For PP2014 owners the process to W-Map a older figure is as easy as a single click.

Select figure => Goto Figure(top menu) => Merge All Zones To Weight Maps => Done.

Check how your figure bends.

Open the Joint editor to correct any rigging errors, paint the W-Map and Bulge Map if required.
You often have to Smooth things out a bit.

Happy Posering, Tony

Nice... Now if I could find some spare change in the couch, maybe I could buy 2014 one day...

Unless I win the lottery. Of course, you can't win if you don't play...

The only downside is that it weightmaps the finger joints, which eats up a lot of memory for negligible gain...

Something tells me weightmapping a figure is a little bit more involved, but what do I know....

@ Joe, this is a starting point to convert a conventionally rigged figure to a W-Mapped figure.

Garbage in, garbage out.
Quality in, quality out.

If the conventional rig was a good one, there is little or no extra work.

If the conventional rig was a bad one, you have a lot corrections to make.

My personal workflow;
Open the figure
Open the hierarchy editor.
Delete ALL magnets => THIS STEP IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT !!!
As there are NO figures around that do not have magnet errors. Not a single one.
NONE, ZERO, NICHTS, GEIN.
Exept those that do not have magnets. LOL. No LOL actually.

Delete all JCM's and other pollution.

Convert. => Click on : Figure => Merge All Zones To Weight Map.

Check bends with Joint editor
Paint the W-Map if required, paint the Bulge map if required.
Use the symmetry button to get a symmetrical rig.

Try to get as clean a rig as possible.

Happy Posering
Tony

Thank you for this.

I don't like the magnets either.

The problems with the magnets are simple:

Each and every Poser figure has asymmetrical magnets. There are tons of left-right asymmetries.

The best figures have 30 to 40 left-right magnet errors.

When I get more then 100 asymmetrical errors I delete the figure.
If the creator did not care for magnet quality? I do not have to care either.

It takes about an evening for each figure.

Open a spreadsheet : Open Poser and load your figure, open the hierarchy editor:

For each magnet Base, Magnet and Zone : Write down its parameters from the parameters palette.

Compare the Right and Left magnet Base, Magnet and Zone parameters and dependencies.

Be ready for your mouth falling open, your eyes opening in disbelief, of all the left-right errors you will find.

Magnets belong in a hardware store, not in Poser figures.

The fun actually starts when you see magnets correcting magnets.
Or when you see JCM’s to correct what are actually magnet errors.
Then you get to a 100 left-right errors FAST .. . . Less LOL.

The new fitting room is especially critical to all these magnet errors.
The room is behaving as it should, and transfers what is in the rig.

The result is predictable :
Garbage in, garbage out
Quality in, quality out.

Happy Posering,
Tony