Hi everyone,

Do any of you know what the units setup, import and export settings ought to be for Poser & 3DS Max?

For example, if I wanted to design a house, how should I measure it?

I am having profound difficulty scaling a basic rectangle (my personal placeholder for a door) object against the Victoria or Michael figure bases. I have my units setup configured for 1 unit = 1.0 feet. I figure the Michael base must be a standard 6'0 in height, so I try to measure the dimensions 6 units tall. My assumption, based on the math, is that the door should then match up to the Michael base, or at least come close to its height. What I am getting instead is an enormous retangle that outsizes the Michael base by far.

Is there a method I should be using to scale objects correctly? I've searched countless tutorials, and none of them seem to be of any help.

If anyone knows anything, it's more than appreciated.

When you export OBJ from Max, what scaling factor are you using?

It should be 0.01, then scale object within Poser to 40.96%

I measure M4 at 198.9 cm (6'6.3")

If it's any help (I don't know what the scaling factor between apps are) I use Wings and build at a scale of 1 Wings unit = 1 inch.  When importing to Poser, I scale to 1.115% and everything seems to be reasonably in scale.  

The Poser figures have long been a bone of contention (I think V4 is about 9 foot 17 inches or so ;) ), so you have to trust your eyes and judgement to a certain extent.  

Look at this thread

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3671304&ebot_calc_page#message_3671304

.381 max units = 1 poser meter

Quote - When you export OBJ from Max, what scaling factor are you using?

It should be 0.01, then scale object within Poser to 40.96%

I measure M4 at 198.9 cm (6'6.3")

So export from 3DS Max at 0.01, then import into Poser at 40.96% of the figure size?

Quote - Look at this thread

 

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3671304&ebot_calc_page#message_3671304

 

.381 max units = 1 poser meter

How should my unit setup or import/export settings be?

Quote - > Quote - When you export OBJ from Max, what scaling factor are you using?

It should be 0.01, then scale object within Poser to 40.96%

I measure M4 at 198.9 cm (6'6.3")

So export from 3DS Max at 0.01, then import into Poser at 40.96% of the figure size?

Scale it after import to 40% of it's size.

If you scale it to 40% of figure size it would be fixed at 40% size of M4/V4

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - When you export OBJ from Max, what scaling factor are you using?

It should be 0.01, then scale object within Poser to 40.96%

I measure M4 at 198.9 cm (6'6.3")

So export from 3DS Max at 0.01, then import into Poser at 40.96% of the figure size?

Scale it after import to 40% of it's size.

If you scale it to 40% of figure size it would be fixed at 40% size of M4/V4

Well, the whole idea of exporting the figure as .obj from Poser, importing it to 3DS Max at vertex scale 100.0, then exporting it at vertex scale of 0.01...I think I understand that. What I'm really trying to figure out is what the export would have to be if I designed a building from scratch.

If I was trying to build a house from scratch, what would the vertex scale look like when I export it from 3DS Max before importing it to Poser?

If I could get solidarity on what the scaling should be, I'll have a viable framework to work from. At this point, if I design anything at all in 3DS Max, I don't know how the scale should be when I export the geometry I made.

After all these years of contention, It would be nice to see agreement but I don't expect it. I hate to say that the old Mark 1 eyeball may be in order but... Fortunately in this case, while definitive precision would be great, the file from Chicago doesn't have to drive the lathe in China to .0001 whatever or the heart valve leaks and people die, or spacecraft go diving into the sun. I'd get it scaled to fit the most popular default DAZ figure and accept that mileage may vary for anything else. No disrespect to wanting something better than that by any means. That's probably why I'm not a modeler :-)

If you look at the actual size of the V4 .obj, she is .763" tall. It is well known that she is rather tall for a woman. I arbitarily say she is 5'-10" or 70" tall (full scale)

.763/70=0.0109 or 1.09%

You can test this by importing the V4 figure duplicating it and make the copy 70" tall.

Scale this to 1.09% and you will see that both figures are the same size. If you construct your buildings in Max at full scale then scale the output files to 1.09% for use in Poser.

Lets say you build them at 1"=1foot scale which is 1/12 scale, then 70"/12=5.833

.763/5.833=.1308 or 13.08%

Whatever scaling factor you want to work to you can always crosscheck what your doing by bringing the character into Max scale it up to what ever scale your working at. Then downscale it and export to Poser and see if both figures are the same size

Quote - If you look at the actual size of the V4 .obj, she is .763" tall. It is well known that she is rather tall for a woman. I arbitarily say she is 5'-10" or 70" tall (full scale)

.763/70=0.0109 or 1.09%

You can test this by importing the V4 figure duplicating it and make the copy 70" tall.

Scale this to 1.09% and you will see that both figures are the same size. If you construct your buildings in Max at full scale then scale the output files to 1.09% for use in Poser.

Lets say you build them at 1"=1foot scale which is 1/12 scale, then 70"/12=5.833

.763/5.833=.1308 or 13.08%

Many thanks. I'll try this out in just a few minutes. Should my unit setup in 3DS Max be set to a certain metric? I currently have it at 1 unit = 1.0 feet, but I'm not sure if that's right.

Here's a better question:

I have my unit setup at 1 unit = 1.0 feet in 3DS Max. If I create a geometry object from scratch, what should my export scale be? Afterward, when I import the geometry into Poser, should I simply import at 1.09% of the original figure size?

I see that when I create most anything in 3DS Max, it always ends up extremely large when imported into Poser, and I do see the point in reducing the scale. The numbers are just conflicting somewhere here, because when I tried 1.09% myself, the object I created ended up too small when I imported it into Poser at 1.09%. I'm pretty sure there's something I'm not doing right.

If you're using one of the newer versions of Max, when you export the object as an obj file, there's a dialog box that includes a "presets" menu, and select "Poser" from that. That will scale it for Poser. I don't know if that will correctly scale a house, because I've never tried it, but it's worth a try.

Doesn't work, unfortunately. I created an object that is 4 units wide and 3 units tall from the top, and when imported at 100.0% size in Poser, it measures just over 2 units by 2 units in Poser. With scaling disabled in the Poser import options, it measures almost 5 units wide by 4 units tall.

(I'm still betting it's got something to do with my unit setup in 3DS Max.)

If I were you I would forget about Poser units. Use an existing Poser object such as V4.

Decide how tall you want her to be. Whether thats 5'10" or 6' it wont make that much difference.

Take the object from Poser to Max, scale it to whatever size you need it in Max. So that useing your Max scale setup it measures the 5-10 or whatever. Then scale back down to Poser size ( you may have to guess a few times). As long as the returned Poser object is the same size as the original you have your scaling factors up and back down established.

Your proof is that you were able to bring it into max and return it to poser the same size as the original in poser. This 2 way scaling up and down is just to establish the proper ratios.

Once you know this then forget about poser size, build your objects in max and always downsize to the same amount for poser and you should be fine.

One thing I have done is make a spreadsheet for all my scaling parameters. I have this up on my right screen so its right there for calcs if I need them.

If you need to know how far the "dials" move things in scale you can place an object of known relative size such as a person and with a small cube at its feet. move the cube up with the Y dial untill its at the top of his head. This "distance" then represents however tall you say the figure is.

With Poser display units set to "inches" I use 1 foot = 12.97 ticks on the dial.

Set this up in a spreadsheet to do your calculations. If you need to position something 6 ft high in Poser I set the Y dial to 77.83 for instance.

100 feet is 1297.228

That's a great idea. I'll try it.

You raise a really good point, actually. Here's the method I'm going to use:

1. Export Michael or Victoria base from Poser.

2. Import into 3DS Max at vertex scale 100.0. The Poser preset does not work whatsoever.

3. Use the scale tool to reduce the figure down to about 30%.

4. Build home...building or whatever geometry I think of.

5. Scale back up to 70%.

6. Export the geometry I built at vertex scale 0.01.

This should work just fine, and will probably serve as a great measure for future model building. Not that I'm ungrateful for the help you've all given me in this thread, but the whole numbers game can only produce inaccuracies and confusion.

Thanks again.

Hmm. I load the figure base into 3DS Max, reduce to 30.0% scaling. I build a geometry model around it. It seems when I scale the figure base back up to 100.0%, the geometry model has to be scaled up to 330.0% in order to match it.

What also works is to lower the figure base's scale to 10.0%, build a geometry, boom it up to 660%, then export it at vertex scale 0.01. The lower the figure base's scale, the greater the scale needs to be of the created object. Interesting how that works. This could come in handy when designing a large building or a more complex scene.