Hi guys...

I have an amazing set of WW2 aircraft (Spitfire etc) from I think Bazze, but the pilot is already sat in the seat with the aircraft figure, so adding your own pilot is difficult, as you cannot simply delete the pilot, who comes as part of the aircraft figure. I've tried playing about in the material room but cannot seem to get anything better than a ghostlike effect with the pilot, but am unable to completely delete him...?!? I'm sure I recall many years ago - I think it was within the material room - being able to break figures or props apart, and delete or save individual items as and when required - in Poser 6... I cannot find that tutorial any more...

Any ideas on this one guys...

Cheers for any help here 

An easy way out.
Take your model in the group editor and select the poly's that make the pilot.
=> Create a new material from them.

Then you can make this material transparant in the mat room.

The pilot will still be in the obj file, but completely transparant...as if he was not there.

Or...

Do as above, invert your selection and create a new prop.  You'll have a new plane without the pilot.

Or...

Import the obj into a modeller and delete the pilot there.  That's probably going to be the easiest option, since Poser's Grouping Tool is vile. 

set your diffuse , ambiant, and ? colors to black and reduce the values to 0 to get a true transparent figure.

Does the pilot use a different texture or mat? If so, open the group editor - make new group, add the material for the pilot then invert. Delete all other groups in the obj file. Set the grouping tool to 'Show non-grouped faces'. The pilot should appear red. If so spawn props and delete the original model. If the pilot shares materials with other parts, you will have to set display to wireframe and remove any extra polys before inverting.

Hey, cheers, you guys...

Thanks for your most helpful responses...

I will work my way through all these suggestions - if I can remember where everything is. I have to say that, I've not ventured far within P6 these last few years, and have tweeked my own little methods for getting things done. Have kept things simple but in the process have forgotten most of the early tutorials... Only use the material room outside the main workspace nowadays, I'm sorry to say.

I had managed to make the pilot transparent via the mat room, but there is still that ghostly residue haunting the Spitfire seat when you render, no matter how much you play about with his mat tree...

The pilot does have his own mats, yes, to answer a question - I'll try adjusting the values as suggested also...

I've been reading 'Spitfire Women from WW2' and this has galvernised me into action as regards attempting to re-create these brave (unknown about until quite recently) female pilots of WW2 fame - and the ATA group that was in a way sparked off by the exploits of the late great Amy Johnson, who was one of the earliest female aviator poineers of her day...

One of these pilots recalls having misjudged the weather and suddenly her 'Spit' hitting the waters off the coast of England, and her sitting there in her seat fully accepting her fate, as the aircraft slowly sunk beneath waves. But she was happy that her insurance would cover all things back home, that is until the cold water spewing into her darkened cockpit shocked her into life, and she started to try escaping from her wet and icy grave to be. Only to realise that she was still belted in when she finally prised open the canopy above her head.

Apparently she was never frightened throughout the whole experience. And it was only by a glimmer of a chance that a trawler just happened to be passing by when she re-surfaced, and the captain heard what he at first thought was a demented seal squawking in the sea...

Makes you blush when you think of 'modern' life dunnit...!?!

Tony D

Just realized you might be talking about an articulated figure. If so, it will get a bit more complicated to erase the pilot but still doable. Import the figures obj file. Click on the grouping tool in the pose window. Make a new group, click add material and select the pilot's mat. Go though the various groups till you find the group the pilot is apart of. Select the group he is apart of, then click remove group and select the pilot group you just made. Go back to the group you made and delete it. If you go through the figures groups the pilot should not be in any at this point. Now spawn props and delete the original obj file. Export obj to the geometry folder with a new name like planeA. On export make sure you click the top 4 boxes so it saves your grouping. Open the cr2 file in notepad or cr2 editor if you have that. Point the cr2 figureResFile (there are 2 instances in the cr2 change both) to your new plane Geometry and save with new name. The figure should load up without the pilot and still be articulated. Poser will prompt you for the obj file if you mess up the file string, if that happens search for you new plane geometry. You can do that to delete anything on any figure. Once you do it a few times it becomes really easy.

Quote - I've tried playing about in the material room but cannot seem to get anything better than a ghostlike effect with the pilot...

The "ghost" effect is probably caused by either the Transparency_Falloff, or the Specular_Color, or the Preview Render Settings.

In the Material Room, Advanced tab, set the Specular_Color to black. Set Transparency and Transparency_Falloff to zero. From the menu bar, in  Render > Render Settings > Preview, set Transparency Display to Actual.

Yeah I think I might have been trying to 'vanish' the pilot (he has a simple head turn articulation by the way - which Wraith mentioned about) away using mostly white or light colour settings, which is obviously the wrong way to go about it...

I'm gonna try these various settings right now guys - as I haven't until now had the time to boot my ancient XPS system and bloated P6 up... That takes 20-mins alone...*^&%£+

Cheers again you all...

@ paramount

Download, install, and run a deep clean
Goto www.Iobit .com and download the free :Advanced system care free version5.3 now

Puts a turbo on older sytems. :-)

Just google advanced systyem care free and you should be good to go.

Hey guys...

I just opened P6 up and added the Spitfire and after browsing through your posts decided to head for: Windows/Hierarchy Editor and scrolled to the pilot parts and I think clicked the central (looks like an eye symbal) figures for the three parts of the pilot and was able to uncheck the visible icon on a parameter dial that wasn't there until I used the H/Editor - and so vanished away the whole pilot (head/body/goggles) enabling me to render without him... Yippie!

Hope my lame wordage (I'm not as CGI/Poser savvy as you guys unfortunately) makes some sense to you...

Does it sound about right to you?!?

Thanks yet again...

Tony D

Wow, Vilters, that sounds real cool...!!!

I'm gonna head there today - check things out...!!!

Thank you...!!!

Read the doc, and let it do a "deep clean".

Advanced system care free not only cleans, but does a vulnarability check and lots more to get a system back up to speed.

I use the option, Scan - repair - shutdown almost every night ( on all my 6 systems from XP to Win7)

I also use Iobit Malware fighter
And their Smartdefrag tool that also has a boot defrag option.

Happy Posering

Hey did a very quickly thrown together render with basic everything just to say another thanks...

Mmmm a latex flightsuit.......
She gonna fight or love the bad guys????

Thanks fot he smile