Hi,

I need help on how to rig some pedals for a car in poser. I have the pedals made in .obj format and I can bring them into the car. The only thing I don't remember how to do is create a point at the top of the pedal to make it move as if it's being depressed. Sort of like the way you'd rig some hinges for a box in poser where there would be a point ( that green cross hairs) where the pedal would sort of swing.

I'd appreciated if someone can point me to a tut or refresh me in how to get this done.

Thanks!

I believe the joint editor is what you are looking for.  It is hiding under "Windows" in the Poser command bar.

Also, in P9/PP2012 properties/parameters. There's a checkbox in properties "Display Origin", and then the parameters appear.

You might have to fool with the tick box in the properties tab combined with the Joint editer as I have been having issue with the dials showing up in the parameters tab since i installed the service pack for poser 9.

Open the joint editor and move your joint centers, you will want to use orthograhic viewports (left, right, top, front, etc) as you move these, turn off bend, now your rotate dials will move the pedals...of course you will need to figure out which axis rotation is the correct one for your pedal(s); but I have faith in you!

Quote - ...I can bring them into the car. The only thing I don't remember how to do is create a point at the top of the pedal to make it move as if it's being depressed.

Poser automatically assigns a pivot point to any any object that you import. Internally in Poser Script, this pivot is called the 'origin', and in the Joint Editor it is called the 'Center Point'. So you don't need to (in fact can't) "create" an origin, but what you need to do is to move the existing origin to an appropriate location.

Select the actor/prop and from its Properties select 'Display origin', then select the GROUND (this forces a refresh of the palette), then reselect your actor/prop, you will have new dials to move the origin. Or alternatively you can use the Joint Editor to move the origin. Wireframe and Outline Display Styles can be your friend when setting the origin. Once you have the origin positioned appropriately you will want to check that the orientation (the direction in which the rotation will take place) is also appropriate. You need to be in the Joint Editor to change the orientation.

Once you have the origin and orientation set appropriately, you will probably want to hide some of the dials. A brake pedal only has one axis of rotation, no translations, and does not change its size independently of the rest of the automobile, therefore (ideally) it should only have one dial visible in its parameters palette. The channels that have had their dials hidden should also have their limits forced to the desired defaults, eg zero for translations and rotations, and 1.0 (100%) for scale. It's not necessary to force the limits of translations in the case of a figure.

The Poser interface provides no way to hide dials, so you will either need to text edit the file, or you could use D3D's UnHide Dials py script, which in spite of its name, can also hide dials.

For all this dial hiding and unhiding malarkey I use Cr2Editor, which is free.  A great little app and armed with that and a large helping of Les's know how, I can now make some slick looking Cr2s, with no unwanted dials and/or movements.