I have an image in mind that requires a person's body parts disconnected: arms, legs, torso, head. Rather than have four complete figures with everything but the needed part not visible, I want to use body parts. The body parts will be fighting, so they will be posed for various frames.

I can export selections of parts as OBJ, then import those OBJ's into the scene. But they aren't poseable. I have to pose them on the full figure, then export the posed part, say leg. That works.

But is there a way to save or export body parts that are poseable in Poser?

Well, well, we are on the same wavelength. When you are not into porn (i.e. when your figures are clothed) your interest is restricted to the visible parts of the body, not to the full thing and this, e.g., remove all the figure/clothing compatibility issues.

Watching with extreme interest this thread.

Toggling body part visibility in the hierarchy or using transparency on the body parts not sufficient?

Ok, fast n dirty. I'll be using a blank V4 .cr2 (contains no morphs, materials, IK, magnets, etc.). You can use just a regular stock .cr2 but transferring the rig will bring alot of unnecessary stuff with it if it's contained therein.

Load the figure you want to amputate into the scene.

Window: joint editor: zero rotations. Close joint editor. (This is a safety measure).

File: export: wavefront OBJ. Click universe to clear hierarchy. Select (x) the parts that comprise the arm (from shoulder to all hand parts), export options: check only 'include existing groups in polygon groups'. Name .obj (v4 arm). Save.

Delete v4 from scene. File: import Wavefront OBJ: Import options: weld identical vertices. choose amputation model. Import.

Click and enter set up room with arm model selected.

Open library. Navigate to v4. Load figure.

Now at this stage you'll see v4's rig load into the scene. You have a couple of options at this point. You can methodically delete all extra bones or just leave the setup room. I'll just choose to leave the setup room. Once back in the pose room you'll have a rigged v4 arm (with alot of unassociated with geometry extra actors, and sundry other crap, depending). You can save this to the library, poser will generate a referenced .obj in the characters folder with the .cr2.

Conformer 101... really not that interesting at all chaecuna.

As far as the ugly breaks where you amputated the limbs? I can think of a couple of ways to fix that. Me personally? I'd just model or remodel something in an external modeler, add a sympathetic donor rig or just make my own models and rigs.

Thanks for the help. I will try it later today.

I don't have the option to model: that's too advanced for me.

The reason I don't want to use full figures with everything but the desired part invisible is I am concerned that would be too much in the scene. Wouldn't editing become sluggish? I would need 6 figures: 2 arms, 2 legs, torso, head. If I go further to separate the feet and hands, then it's 10

There will already be a lot of figures, because each limb is fighting one or two people..

You'll have to delete all the bones that aren't needed and will be left over in that case. Select bone, press delete. Let me know if you run into any problems, which you may... I'll try to sort it out for you. That's alot of bones to delete, and I'm not certain of the results until I sit down and test it. Everything should work as expected, but Poser can get strange when dealing with multiple figures and extreme rig modifications.

It worked fine with V4 and M4. But with M3, the character I am working with, it causes cracks when I bend the parts.

One example is in this image: grasp the hand does this:

Ok. Easy fix on that.

Daz gen 3 figures do not load with their limbs/arms zeroed. Did you zero the figure with the joint editor before exporting the limb as I instructed above? Always Zero! ;)

Here's the steps a-z for m3...

Load m3 from library

With m3 selected, window: joint editor.

Zero rotations. Close joint editor.

File: Export Wavefront obj. All options unchecked except 'include existing groups'. Select just limb parts. Export.

File: Import wavefront obj. All options uncheck except 'weld indentical'.

Enter set up room with limb model selected. Load m3 (unlike a pose room load, m3's rig will load zero in set up room) from library by clicking change figure. Exit setup room. Done. The tearing problem you encountered is because you loaded the zero rig onto the non zeroed mesh, consequently the meshes vertices were falling outside the influence spheres of their poly groups relative bones, hence tearing. You see this problem with conformers also, generally resulting in something that looks like spikes shooting away from the mesh or actual tears. With conformers you usually fix the problem by scaling its fall off zones to include those verts. Not necessary in this case.

Always zero rotations on your first limb donor instance with the joint editor. Also there's actually a "super" zero included with Poser that can be accessed via Wardrobe Wizard/Figure scripts that will zero both rotations and translations (if any). I personally use Dimension3d's 'Reset Values' Script which lets you zero all values (morphs, parameters, hidden, rotations and translations, etc.) selectively.

Let me know if you encounter any more issues. Every different figure has different things to consider.

Yes, I was forgetting to zero. Thanks.

For Genesis 1, there is a product called Severed Man over at DAZ...

This looked promising in my quest to rid V4.2 of her body. I want her animated head talking, so I need her head to swivel on her neck, without the base of her neck moving.

Back in 2010, Lesbently made a cr2 with V4s head. The head has the neck as a child, and it worked really great with PP2010. But, for some reason, it doesn't work in PP2014. I skipped 2012, so I don't know if it worked there, but in PP 2014, the head goes all wonky when the neck is moved.

I wasn't able to get any help fixing it, so I'm looking for a new method.

I tried EldritchCellar's instructions in this thread, thinking I might be able to figure out how to change the hierachy issue later, but my resulting figure is still F'ed up.

Bending the neck 25 degrees looks like this:

and bending the head 25 degrees breaks the neck like this:

I'm really just hoping to make a V4 base model with just the head and neck, and with the neck a child of the head, that I can load morph packs onto for several different figures. Any suggestions?

Trying to set up a master dial for 10 geometry switching dials atm. In a text editor. Gaaaaaaah! Not even sure if what I'm doing is possible. Close to finding out on an experimental simplified figure.

I don't know. One thing I do know is that I'm no LesBentley. Head move without the neck moving? Try deleting all bones except for the head, eyes, jaws, tongue actors would be a start. Load that rig onto just the head parts and neck geometry. Ignore the ungrouped polys warning. Can't test right now... I'll look later.

Actually not quite sure what you are trying to do... you say you want to move the head without the neck moving and then you describe moving the neck. ???

Final diagnosis. valueOpDeltaAdd unable to drive geomChan dials. Ah well.

Edit_ it does work! Just have to adjust the deltaAddDelta value.

Sorry, I just discovered some really cool Poser .cr2 esoterica.

I only want the neck to move- like the head is in a vice. I thought I would work with a simplified model with just the chest head and neck (the chest has part of the neck) but I couldn't even get the simplified figure to move right. I didn't want to try to go further without a working figure to build on.

Hmmm. Got me on that one... have you tried setting up an IK chain with the hip as a root and the head as the goal? Set up the chain, hide all undesired body parts except head and neck, enable the ik chain and manipulate from the chest or hip, just guessing you'd have to experiment. Might work... could be a starting point for a chopped rig with such an IK. Just speculation. I think IK is the solution.

IK, forcing limits, and Chain Break tool are all things you should look into.

Would be interesting if you could create a rig that consists of head, eyes, mouth parts, and neck, with corresponding geometry, and set up an ik chain with the head as the goal and the neck as the root. It's entirely possible.

How can I upload this cr2 zip that LesBentley made? It's about 45KB and has the V4 head and neck with hierarchy reversed in a runtime tree. It worked great on PP2010, but 2014 broke it somehow. It might be a simple fix, but may be a lost cause. I don't know enough to know.

I would just change the format to jpg, but I don't know if that would get me in trouble here.