Hey everyone --

I have another question to pick the brains of the great forum members here.

Say I create a vehicle.  I want that vehicle to be speciffically for Poser.  How do I get that to be a Poser Prop File?  Or Figure File?  I build it in Gmax (free version of 3ds Max)and then have to convert them to a Object file to show in Poser....

What do I do next from there? 

Help is greatly appreciated, I know I'll find the answer here because you all are wonderful in helping....

My version of Poser is Poser 8.

Thanks in advance

Simple save it to the Library in the Props section. That is all there is to it.

A rider to this is that Poser will save the geometry within the actual prop file. This in some respects is quite OK in that Poser will be able to read it however the preferred method is to have the prop file call up a separate OBJ file. The reason being that if alterations are needed to the geometry it is much easier to work on a separate OBJ file rather than trying to extract the geometry from the prop file every time.

Open one of the included prop primitives in a text editor to see the format.

Hope that helps.

Well, each type of thing has it's own procedures. As to a prop, all you need to do is import, set up your materials and textures like you want them and then save the prop to the props library. Normally, the mesh information is contained within the prop file, but you can use Geometry Stripper to make an object to point the prop to. Figures need to be setup with bones in the setup room (this also includes conformers, which are figures). To save materials, you just make what you want in the material room to save as a material and you're done. You can either save one single material or a whole materail collection (that comprises the materials for a whole prop/figure). If your materials are texture based - make sure your texture maps are somewhere where they will reside and not be moved/deleted, such as in a folder under Runtime/Textures/Your Image Maps. When you set up your materials, pull the images from that folder.

Laurie

Thank you so much all! I appreciate the quick responses as usual!

Will be able to show off some of my creations probably by the end of the week.

For a single part prop (pp2):

1. Make a UV mapped geometry file in Wavefront OBJ format.

2. Import the obj into Poser.

3. Set the location and orientation of the prop's origin (extremely important).

4. Change the material settings to something appropriate (colour, texture, transparency, bump, reflection,etc).

5. Save the item to the Props palette.

6. (optional) Edit the pp2 file to hide dials, change and/or force limits, add ERC controls, etc.

7. (optional) Make a nice thumbnail for the pp2 file.

For a posable (multi-part) prop:

The mesh parts should stand in the correct position relative to each other, and be at the correct scale when imported into Poser. Things that have a front side (a car, a gun) should face an un-rotated main camera when imported. Each mesh group (part that needs to move) should have a unique name that is both short and descriptive. Eg "rFrontWheel", "lBackDoorHandle", "rBackSeatBottom", "rFrontSeatBack", "rFrontSeatBottom", "petrolCap". A wheel does not need a separate Tyre and HubCap group (unless you want to change a flat), but should probably have separate material zones for the Tyre and HubCap.

It also helps if the names of the material zones are short and descriptive. Don't have more material zones than you need. Eg, with a car, there is no need to have a separate material for each seat, they could all share the same "SeatCloth", material, though you might want to have a separate "SeatBack" material.

Follow the steps for a single part prop, for each part, up to and including step #3.

Parent the props together to form a hierarchy of rotational precedence. Eg the chassis is the parent of the wheels and doors, the doors are the parent of the door handles.

Check that everything rotates as desired, and make any necessary adjustments to origins, orientation, or rotation order of the various parts. For example the steering-wheel of a car should usually rotate round the z axis (with a truck it might be y), but the z axis needs to be tilted to match the angle of the steering column. Perhaps rather counter-intuitively, in the Joint Editor window, you use the 'xrot' dial to set to orientation of zRotate for the steering column.

In some things the rotation order can be important. Poser joints work like a series of three gimbals (think of a ship's compass, or a gyroscope). Each rotation channel is equivalent to a gimbal. I'll say some more about rotation order in another post. Now to continue making the posable prop.

Memorize everything (Alt+Ctrl+A).

Adjust the material settings as desired.

Select the prop at the base of the parenting chain, eg for an auto-mobile the chassis. Click the "+" in the Props palette. Use the "Select Subset" button to include all parts of the item, and save it to the palette.

If the item is to be a smart prop, open the pp2 in a text editor and find any lines that say "parent UNIVERSE", replace them with "smartparent NameOfParent".

With a posable prop some transforms are often not desirable, eg rot a steering-wheel, you may want it to zRotate but not translate or have any other rotations. In that case you need to make some edits in a cr2 editor (or a text editor), for all translate and rotate channels in the steering-wheel, except zRotate, you need to force the limits, and set the min and max limit to zero, eg:

            forceLimits 1
            min 0
            max 0

You might as well hid the dials for the locked channels, so now you have:

            hidden 0
            forceLimits 1
            min 0
            max 0

I have tried to go into a lot of detail of things you might need to know (perhaps too much) . But start simple, and experiment, eg a box prop with 4 rotating wheels made out of Poser cylinders, then work your way up to more complex things. Experimentation is the key to learning, you can read as many posts and tutorials as you like, but you will never really master these things unless you experiment!

Thanks for the excellent info lesbentley!

Much appreciated.   I'm working on my first car's frame right now actually in Gmax -- going quite well, very, very low poly -- should be quite good when it comes out. 

I appreciate all the info, saved this thread as a favorite so I don't miss anything on it.  I appreciate your more in depth explanation -- very excellent and a great read for knowing everything on that.

Here is the link for Traveller's tutorial for coding for an external call for the geometry

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/content.php?35-External-Object-Calls-for-Props

Thanks icprncss2!  Much appreciated.  Always like Tutorials, they help out alot!

'Kuroyumes Poser CR2 Specification' is a bit dated, but still fundamentally applicable and a must read IMO for anyone looking to create Poser content.

http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/poserfilespec/products_poser_cr2.html