Ok, couldn't sleep, had an epiphany ... but I can't get the prop to stay together. I have a disk inside an open-cylinder ...I parented the disc to the cylinder and when I grab the disc it moves out of the cylinder. I want them to always move together. What am I missing? It seems that it should be simple. by the way it's hard to only grab the cylinder every time. I've flattened it in an attempt to create a recessed ceiling light. Help please.

I tried it, used the open cylinder and the HiRes Disk from Primitivves, scaled it down to the cylinders diameter, parented the object to the cylinder and saved it. When I loaded the new object the disk is in place and follows the cylinder.

Cool ... but if you accidently grab the disc does it come out of the cylinder? that is the problem I had. I grouped them so I just moved the grouping box, but that isn't what I wanted to do.

As I wrote, I parented the disk thats all, other solution, export it as a wavefront object.

Thanks ... I think the save must be the trick. Thank you very much.

Load cylinder Load disk

Save wavefront obj file => select both and export as obj file.

Second method. From PP2014 onwards, you can create a group of object files, and handle them as a single group. => You get a box with a handle to move your group of object files. I can not remember the page in the manual, but it is in there.

You can add objects or remove objects from the group at will.

So basic that all of us missed it at first. Boni parented disc to cylinder. She selected/moved the disc. The disc is the child object, not the parent object.

Solution: Select/move the cylinder (not the disc). Or, reverse the parenting relationship.

True that's what I did ... but I kept selecting it by accident, the cylinder was squished down on the y axis and I had trouble selecting the cylinder rather than the disc. I did save and re-import and that helped. I also made a group and although I liked that the box thing is annoying. Just me. The purpose to create a recessed ceiling light ... see my thread on mesh lighting.

Then maybe you should reverse the parenting; i.e., parent the cylinder to the disc, so that you can select/move the disc and the cylinder will follow.

I prefer the method to export as obj and import again. Now you have one prop with different parts (cylinder, disk) for easy texturing.

Me too, especially if there is an array of multiple lights - that way you have only one material zone for the light lenses and only one for the buckets.

All good points. Now let me throw a monkey wrench into this. A recessed light does not stick out. It is recessed.

You need to cut holes in your ceiling and move the cans up into those holes.

Also, due to path tracing uselessness, I put point lights in the cans and the image converges in seconds, not hours.

Here are some recessed cans, made with Poser Pro 2014 and FireFly. SuperFly is not required.

I knew someone would come in with the true nature of recessed lighting, and I suspected it would be you bagginsbill! Agreed on all points. My test though was to experiment with mesh lights (I have another thread about that. Can one "cut" holes in a ceiling inside of Poser? My assumption was that:

1. you can't cut holes using Poser alone
2. mesh lights create more real world lighting and therefore are preferable over Poser lights. This is why I approached the project this way ... besides I couldn't sleep and was doing most of this at 2:00 in the morning and probably not thinking as clearly as I would otherwise.

BTW ... those renders are AMAZING!!!

Boni posted at 10:18AM Sun, 17 January 2016 - #4248940

I knew someone would come in with the true nature of recessed lighting, and I suspected it would be you bagginsbill! Agreed on all points. My test though was to experiment with mesh lights (I have another thread about that. Can one "cut" holes in a ceiling inside of Poser? My assumption was that:

1. you can't cut holes using Poser alone
2. mesh lights create more real world lighting and therefore are preferable over Poser lights. This is why I approached the project this way ... besides I couldn't sleep and was doing most of this at 2:00 in the morning and probably not thinking as clearly as I would otherwise.

1. I would load the room in a modeler and create the holes. I guess you could also "cut" the holes using transmaps, but putting them in the exact position is probably not easy.

2. SuperFly or FireFly? In SuperFly even Point Lights and Spot Lights are like mesh lights. BB proved that in a thread at RDNA. In FireFly, it's hard to get rid of the splotchies you get indoors with GI, so there are a lot of settings where mesh lights simply do not work.

Great clarification Thanks!!