can someone tell me where poser limits are located in poser pro 2012?

in the older versions of poser I knew where it was, but been too long

Do you mean Figure > Use Limits ?

yes  it could be the same thing

 I was looking for the wrong terminolgy. thanks

Left click on little arrow next to dial and select settings

Bill

I am having trouble scaling cars up or down to match the size of V4. that is my main issue

do you have any suggestions?

Quote - I am having trouble scaling cars up or down to match the size of V4.

Which version of Poser are you using? Are the cars figures or props? What are you doing when you are "having trouble scaling cars up or down"? What do you expect to happen when you do what you do? What actually happens?

Be precise, eg:

"I select the Body actor of the car and turn the 'scale' dial. I expected this to increase the overall size of the car, but when I release the dial its value returns to 100%."

Saying "I am having trouble scaling cars up or down to match the size of V4", is like writing to an agony-aunt and saying "I'm having problems with my love life. Any suggestions?". Without knowing what you are doing, and what is happening when you do it, it is very hard to guess what the problem you are having is.

Please don't take offence at this, I'm only trying to get a better understanding of the situation. The only facts I have so far are that you are using some unspecified   method, in an attempt to change the scale of some unspecified item. It's not much to go on.

well, I have several cars, some props and other characters

poser pro 2012

one car that is a character and has smart props listed under props is not scaled correctly to V4 being way too large. when I try and use the top scale dial only part of the car responds but does not resize the tires, hood, and etc.  I could use each scale dial but other cars resizes entirely when the top scale dial is adjusted.

I was told that maybe the maker of the cars with issues did not set limits. my rendo partner mapps always does so items will be the correct scale for poser people but he does not have poser pro  2012 or 2010.

I have been using poser since poser pro 4 but there are many things I have not learned. before from not having time and now I am retired so I want to learn. I tried the smith micro answer thing but never found my problem. I also have been reading the manual but still have not isolated my particular problem there

sorry if I was not more specific and thanks for your help

from mapps

That is strange, sounds like it is not done right or it has limitations attached to it. Make sure "Use poser limits" is turned off. Some times people set object parts to min and max = 100% so scaling can't happen with limits turned on. I don't think they do it on purpose, I have also gotten things that have it se to you l can not rotate a figure left or right if limits are turned on. I always work with limits active so I notice right away if i have done this to something I am working on.

you can always try running snarlygribblys scene fixer python script, it should show up any of the scaling settings that are hidden, and allow you to turn force limits off it that is causing the problem. If a particular part isn't resizing , two options i can see, you either havent selected the figure "body" or the parts arent parented to the figure....

I find using scaled items with .obj files and so forth on cars a scale of 315 is perfect for use with Poser figures.  If they're .obj cars, you'll be all set with that.  

I scale most cars so that the diameter of the wheel rim is 16 inches.  Of course, I also scale V4 down so she's not six feet tall...

Johnny, i may be wrong, but doesn't the exported size of the obj have a direct bearing on the scale you use for importing it?.

For example, if i create a vehicle in hexagon and export it at 100% of its original size and then import the obj at 315% it will be huge, because to export at poser scale from hexagon i would need to use a scale of 0.002

Yup, Neil has it.  Scaling is entirely arbitrary, depending on what app the model was made in and how it was measured.

When I make anything in Wings, I use one Wings unit per inch.  Importing to Poser and then scaling to 1.115% makes them exactly the right size for Poser world use.

As for changing the scale of a prop with parented props attached, you need to find out which one actually is the parent, then scale that.  The other bits should follow.

this particular product loads the main body of the car along with wheels and it is what  I select to try and scale --but the wheels does not follow suit

Maybe the wheels aren't actually parented to the body.  It's possible to save an entire set of props in one go without parenting anything.

In which case, parent the wheels to the body first, then try scaling the body.  It should work, because that's how I scale all my model parts when I'm making a figure. 

Quote - Johnny, i may be wrong, but doesn't the exported size of the obj have a direct bearing on the scale you use for importing it?.

For example, if i create a vehicle in hexagon and export it at 100% of its original size and then import the obj at 315% it will be huge, because to export at poser scale from hexagon i would need to use a scale of 0.002

Not sure on that mysticeagle --- these are the cars from the dmi website that I am referring to.  When I import those, say and then scale to 315, they work perfectly.  I don't use Hexagon for that purpose.  Still have a hard time getting used to it......

Thanks for the very detailed explanation.

Scaling the root actor, which is usually named BODY in most figures, will normally cause everything parented to it to scale as well. This should happen regardless or whether the other actors, or props parented to the figure, have their limits forced, or even if they are locked. The only precondition for this, that I know of, is that internally the 'root actor' needs to use 'propagatingScale' rather that plain old 'scale'. Virtually all root actors do use 'propagatingScale', so it's unlikely, but not impossible, that this is the cause of the problem.

A more likely possibility is that the part you are trying to scale is not the root actor. Is the part you are trying to scale named "BODY" or "Body"? If it is, then I'm stumped, and don't have a clue what the problem is. If not, then we have to determine what part is the root actor.

You can find out by inspecting the cr2 in a text editor. If the figure is in crz (compressed) format, you will need to decompress it to a cr2 first. Open the cr2 in a text editor and use the editors search function to do a case sensitive search for the string "root", the next word on the same line should be the internal name of the root actor. It's possible that the internal name is not the same as the display name, so just to be sure use the name you found in the root actor line as another search string, find the second occurrence of the string. Two lines under that, it should say 'name' followed by the display name (the name used in menus etc). If you are scaling a part with this name, then the whole car should scale. If it does not, check to see if there is a channel named 'propagatingScale' in the BODY, if there is, then I don't think I can help, if not, you to need to edit the internal name of the 'scale' channel to use 'propagatingScale' (back up the file first).

Look for the car in the hierarchy list and see what's at the top (i.e. what all the parts are parented to): if it's a figure, it's probably named 'body'. If you scale that, everything else should follow.

Quote - Johnny, i may be wrong, but doesn't the exported size of the obj have a direct bearing on the scale you use for importing it?.

Well you can't actually choose what scale Poser imports things at.

The only scale that Poser will import at is 100%. If you don't like 100%, then the only other option is to import at a "Percentage of standard figure size" (POSFS),  but a  POSFS is not a scale, it's an absolute size. The POSFS is based on the bounding box of a (possibly mythical) Poser figure. English Bob has a very interesting and informative article that touches on the subject of "Percentage of standard figure size".

Ahhhhh ----

That explains it lesbentley --  it always seemed like they were all matchbox size compared to the Poser Person.  LOL.

Quote - Look for the car in the hierarchy list and see what's at the top

A much simpler idea than mine.   I must be spending too much time with my head stuck in a text editor. :blink:

I tried changing the value on properties of the first scale with no luck

the main body is the focal point as the creater told me

Hmmmmmm.....that is odd.   Did you try parenting everything to the main body that you need to in order to scaling?

Just out of curiosity, what model is it?  Shame you're having all the trouble.  People should realize these things before uploading something.

Try parenting the car figure and all of it's props to a Poser primitive.

Then scale that primitive instead .

Had this happen before when figures were not created properly.

I can't actually tell you what's the cause because I never really bothered to disect the cr2 file. Must be some weird hirachy problem.

But parenting everything to a new "parent" object usually solved that problem. (Before you render, just turn the new object invisible)

BTW, scaling everything to "match V4" is a very imprecise way of making sure everything is "in scale" in your render.

You can usually google the real world dimensions of anything in a couple of seconds. Create yourself a scaling prop then and you can directly check the exact size of everything in your render in Poser.

Example:

Wikipedia said that a 1932 Ford has a 106in/2.62m wheelbase.

The Ford loaded way oversized in my scene, so I added my meter scaling prop, scaled it to 269 % and then scaled the Ford to match that dimension.

It now matches 1.65m tall Hana exactly.

I also will resafe the re-scaled Ford back to my library to replace the original one.

Do this with all your figures/props, and you'll never have to worry about mis-matched scaling again.

Stupid typo: Of course I scaled the scaling prop to 262 %.

The prop is 1x1x1 meter so 262 % = 2.62 meters.

:-)

Inadvertantly funny render there, JoePublic! Thanks for the article link (don't know how I missed that one), Mr. lesbentley, sir.

Excellent thread.

I was missing something entirely on poser. I previously had used the menu at the top right above the parameters for the particular subject in question but forgot about it. any way I changed the option from body parts to the body and then the car wouls scale properly. I think all the members that offered help