Hi all,

I am very frustrated.  I use Poser Pro 2010, and have been trying to save a partial pose to my library, then load it.  Since Poser gives you that dialog on save asking which actors to include in the pose, I assume that is supports saving a partial pose.  I select only the fingers that I want to pose and save it.  However, when I go to reload that pose in a fresh scene, it inserts keyframes for every actor on the figure.  Is this just the way it works?  I did not think it worked that way.  Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for any help,

-digitani

If you are saving a Hand pose why don't you save that to the Hand library?

Hey, DarkEdge, thanks for your response!

Its true that in my example, I could have used a hand pose, but I'm not just concerned about that example.  I want to be able to load a partial pose in general without creating key frames for all of the actors/parameters that were not posed.  If you can't do this, then it seems like poses are useless when you are doing animation.  You are forced to do everything by hand.  This would be very disappointing to me, because the thing that I love about Poser is how modular it is.  Being able to save a pose for use later is so great and would be very helpful in animation, but not so much if loading that pose puts keyframes in for every body part and parameter every time.  When keyframing my animation, I want to be able to load a preset arm or leg position and only create keyframes for those parameters that changed with the pose.

I did some more thorough testing, and did verify that loading a partial pose does not override the current value of a parameter that is not included in the pose.  It just creates a keyframe with the current value.

Can anyone tell me if this is just how Poser works, or am I doing something wrong?

At the risk of sounding whiny, I just can't imaging a circumstance under which this would be desired behavior.

Thanks again,

-digitani

I'm sure there are other ways to do this (??) but this is how I create partial poses:

1. Create the pose and save (full body, everything).

2. Open the pz2 file (runtime:libraries:pose) with a file editor (I use poser file editor) and delete unwanted body parts from file, leave version and figure.

3. Save pz2 file as new.

I opened up my pz2 file to see its content, and it does only contain the one body part I posed.  It must be that Poser creates all of those other keyframes when it applies the pose.

Is there any way to stop it from doing that?

I just tried this in Poser 7, and it seems to be the way it works, sadly.

Applying a hand pose sets keyframes on the hand and digits you specify - good - but it also, bizarrely, sets them on the lights. In fact, other seemingly unrelated things set keyframes on the lights... Like rendering...

As you suggest, applying a saved partial pose sets keyframes on all body parts (yeah, and the lights too). I checked the pose file that I'd saved in an editor, and only the selected actor was in there; so this does sound like a bug.

A pose file edited according to DarkEdge's suggestion will also set keyframes on all parts, unfortunately.

The best I can suggest is to open the animation palette (a most under-used and very handy item) and delete the unwanted keyframes. This may quickly become tedious. :(

It's possible this has been fixed in a version later than yours or mine.

Thanks so much, EnglishBob!

That's not the answer I was hoping for, but its starting to look that way.  If anyone with a newer version can confirm it is still like that, I would be interested in knowing.  That might be worth an upgrade.

I did notice that P3DO Explorer Pro includes a feature that lets you open only part of a pose, but they did not specify whether it avoids creating all of these extra keyframes.  That product is $25, so I might shell out for that if it would solve the problem in an efficient way.

As far as the keyframes on the lights, I just installed a service pack on PoserPro 2010, and I belive the readme says that it fixes the light keyframe bug.  I tested, and indeed I don't get keyframes on my lights.

If you have not already patched Poser 7 with SR3, you should look into that.

-digitani

P3dO Explorer is well worth getting, in my opinion; but if I had to guess, I'd guess that its partial pose feature uses the same mechanism as applying one within Poser and would be subject to the same bug. The developer (Yarp) is approachable and friendly though, so I'd encourage you to ask him if this is a deal breaker for you.

My Poser 7 is patched to SR3 - the light keyframe bug is not fixed in that release, but thanks for the suggestion. It doesn't bother me too much since I don't use the animation features in the traditional way anyway; my default condition is keyframes on every frame, and I usually have the animation palette open somewhere on my screen since it's integral to my workflow.  

Quote -
That's not the answer I was hoping for, but its starting to look that way.  If anyone with a newer version can confirm it is still like that, I would be interested in knowing.  That might be worth an upgrade.

Just tested. It's the same in PP2014.  

I'd say it's a bug. 

~Shane

If you have any partial poses avaliable, I'd suggest a test. Apply one partial, check the keyframes. Keys assigned to the rest of the actors? If yes, go back and apply a second partial that involves the untouched actors. Check keyframes again. Does the second application over-write the first? I may be wrong, but it seems to me a way to make sure the whole character stays in one piece. You wouldn't want to apply a whole bunch of partials, run an animation, only to find the left index finger remaining where it started.

The key thing from what I can understand (admittedly that isn't a lot) is that if the next applied partial pose over writes the previous ones, what's the problem?

Hi All, P3dO is frankly a great tool for partial Posing, and it will only update the actors you selected and it will not update the actors you didn't select.

Digitani, this tool will save you hours of Posing.

Plus: partial Poses also apply to hands, and Faces. And that face stuff is really awsome you can easily select to just pose the mouth or eyes and it gives so many possibilities.

Plus: it has the ability to strip morphs form Poses, and to prevent the figure from being moved on the XY axis.

Those 2 features not released yet. This Autumn version (or by request from registered users).

This is the partial pose page on my website:

http://www.senosoft.com/plugins/OpenPart.php

Here, I've applied a hand pose from the hand library. Only his right hand has been posed, and keyframes have been set on all the actors of his right hand, according to the contents of the hand pose.

BUT - and this is what digitani is asking about - it sets keyframes on all of Simon's actors, even the ones that were not included in the pose file. This means that they're 'pinned' at their current value, which spoils any interpolation that may be going on. A pain in the arse for an animator.

Although only Simon's right forearm pose was changed, you can see that keyframes have been set figure-wide as before.

Digitani isn't claiming that things are posed that shouldn't be; rather that the setting of keyframes on every actor is a problem for an animator.

Is there any reason you can think of that this might be an intentional part of the coding?

It seems a bug report should be filed with SM. Multiple bug reports on the same issue will get their attention faster if it's indeed a bug. Maybe there's a setting somewhere that's being overlooked. 

~Shane

Quote - Is there any reason you can think of that this might be an intentional part of the coding?

I can't think of one; which is not the same thing as there not being a reason, of course.

When they fixed the light keyframe bug, did they deliberately leave the figure keyframing, or had it just not been reported? I imagine that very few people would even notice it, and fewer still would be troubled by it.

Quote - It seems a bug report should be filed with SM. Multiple bug reports on the same issue will get their attention faster if it's indeed a bug. Maybe there's a setting somewhere that's being overlooked.

I agree, but it should probably be done by users who have the latest versions. I doubt I'd get far submitting a report on a version that's three behind!

Wow, EnglishBob!  That was a fantastic explanation of my problem.

Thanks so much, yarp!  I am sure that P3DO is a great tool, but does it still create those extraneous keyframes as EnglishBob was describing?

I suppose I should file a bug report with SM.  I currently have a more important bug report out for an even more obscure firefly rendering problem, so I'm inclined to wait until they respond to that before filing another.  Maybe that's silly.

I think not, because P3dO's partial poses strips all unselected actors. In fact it creates a brand new pose with just the selected actors, thus extra keyframes simply don't exist in the pose.

So it's exactly like the first case which EnglishBob described.

I will demonstrate this this evening (I am at work right now).

Yarp

Ok, I did the test and it failed. Keyframes were inserted on every actor. That's for sure a surprise since I only posed the right arm. In the partial Pose there were only that arm actors but keyframes have been inserted on all actors.

But I managed to find a way to do it :)

I will implement it this weekend. It will be available next week on request or in next version.

It is simple: I fooled Poser by loading the Pose with the Hand pose function and it worked (thanks EB for the tip). I only have keyframes on the selected actors, now.

That's clever! I'd assumed the hand pose function was hard-coded to only accept hand actors, so I never tried that.

Edit: now I think about it, I'm wrong - I did know about that. Back in the days of Poser 4, once MAT poses were invented, it was very easy to fill up your library. We used to rename our MAT poses as cameras to get around that. You could also rename them as hand poses, except that the Left-Right dialog was a bit of a pain so not many did it that way.

Poser doesn't care about the file contents - but apparently it is hard-coded to only set keyframes on the actors if and only if you use the hand pose function.

Hand poses and regular poses are about the same (if not the same), the type is the only difference. So for sure the loading function is the key, this is why you gave me the idea to try that.

There's a chance that loading a Pose like a hand also has other advantages -like stripping morphs- but it could be a problem for an animator. This has to be tested.

I will set this as an option, just in case somebody at Smith Micro change the rules - let's hope not.

Quote - Ok, I did the test and it failed. Keyframes were inserted on every actor. That's for sure a surprise since I only posed the right arm. In the partial Pose there were only that arm actors but keyframes have been inserted on all actors.

Yep, I was unpleasantly surprised too.  That was a frustrating day.  I'm also surprised that so many more experienced people than myself did not seem to know that this is how it worked.  I don't think what I'm trying to do is so strange. :-P

Quote - It is simple: I fooled Poser by loading the Pose with the Hand pose function and it worked (thanks EB for the tip). I only have keyframes on the selected actors, now.

Wow, as EnglishBob said, that was very clever!  It also shows your level of Poser expertise that you even thought to try that. :-)  Great job, and thanks so much for figuring that out!  I do wish Poser would officially support this rather than us having to do a workaround, but this gets me working.  I have not tested it on my system yet, but I trust you.

Also, kudos on incorporating that option into P3DO!  It sounds like you have a great product there.

Thank you digitani, honestly P3dO is great. That feature will be available soon.

I have always been interested in 3D animation this is why I have been so reactive. btw P3dO also has a bvh/pz2 animation preview - and reading from zip too. 

A query about English Bob's/yarp's comments at the bottom of the last page about loading a partial pose with the hand pose function.

Do I understand correctly? Can I just take any partial pose PZ2 file (i.e. standard PZ2 file with the bits I don't want manually stripped out), rename it as an HD2 file, (and I think it has to be put in the 'Hands' folder so Poser will actually see it?) and apply it in the standard way by clicking the icon?

I ask because I've been having a problem with Anime Girl Kristin. Her hand bones are named RHand/LHand (not rHand/lHand) and Poser won't let me create hand poses for her. I ended up creating separate partial poses for left hand and right hand, and that works fine. After reading this thread I tried renaming them as HD2 and putting them in the Hands folder. I get the usual Right/Left hand selection dialog, but nothing seems to change.

Puzzled? Pete

Quote - Can I just take any partial pose PZ2 file (i.e. standard PZ2 file with the bits I don't want manually stripped out), rename it as an HD2 file, (and I think it has to be put in the 'Hands' folder so Poser will actually see it?) and apply it in the standard way by clicking the icon?

Poser library files are of two types, fundamentally. Those that add geometry to the scene (figures, props, hair) and those that modify scene elements (poses, hands, faces, cameras, lights and materials). You can, in general, swap content freely within each category. Later versions of Poser let you put pretty much anything anywhere, or so they tell me.

I don't have Kristin, or a version of Poser installed later than 7, so I can't comment further on that. However it is evident that there's some hard-coded behaviour associated with the hand library. Having mis-named hand bones strikes me as a mistake.