I've noticed lately that there are several pose vendors whose poses all force the figure to return to coordinates 0, 0, 0.  If all your scenes are in a small box, that's fine, but there are some of us who find it annoying to watch our figure disappear from our scene whenever we apply certain poses to them and then have to go search for them.  I know I can edit the file to keep that from happening (and I do quite frequently), but as a buyer, I shouldn't have to. 

There are a couple of vendors in particular who do this (and I won't mention them here), and I hope they will take note of this little plea and make those corrections themselves so we don't have to.

Thank you for letting me rant. 

That is all....

Yes it's very annoying. But there might be a reason why they do this, not that I can think of one.

I know the pose sets that do this and I quickly note the trans coordinates before applying, the type them in again after applying the pose. If your testing out poses then you have to do this many times - major pain in the arse.

A better solution:

Contact the store and ask for your money back. This is just sloppy and lazy. 

Quote - Yes it's very annoying. But there might be a reason why they do this, not that I can think of one.

There are not many cases where this can be justified, but there are a few. In some animated Poses, especially those involving a walk cycle along a path, BODY transforms may be desirable, even necessary. In couples poses, where it is necessary to set the relative separation between the figures, a case can be made for including BODY transforms. These are the only examples I can think of where BODY transforms would be acceptable in a pz2. Most of the time I think it is as cspear said, quote: "This is just sloppy and lazy".

It is usually caused by the (normally) bad habit of selecting the "Body Transformation" option when saving a pose.

I thought you couldn't get poses with body translations accepted ito the MP here? (except where it makes sense, as with animations and couple poses)

IMO it's an error.

I posted a script to clean up the body translates from pose files. It should be in the poser forum as an attachment.  clean_pose.py

I agree its a bit sloppy , along with zeroing other morphs.

So how do you save a pose to the library without the body translations being saved as well?

Even the poses that come with Poser return the figure to zero position when applied. At least all those I've tested so far do.

Making sure to leave Body transforms unchecked in the dialogue that pops up when saving makes no difference. The pose will still return the figure to whatever location the figure was in when the pose was saved. 

So as I see it, it requires editing the pz2 after saving. So what am I looking for to edit out? 

Scripts are great for speeding up the process, but I'd still like to know what lines I'm looking for to remove from the pz2.

And what text editor to use? Since all the standard ones I have like to jumble everything up. 

~Shane

I just wordpad and edit out the body info and resave it. that usually does the trick.

Just don't check the body transformations or morphs boxes. It the first Window that comes up after you name the pose you are saving. I just spent the better part of a week making a set of poses for Roxie. It's a problem I haven't actually come across with any of my previous pose sets in quite a while. Don't check that windows dialogue and niether the morphs or body translations will be saved.

Quote - Making sure to leave Body transforms unchecked in the dialogue that pops up when saving makes no difference. The pose will still return the figure to whatever location the figure was in when the pose was saved.

Not so in my experience. By default, Poser does not save BODY translations or rotations to a pz2 unless you select 'Body transforms' when saving the pose, and thus the pose can't move the BODY actor. Poser will save hip translations and rotations, which is why you should normally position your figure within the scene by translating BODY in x and z, not the hip. That way, applying a properly saved pose should not move the figure to a different part of the scene. yTran is a different matter, normally the BODY's yTran should remain at zero, and the hip yTran should place the lowest part of the figure (eg feet) on the floor (or at the desired altitude, eg in a jumping pose).

If you (or the author of the pz2) did not select 'Body transforms' when saving the pose, and the figure still moveds to a different part of the scene when you apply the pose, it is because the pose contains large hip translations. It is bad practice to include large hip translation in the pose.

Quote - So what am I looking for to edit out?

In figures that do include BODY transforms, you can edit them out in a text editor or a Poser file editor (eg CR2Editor, or the D3D Poser File editor, or philC's pz3editor) just select the transform channels in the BODY and delete them. If you did not select the 'Morph channels' option when saving the pose, you can delete the whole body actor from the pz2. Alternatively, you can apply the pose, then resave it with 'Body transforms' deselected.

If the problem is caused by hip translations, then the best way is probably to apply the pose, adjust the hip x and z translation (but not ytran) to, or near to, zero, then resave the pose. > Quote - And what text editor to use? Since all the standard ones I have like to jumble everything up.

I use EditPad Lite, but any half decent text editor should do (Notepad is not a half decent editor). Also considder getting an editor designed specifically for editing Poser files. Not really needed in this case, but handy for editing cr2 files.

P.S.

Quote - So what am I looking for to edit out?

Here is an example of what three transform channels (one rotate and two translate) look like in a pz2 (as viewed in EditPad Lite). I have given each channel a different colour, so that you can see where a channel starts and ends. I have only included three channels for reasons of space, but you would normally have six transform channels, all of which you should normally delete. The actor you should delete them from is BODY.

        rotateZ zrot
            {
            keys
                {
                k  0  0
                }
            }
        translateX xtran
            {
            keys
                {
                k  0  -0.261
                }
            trackingScaleMult 1
            }
        translateY ytran
            {
            keys
                {
                k  0  -0.065
                }
            trackingScaleMult 1.000000
            }

As I said in my last post, if you saved morphs in the pose, the BODY actor may also contain 'valueParm' (FBM) channels which you may want to keep. If it does not contain 'valueParm' channels, you can delete the entire BODY actor. the BODY actor starts with the line:

actor BODY:1

(the number may be different in your file)

and ends with a closing brace '}' above the next 'actor' line.

Image 1: the first cube is at zero X Y Z, between Dawn's legs. The pose is created at the zero location. Her fists are posed using the posing dials she comes with. There are no body translations. The only hip translation is on the Y axis, necessary for most poses.

After typing in a name for the pose, the Morph Channels and Body Transformation boxes are left unchecked (the mouse pointer was over the OK button but the screen cap didn't catch it).

Her hands no longer hold the fist poses because they were dialed in with her posing channels, and because Morph Channels was left unchecked, the fists did not save with the pose. Body transforms was also left unchecked, yet she still returns to the zero pose location.

I'm going to assume most people who create poses follow roughly the same sequence I just demonstrated. 

So apparently poser does in fact, save body translations by default, whether the option is checked or not, even if those translations are at 0, 0, 0. 

I'm using PP2014.

So what am I doing wrong? 

~Shane

sounds like a bug.

could you post the pose file here ?

My mistake. I was translating the hip instead of the body, on the Z axis. I'd switched to hip to show that only the Y had translations in the pose. Translating the body, the pose works correctly.

So you have to translate the body, not the hip, and the pose should work as intended. If you translate the hip, even without body trans saved in the pose, the figure will pop back to zero position.

Now what is it that causes morphs to revert to zero?

~Shane

Quote - So apparently poser does in fact, save body translations by default, whether the option is checked or not, even if those translations are at 0, 0, 0.

I'm using PP2014.

So what am I doing wrong?

By default Poser does not save BODY transforms in any version from P4 through P9/PP2012. I can't imagine that this has changed in PP2014.

Your images show transform channels but they don't show which actor the channels are in. I'm guessing that they show the hip translation. If that is correct, then I offer this explanation. In the first image the hip zTran is zero. In the second image the hip zTran is -19.13. In the third image the pose has been applied, and the hip ztran has returned to a value of zero, the same value it had when the pose was saved. This is what I would expect, the pose saved the hip translation, so when the pose was applied the hip translation was restored to the value saved in the pose. Assuming that I'm correct, and it is the hip translation that we are looking at in the images, there is nothing in the images to sugest that the translation of the BODY actor has changed! The mistake is that in the second image, you zTranslated the hip, instead of zTranslating the BODY.

It is easy to prove wether the BODY is trenslating in responce to the pose. Try this. Repeat your experiment, but this time note down the translations for the BODY and hip in image one, then save the pose.  Now move the figure again as you did in image two, then apply the pose. Now look in the BODY actor. If the BODY has translated, then the values on the translation dials will be different from those you noted in image one. Are they different? If so the pose has translated the BODY. If the translation valuse in the BODY are the same as in image one (I'm sure they will be) then the BODY has not moved.

Now look in the hip. Before the pose was applied in image two, the hip zTran was -19.13 (or whatever), now it should be the same value as it had in image one (eg zero). If so than it is the hip actor that has moved not the BODY actor.

In a properly constructed pose file the hip translation should normally be zero or a fairly small value. Applying the pose will restore the hip translation to what is was when the pose was saved. This is normal and to be expected. If the figure moves to a radically different location when the poses is applied, either the pose contains a large hip translation (which it should not), or you gave the figure a large hip translation before the pose was applied (which you should not have done, you should have translated the BODY instead of the hip), and the pose is just putting the hip back where it should be in relation to the BODY. It's correcting your mistake of translating the hip.

Now if what we are seeing in your images is the dials for the BODY actor, not the hip, then I will stand to be corrected.

Two further points. I don't have Dawn, I'm assuming that 'hip' is the proximate child of the BODY in that figure. That is the case in most figures, but not all. If some other actor is the proximate child of the BODY, then you should read that other part in places where I refer to "hip". Also, I note from your images that zTran is slaved to some other channel, I'm not sure if that is affecting anything in this case, but I suspect not. [cross posted] :(

Quote - Now what is it that causes morphs to revert to zero?

If the 'Morph Channels' option was selected when saving the pose, and if the morphs were at zero when the pose was saved, then that would be the explanation. The pose is just restoring the morphs to the (zero) values saved in the pose. If 'Morph Channels' wasn't selected when the pose was saved, then I don't know the answer, and I would probably need to see the figure cr2 and/or the pz2 to work out what was happening.

Great thread.  Useful info here.

animated poses are a bigger pain because they can legitimately use morphs to effect body part movements (ok so I admit it , tittie bouncing ! ) but you should remove all other morph channels from the pose file.

using hip translations to move the figure was the accepted approach for poser 4 and 5 because the body actor did not save. Now it should be the body actor used.

@ markschum: thanks. that answered my next question.

@lesbentley: thanks. it's understandable that more complex poses would require popping the hood and digging around to manually edit the pz2. 

would definitely be nice if the pop-up box came with more detailed options, such as which morphs you want to include and which you dont, etc. 

~Shane

You could always include the multiframe option and save the frames you want the morphs included in.