Hey all,

Just wanted to throw this out there before I dive into something.

What are the considerations one should take in modelling rigid armor sets for poser figures.  

I've thrown together an undersuit and I want to include a fair amount of rigid plating as well.   I'm concerned that when I go to make it conforming, those rigid plates will bend with the figure and look wrong.  Especially in areas that bend but the armor might have somewhat overlapping plates that move to accomodate the bend but do not bend themselves....

thoughts?

Quote - I'm concerned that when I go to make it conforming, those rigid plates will bend with the figure and look wrong.

Each actor has a 'bend' switch that can turn bending on or off. You can edit it in the cr2, or set it in the actor's Properties within Poser. There is also a master switch 'allowsBending' in the 'figure' section, it will unconditionally turn off bending fore the entire figure. A value of '1' in a switch = on, a value of '0' = off.

As you have an undersuit, if the undersuit and plates are to be all part of the same figure, you could make the plates separate actors (or props) parented to the corresponding parts of the undersuit. Actually having the plates as props has the advantage that you can dress or undress part by part, changing the parent of a breastplate or helmet to be one of the hands, or a table, or a squires hand, what ever.

As human figures bend, bulge, and deform in various ways when they are posed, plates that fit the figure in the default pose might not always fit when the human is in a more extreme pose, especially if the plates are close fitting. ERC and joint controlled joints (slaved to the joints in the character figure) are probably the best way to deal with most of this, you would set the plate to translate in the appropriate direction when the part of the character is bent.

You're so totally right about that! Bendy-twisty armour is horrible and a lot of sets suffer from it really badly!

Like lesbentley said - props for the plates looks like the best way to go. The best armour I've found for Poser is this one:

Swidhelm's Iron Clad: Milanese

The breastplate is a seperate prop and that works really well.