I have been using PP 2014 for a short while. I tried to import a BVH file and got very strange results. The figure's shoulders are pulled way up into the air and bent backward. Also the wrists are all twisted. I tried several different BVH files. Then I tried one file on different figures including the Victorias, the Michaels, James, Simon, and so on. I even tried the old P4 Dork. I got the same results each time.

I googled for info and discovered that others have mentioned the problem over the last couple of years. However no one seems to have solved it. I found postings describing elaborate hand-editing of BVH files. Others suggested using various software packages. However most of these suggestions are for Carrara, which apparently uses a system different from Poser's. So they wouldn't work anyway. Some people described hip problems instead of shoulder problems. However the hips on my figures work fine.

Can anyone tell me how to import a BVH file successfully?

Sometimes the rigging in a BVH just isn't compatible with Poser figures. You can address some compatibility issues using BVHacker (http://davedub.co.uk/bvhacker/), which can help give you some idea of what's going on inside the BVH itself.

I guess the first questions to ask would be, where did you get the BVH file? When you import the BVH and it asks you about the orientation axis for the arms, what option are you selecting?

In a new scene: Try enabling 'use limits' with IK turned off(before loading .bvh), if that still isnt enough, try changing limits to lower values on offending body parts(usually r&l shoulder, collars and/or neck). As Cage points out, there are many files that aren't compatible with posers naming conventions. I've seen files where the collars are named shoulder and shoulders are called upper arms for example. BVHacker(IMHO) should be in every animators toolbox, not only can you rename body parts but you can also reset start(or)stop coordinates to zero(or any other coordinate) ,rotation(only on first frame at root/body level) or trim animation if desired.

Somewhat off-topic for BVH, but related: I have found that, in addition to the different naming of bones, the number of bones do not match Poser bone rig convention. It is particularly vexing to convert a rigged FBX figure into Poser, only to find that Poser does not understand the names of the additional bones, and thus cannot rig clothing for the figure.

As others have stated you have BVH files that have differently named bones. There was a free archive of "poser compatible" BVH file but the URL Escapes me at moment.

Hi have a go at some of the files from here

https://sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com/cgspeed/motion-capture/daz-friendly-release

Thanks to everyone for the advice. Since writing my first post I stumbled upon enabling limits disabling IK, That greatly helped many files. I'll follow Jafo's suggestion to tinker with the limits settings. Cage's question about where the files came from started me experimenting with bvh's from different sources. The results varied wildly! I had the best luck with a set of "hip-adjusted" Carnegie-Mellon files. Almost everything worked though the shoulders were pinched.

This shows how much I have to learn! I had imagined bvh files were universal, like 3DS files, which open properly in almost every application. Instead there appear to be dozens of different flavors. I have downloaded bvhacker and will see if I can fix some of these quirks.

Thanks again for all the help.