You may have noticed I like Daleks a little bit.  I thought about giving you good people the opportunity to build your own custom Dalek using pieces I provide, by following a straightforward tutorial.

I propose to show you in easy to follow stages, exactly how I get from a bunch of static props built in Wings to a fully rigged, poseable model with ERC.

The only app you will need - other than Poser - is CR2Editor, which is free and dead easy to use, as well as being absolutely superb.

Even if Daleks don't float yer boat, you may find it of use for learning how to rig mechanical models.

I'll get the model parts sorted out over the next couple of weeks - I have a lot of RL stuff to deal with right now - and when the pack is uploaded, I'll start a thread here.

If, of course, there's sufficient interest.

 sounds good it do interest  me thanks  Sam

Interest here as well. :)

Thanks for the feedback.  Any more takers?

 Oh yes, on my seat here. 3,2,1, and Ready.
Thank you for the offer.  

I have been promising myself to try to learn rigging from back in my Poser 4 days. So this would be awesome of you to provide!  Thanks so much!

The ERC and geometry switching esoterica would be greatly appreciated by this Poser user, Sam. Other than Secrets Of Figure Creation With Poser 5 and Nerd3D's tutorials information about these facets of Poser are pretty scarce.

Looking forward...

Great stuff, everyone.  @ DeathMetalDesk - I'll include the Geom Switching, too.  I forgot to mention that in my first post.  Ta for mentioning it.  

One other thing worth mentioning here; I won't be covering UV mapping, other than a brief mention.  I'll Map any of the parts where necessary and tell you the mapping projection used.  My reasons for not getting into any depth on the subject is simply that my own mapping skills aren't well developed - yet - but I've recently made a breakthrough with UVMapper Pro's Interactive Mapping features.  As I'm still finding my way with it, I'm not the best person to be teaching it.  The other stuff, though, I reckon I can make a good enough job of it.

Looking forward to it, anything that helps with this stuff is a bonus!

If this helps me to better understand the rigging magic, count me in!

 look forward to it too...... so long since I made anything for poser ;-) should be fun and never did get the hang of geom switching

sounds good from here

Yes please ;-)

Monkeycloud! What's up man!? Hope you'll pop by the forum more often, was wondering whatever became...:)

What primorge said!

The modelling is all done.  I'm writing up the text now.  Should be posted in a couple of days.

Very nice of you, and thanks a lot for all the hard work.
Have a very nice W-End, Tony

Sam, perhaps you could start with a smaller tutorial on say the Dalek arm assembly and use it to show the basics of rigging a machine.

Did you intend to use a single obj and  phibuilder ?  

Nice one Sam :-)

How's it going Primorge? Good to see you're still kicking about here :-)

I've just been a bit distracted by and in demand from non-virtual reality for the last wee while... But found a minute to skim the Rendo ebot emails last night and caught this thread ;-) Hoping to find a bit of time soon to get back to some CG stuff...

Looking forward to seeing whatever you come up with mc (time permitting)... Hope you and the family are well.:)

Hey, O Cloud of Monkeys!  Good to read you.

@ Mark - Nope, and nope.  :)  My method is dead easy and straightforward, so no need for a shorter tutorial.  It's pretty much a bomb proof method.  It says here.  :)

Curious to see a "bomb proof" rigging method, I could use one myself ;-)

Is it Reality Bomb proof though... that's the real test ;-)

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Reality_bomb

What? You got something against Cybermen, Sam? :)

(Dammit, what happened to the emoticons?)

Between them, the Daleks and Cybermen have removed all emoticons Earl ;-)

While we're on the subject of Cybermen, here's a link to that Cyberman mask freebie I made a while back (as DeathMetalDesk)...

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByIxWY9EMK8jODEweWxKa3hURk0/edit?usp=sharing

and here's the thread regarding...

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2868574#msg4072700

In a couple of months I'll be reuploading alot of my old freebies (including a remapped version of the mask) and many new things I've made (figures, props, morphs, textures, etc.) over the past couple years... probably here and at sharecg. I actually have quite a few elaborate goodies to share and I miss being part of that aspect of the community, so...

Edit_ don't ask me why there's a violence advisory, baffled. (?)

Nice Cyber helmet Primorge :-)

I've got a Who themed freebie of my own I really need to find time to finish up. Hopefully fit it in soon... if I don't get too carried away following Sam's tutorial and trying to rig my own custom Daleks that is! ;-)

Thanks monkeycloud... again, look forward to seeing whatever you come up with. You've always done excellent work with whatever you endeavour.

As an aside, still not sure why so many people are troubled/intimidated by rigging. Must be the instant gratification thing that's symptomatic of Poser... really just requires patience and research, its more tedious than anything. plus the fact that many of the tech nuances seem to be buried in obscure lore. Of course this depends on what your working on, but still... just my 2 cents. ;)

Just an M4 morph I was working on... as featured in the "Something Wicked This Way Comes" render in my gallery... yes, the one featuring Daleks AND a Cyberman ;-)

I've got to get it in a reasonable enough shape to distribute... as initially it was just mushed together in ZBrush, well enough to do what I needed to do with it. Needs tweaked a bit more so that it works properly with M4's rigging and expression morphs, currently. But once I find some time, then, "Geronimo!" ...as they say...

Hey, thanks for the comment Sam. Had that one on the backburner from a few months back... this thread reminded me to render it ;-)

Yeah, it's an ST5, if I remember rightly.

While we're on the subject of Cybermen, here's a link to that Cyberman mask freebie I made a while back (as DeathMetalDesk)...

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByIxWY9EMK8jODEweWxKa3hURk0/edit?usp=sharing

Oh!  So you are/were "DeathMetalMask"?  Just in case I didn't do so in that earlier thread, I want to thank you for the accurately crafted mesh!  I really like the fact you gave it numerous material zones allowing one to "customize" the helmet to one's liking.  Daleks get most of the limelight, leaving the poor ol' Cybies waiting in the wings.  But thanks to fans like you, Richard Marklew, Dodger and a few others, that gap is slowly but surely getting filled.
Sincerely,

Bill

Thank you Bill, it's good to know there are tireless supporters/creators of classic sci-fi content for Poser such as yourself. Always nice to hear from you, in fact I'd say it's downright uncanny how you always seem to drop in wherever topics such as this are being discussed... :)

Bill has a built in Who-dar.  :)  

As for the freebie/tutorial, it's a bit slow going at the moment.  I'm in a lot of pain and finding it hard to concentrate.  Going into the krankenhaus tomorrow for a bit of slice and dice; nowt serious, but enough to keep me away for a couple of days.

With luck and a strong wind I'll be back to it by the end of this week, and looking to upload next week.

I'll also try to organize some of the other freebies I worked on over the past year.

Sorry to hear that Sam, looking forward to your return when you feel up to it... haven't been feeling too well myself, nothing serious, minor aches n such from work and the lingering effects of too many vices. I work construction in the RW and apparently I'm the designated strong-man lately... I'll be 48 soon and just don't have the joint stamina I used to. Sigh. Anyway...

I also possess acutely tuned "fur-dar", especially when it comes to kemono styled cat-girls, but that's a subject for another thread.

Discussing Cybermen, I've been tweaking a prototype .CR2 developed by the Who3D team several years ago, a "Tenth Planet" Mondasian Cyberman.  Honestly, I forget how many years, but it was probably during the Poser 4 era.  I think 'Nod" (a member here and at Who3D) made this, but I'm not sure.  The chest box came from another source (where, I flat out forget).  I experimented with procedural material a couple of years ago,  But just this evening, I replaced the existing low polygon hands with the hand figures that come with Poser.  I gave them a custom multi-node based material creating distended veins and wrinkled skin.  Finally, I "hid" the existing "rings" that distorted with joint bends and "parented" cylinder props that maintain their rigid shape.

Sincerely,

Bill

Hey, that's a pretty creepy image Bill... Cool. IMO there seems to be a more horror slanted vibe to the Cybermen than you find with the Daleks, you've captured that here.

...seems as though the Cybermen have subtley infiltrated this thread while the Daleks had their eye-sticks pointed elsewhere.

I used to "roll" my eyes at the "Tenth Planet" design, considering it embarrassingly low budget, all but sneering at the "ski mask".  Until one day at one of the dedicated Doctor Who discussion sites someone uttered two seemingly innocuous words, "surgical bandages".  Like the flipping of the switch, I saw the Mondas Cybermen in a totally different light.  I pictured a patient within the operating theater.  His respiratory and circulatory systems are bypassed with a compact heart/lung machine sitting upon a nearby table.  He's fitted with a thermal regulating suit that can raise or lower his body temperature as needed.  His face is wrapped in bandages.  And rather than chemical or gaseous compounds for anesthesia, a nerve blocking "cap" is placed upon his skull.  Suddenly, the patient's eyes snap open.  He rises from the operating table and in a daze, seizes the internally powered heart/lung device and clutches it to his chest as he staggers zombie-like from the surgical theater, the operating staff too shocked to try detaining the patient.

Now, I'm not saying that's how the Cybermen actually started, but I think it helps "sell" the design as depicted in the 1966 serial and thus makes it the most unsettling of the Cyberman motifs.

Sincerely,

Bill

Bill has a built in Who-dar.  :)  

As for the freebie/tutorial, it's a bit slow going at the moment.  I'm in a lot of pain and finding it hard to concentrate.  Going into the krankenhaus tomorrow for a bit of slice and dice; nowt serious, but enough to keep me away for a couple of days.

With luck and a strong wind I'll be back to it by the end of this week, and looking to upload next week.

I'll also try to organize some of the other freebies I worked on over the past year.

Hope everything went okay with the procedure(?) Sam... and they were able to figure out where everything went and put you back together... in any better shape? Also, I hope it was nothing like the description in Bill's fantastically imagined back story for the Tenth Planet cybermen above!!! ;-)

Hehe,nowt like.  I had an abcess on me posterior that needed cauterizing.  No pain from it now, fortunately but I'm bleeding like a stuck pig.  That's nowt to worry about, they say.  Feel a bit groggy though, a bit of post-op malaise, or summat.

Ah, good to hear you're out the other side Sam. Hope the after effects are receding too... and the blood loss!

Take care and take it easy.
Looking forward to seeing the fruits of your labours soon as you're back up on your feet... well, y'know what I mean ;-)

Another iconic moment with the Cybermen, emerging from the London sewers in "The Invasion".

This one uses Dodger's "Invasion" Cyberman .CR2 and a manhole prop from Lab-103.

I hope Dodger won't be too upset since I replaced his helmet with one of my own.  Years ago I modeled a Moonbase/Tomb/Wheel in Space type helmet.  For this I "extracted" the "earmuffs" and handles from Dodger's and parented them to my model.

Sincerely,

Bill

It is very iconic. Good job, Bill.