cost.

** I`m looking for any thread or tutorial telling the basics how to create real poser content on my own. Means how to convert the objects into .ps2 files with all features like morphs and textures.Quite like the professional stuff sold here.
**
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=OKCRandy

Hey,

You might start with these, if you're interested in making clothing.  You can alter the packs and use them to make commercial items...and freebies, if you get Randy's permission.  Whatever you decide, you need a modeling program (there are free ones, like Blender) to alter or make geometry.  Then you convert it to a figure, prop, or pose file.  For making figures with cr2s, (such as clothing), I REALLY recommend PhilC's obj to cr2 plug in for Poser -- although Randy's development pack comes with bone rigs.  He even provides a tutorial, showing you how to turn your altered geometry into conforming clothing.

Edit:  Excuse me...SOME of the development packs in Randy's store can be used for freebies if you get permission.  I'm not sure about all of them. 

If you want to make hard surface models such as vehicles or robots, the rigging is much easier (in some respects) than rigging an organic or soft bodied model such as a human or clothing.

The first step is to get a modelling app and learn how to use it.  Blender is a free one as mentioned above, there are several others, such as Anim8or and Wings3d.  All of them have tutorials and they are (for the most part) relatively easy to learn.  I use Wings because I find it the most intuitive.  Sure, you can buy Lightwave, Maya or 3DS Max but unless you have a specific aim which can't be achieved with the free packages, there's not much point.

**
****That's true...about the free apps.  Especially until you see which area is your cup of tea.  I don't know about everyone else, but I can't concentrate on everything.  Compfox, you may find out that you like texturing better than anything...then you wouldn't need anything but Photoshop, GIMP, StitchWitch, or Painter...Photoshop is so expensive though...whew.

StitchWitch is a good little texturing program.  GIMP doesn't cost anything.  And if you decide you want to make original textures -- like 'for sale' texture packs -- do check out Genetica.  That program is a gem, once you get the hang of it.

Look at me...plotting your whole 3D career here.  (Blush)  Sorry...Poser and all it encompasses is basically my life!  :-)

**

 Thanks a lot for your hints. I`ll now follow your links and hopefully learn a lot....

Reinhard

Good luck!  :-)  Post an update, if you get time.  I'm curious.  I want to see what you create!  :-)

Jan

So, here is the update for now. I hope someone will remember this old thread. After going through a heavy hard-disk crash an building nearly everything new from scratch I`m now nearly finished in modeling a high end hifi-system with speakers and amplifiers. Done this in Cinema4D. What will be totally new for me is now: Convert this file (collada will shure be the right format) so I can import this to Poser or Daz. And then my aim is to share it as freestuff. Which format will be the best ? I think as poser content. But still have no clue how to reach this aim, create poser .cr2 and .obj files.

Will have a closer look to dr.geeps page, for theres a lot of stuff to browse through.

Greetings from germany

Reinhard

The first step is to make sure every moving part is a separate piece.

Export them individually as obj format.

The next step is optional and may depend on how you built your mesh but it's something I always do and IMO, it's good practice to do so:

Load the obj files into something like UVMapper Pro and split the vertices.  This will help  to prevent the model from having the dirty half melted look of some models.

Assuming your model is built correctly you should have a nice clean looking model looking out at you now.  Your next step is to map it.  That is, if you need to.  If you need logos and text, or displacement/bump map details on your model you have no choice, it will need to be mapped.  Since you say it's a hifi system, I assume what you have is a set of (effectively) boxes.  So, Box mapping or Planar mapping will be your best (and simplest) options.

Once you've mapped your stuff, save them out again.  Needless to say, save the templates, too.

Next, you need to rig them for use in Poser.  There are several ways of doing this but the easiest by far is to do the following:

Import your pieces one at a time, ensuring all the import options are unchecked.  Actually, you can leave the "Put on floor" and "Centre" options if you like but make sure the "Percentage of figure size" is unchecked.

Chances are, your models will load into Poser at a huge scale.  Don't worry about it.  We'll deal with that now.

Assuming you have used one unit to represent one inch, scale the objects to 1.115%. As far as I know, most modelling apps use a similar scale; the scale size I use is from Wings.  If you used a different scale, adjust accordingly.

Position each of your component parts so they are correctly aligned with each other.

Save the whole thing as a PZ3, just in case anything goes horribly wrong at this stage.

Your next step is to open the Hierarchy Editor.  In there, you'll see a list of your imported objects.  If you have, for example, a CD tray which is attached to a CD player, drag and drop the CD tray (or whatever it's called) onto the CD player.  I specifically mean the words in the Hierarchy Editor here, not the objects in your workspace.  Repeat the process until everything is attached to whatever you have chosen to be the "main" or "body" part of your model.  You can attach parts to other parts, so that for example, a Speaker is connected to a cable which connects to an amplifier, and so forth.

When all that is done, select the main or body part and hit the button marked "Create New Figure"  Sometimes this is greyed out so you have to deselect and reselect your main part.  Anyhow, when it works, you'll get a dialog box asking for a name.  Call it something useful and hit OK.

New Poser.  Look in New figures, and there's your rigged thing, all ready to go.  Well, no it's not ready to go, but nearly.  Now we play with the Joint Editor.

Open the Joint Editor.  Select each body part in turn and on the Parameter Dials, click the Properties Tab.  Uncheck "Bend body part" for each of your body parts.  This is because you made a hard surface model, and as such, bits don't (or shouldn't) bend like rubber.

Right, now you can edit the joints properly.  The upper part of the Joint Editor is what we are interested in here.  You need to key in appropriate values for the X, Y and Z of each joint so that it moves correctly.  By and large, the default value is in the middle of each part, which ain't too much use if you have a door which hinges at the edge.  In any event, tweak the values so the place where each joint is located works properly.  Save your model! 

Once all your joints are set, you can go to the Parameter dials and rename them to something useful, set limits if you want and even disable them completely.  I generally don't bother; I credit people with enough sense to know how to move the parts properly.  :)

There are times when you may need to Translate a body part, rather than Rotate.  In which case, you can edit the CR2 directly or, if you ask markschum nicely, I'm sure he will provide his very useful UnhideTrans python script.

Assuming you've done all the above, you now have a working, posable model.  Problem is, the obj file is sitting in the New Figures folder, which ain't best practice.  You need to move the obj file to Geometries, preferably in a usefully named folder.  I always put mine in a folder called SamTherapy, for example.

Once you move your obj file, your CR2 can't find it, so you need to edit the CR2 and tell it where to look.  Dead easy.  Open the CR2 in Wordpad and do a Search and replace.  Chance any references to Runtime:libraries:Character:New Folder to Runtime:Geometries:My Folder or whatever.  There are two instances in the CR2, I believe.  Save the CR2.

  Now all you need to do is texture it, make a nice thumbnail for the Character folder, write your Readme, make a thumbnail for Freestuff, pack it into a zip and upload it.  Simples.

Thank you very much. Thats a very good detailed instruction. I will try my best and post the progress I`ve made.

Greetings

Reinhard

The first step for me is to decide what parts of the model can be totally seperate and what must stay together. A stereo system with say 5 speakers could be 6 individual props. If though the stereo has a turntable for records, an arm to play the record, volume and tone controls and a slide out cd tray then you want 1 item with a number of moving parts, and thats what a figure is for.

I use lightwave so my workflow for machinery is roughly.

1. model the thing

2. assign surfaces (material zones)

3. assign parts (remodel as required, unweld as required)

4. Save as obj

5. uv map obj

6. use Phibuilder to set hierarchy

7. create figure in POser

8. edit pivot points (parts centers) using joint editor

9. assign materials

8a create any image maps needed, ditto bump maps, transparency maps etc

9 unhide trans dials if needed

1. change dial names to describe correctly open/close, turn

11 hide unused dials

12 save figure

13 render new thumbnail 91 x 91

I don't hide unused dials, per mark's post.  Billy-home told me that it can sometimes cause other apps to go crazy when you import Poser stuff.  What you can do as an alternate, is rename them to "Not Used" or "Keep Yer Bleedin' Hands Off" or something similar.  :)

Anyhow, whichever method suits you is fine.

Wouldn't a simple sterio system (even including multiple parts) be more suitible with a pp2 prop? I've found even props can have open/close morphs, like the cell phone I modeled, lol :)

I'd rather a model with moving parts be a figure than a prop, or a collection of props.  Maybe I'm shallow or something but I always feel somewhat disappointed when an item with moving parts ends up in the Props folder.  :)

So. I`m now modeling the amplifier. The hardest work is to simplify the objekt, which is indeed more or less a box, but with many knobs, dials and terminals all as objekts of their own. I now found a way to integrate all these obsolete objekts in the amplifiers corpus but keeping their meshes for texturing them individually. Need a hint: would like to have two states of the amp: off and on with lightened LCDs. Possible to do that with a dial ? A CD player was not intented yet. But would be a nice piece with opening vertical tray and so on.

By the way: It`s a vintage stereo Set from the early 80s.

The CD tray opening would be perfect as a morph. The lighting of the LED's however, is a MAT room issue, where you'd make an alternate MAT (material, single or collection) to make the lights glow, etc.

Rooster offers a great alternative. However I would just rig (joint centers) the CD tray as a seperate prop, as a child to the computer (hierarchy) , and operate the opening and closing through a dial.

That's just me though, more than one way to get it done.

I didn't imply that they weren't...just another way of doing the same thing.

Fugazi1968 also has some videos on how to model clothing

http://www.youtube.com/user/Fugazi3D

Save it as a prop in the Porp section?
Open the library, goto Props , select the folder you want to save it in.
A gay box below the library with a + sign will show up.
Click on it, and a window will open to give your prop a name, and save.

Thanks to all, I think I`ve got it made.

Now some finishing on the textures...

Looks nice.

Next question: has somebody a hint to some materials like brushed aluminium or brass ?

Sorry, very redundant question. I`m still not quite awake. Searching button helps surely.

I hope this hole thing will be in my freestuff folder soon.

Quote - Next question: has somebody a hint to some materials like brushed aluminium or brass ?

RDNA used to have some nice free metalic poser shaders.

So the story goes on. Ive done (as accurate as possible) as SamTherapy told before.

Saved the amplifier as a character as well as a prop. But there is no obj. file or path mentioned in any of the .cr2 or .pp2 or .pz3 files nor saved in any folder in the Runtime section. The entire structure of the object is stored within these files. I`ll never understand the complicate file / folder / library structures of poser or daz... Found the texture paths are written in an absolute way when I open the mentioned files in wordpad. Can I change it to a relative path, so i can move my directories ?

Being nearly finished with my objects, i now unfortunately need to do little corrections in the main structure of those models. But how, when there is no more an obj to change ?

If you rig something using the "import 1 piece at a time, and build in hiearchy window" route. you're initial "Create Figure" usually doesn't create OBJ yet, you have to load the newly created figure, and SAVE again in another folder, and then it will create obj as well as cr2.

Props, I believe, have geometry embedded.

There is a utility called Geomstripper, that will extract embedded geometry and change the cr2 or pp2 file. 

You can change any file references from direct to relative files. Just use the format :runtime:etc and put the whole string in quotes if there are spaces in the names.

i.e ":runtime:textures:my personal stuff:my file 1.jpg"

Found whats best for interchanging Cinema <-> Poser = Cineposer.

It keeps the cinema child objekts as groups and translates materials nicely.

Booled structures still look horrible.

Quote - And DarkEdge's tutorials are a godsend, let me tell you...

VERY well worth the meager cost.

Yup. I bought 'em and I already knew how to do what was descirbed in the tuts (always good to see the workflow of others). It's a great set of instructions and examples. Well worth picking up.

If money is short though, Dr. Geep's tuts are also excellent sources of information! Lastly, you can always seek help here too or at other Poser related websites.

:)

Oh, and if you can find it, there used to be a nifty book called the Secrets of Poser Figure Creation or something like that. Really good resource also, though some of the content may be slightly outdated (mostly material room stuff).