i have a couple of scenes i want to set up inside a car (limo) and a mobile home (meshbox mobile home). the body of the models are not separated into four separate sides so i can't make one transparent. what is the best way to set up scenes inside cars and such?

johnny

If you're not comfortable with using the Grouping Tool to separate one side, you could try a transmap approach. 

In Photoshop or something similar, start with the texture map for the mobile home.  Make a new layer.  Determine which part of the map goes with the side you want to look through.  On the new layer, paint all of that side black, and paint everything else white.   Save the layer as a JPG.  Apply it to the transparency (and 'edge transparency') of the mobile home.  Set the values for trans and edge trans to 1 or 100%.

Sometimes, you can also get "inside" things by scaling the camera smaller. But I agree with Ockham, either use the grouping tool to "cut a hole" in the side for the camera, or make a transmap :)

i have always wanted to go the old movie route and cut the car in half. I need a modelling app that I can import the OBJ file into, add a cube and use boolean operator to delete the intersection. Any suggestions 

Why is the camera to be outside the vehilce? In real life, one might expect to locate a real camera inside; and to use a short lens (e.g. 20mm 'Focal' length, in terms of Poser's main Camera) to view a wide angle.

I'd say use wireframe dispaly.  That might work the best for you in this case.

Quote - i have always wanted to go the old movie route and cut the car in half. I need a modelling app that I can import the OBJ file into, add a cube and use boolean operator to delete the intersection. Any suggestions 

Well, Blender is free and can certainly do this (along with lots of other things) BUT there's quite a learning curve. 

Depending on the mesh it shouldn't be too hard to do the same with Poser's grouping tool. Front view of the car, front camera, wireframe display, select half of the car... 5 minutes, tops :)

Poser's grouping tool is actually pretty good, and not as hard to use assome make it seem ;)

Attached Link: LukeA's van

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/ambulance-for-poser-/79855/

For vehicles that are one whole piece... I usually first try to see if I can hide some parts by making certain material zones transparent. If that's not an option I will use small camera focals to show a full car interior, then make the camera focal larger for close-ups if possible.

ok, i'm not 100% on how to use the grouping tool, any advice or where to go to learn more??

Quote - i have a couple of scenes i want to set up inside a car (limo) and a mobile home (meshbox mobile home). the body of the models are not separated into four separate sides so i can't make one transparent. what is the best way to set up scenes inside cars and such?

johnny

I've done this in the past using a Pose Camera (using a limo from Daz3D).  You'll need to change the settings of the lens so that the camera doesn't apear to be right on top of the character.   The Pose Camera should make this easy for you.

Here is an example of how I used it inside of a sports car.  As you can tell from the car that there isn't much room inside. In this picture the camera is sitting right on top of the car seat. The view that you see is from inside the car and not outside.  This will work as long as the camera is inside of the car. If the lens is inside of a see or door then you'll need to adjust it so that the camera is inside the car.

sorry about the type.. that should be seat and not see.. 

and that's supposed to be typo and not type.  It's been a long day lol

Select the actor (body part) or prop that you want to work on. Open Grouping Tool (it's one of the icons in the Editing Tools palette).

Click the New Group button. Give the New Group the name "transparent". Select the facets that you want to be transparent by holding down the left mouse button, and dragging the mouse to draw a selection box around the facets you want to select. Selected facets will turn red. If you select any facets by mistake, hold down the Ctrl key and draw a box around them to remove them from the selection. You may need to change the camera view to catch all the facets you want. Note that if you select a camera to move it, you will need to reselect the body part before you can continue.

Once you have all the facets you want transparent selected, click the 'Assign Material' button, and name the material "transparent". Close the Grouping Tool.

Open the Material Room. Select the material named "transparent" (it should be at the bottom of the list). Set the Defuse_Value and Specular_Value to zero. Set the Transparency_Value to 1.0. Set the Transparency_Falloff to zero. The desired parts should now be transparent.

Save the figure to the Figure library with a new name (so as not to overwrite the original).

Quote -

Quote - ok, i'm not 100% on how to use the grouping tool, any advice or where to go to learn more??

Select the actor (body part) or prop that you want to work on. Open Grouping Tool (it's one of the icons in the Editing Tools palette).

Click the New Group button. Give the New Group the name "transparent". Select the facets that you want to be transparent by holding down the left mouse button, and dragging the mouse to draw a selection box around the facets you want to select. Selected facets will turn red. If you select any facets by mistake, hold down the Ctrl key and draw a box around them to remove them from the selection. You may need to change the camera view to catch all the facets you want. Note that if you select a camera to move it, you will need to reselect the body part before you can continue.

Once you have all the facets you want transparent selected, click the 'Assign Material' button, and name the material "transparent". Close the Grouping Tool.

Open the Material Room. Select the material named "transparent" (it should be at the bottom of the list). Set the Defuse_Value and Specular_Value to zero. Set the Transparency_Value to 1.0. Set the Transparency_Falloff to zero. The desired parts should now be transparent.

Save the figure to the Figure library with a new name (so as not to overwrite the original).

Yes this is what I tried to explain :) And if you switch to Wireframe you can select all the facets in one go, no need to rotate the camera. When you can "see though" a model, so can the Grouping tool (and vice versa) - clever way of doing a backface cull imo.

I did a add all to start, removed the bits I didn't want, spawned a prop and then saved the prop. Only down side is no moving parts.

Prop with figures added

Quick render with 35mm focal main camera