Is is possible to control a figure (or actor) visibility with a parameter? I THINK I've seen this before in the past, involving some CR2 editing, but I can't find anything in the forums or googling around.

I have no idea if you can do exactly that but you could probably achieve the same effect with geometry switching. ISTR you could do it with Python, too.

That sounds like a great workaround or even the actual way to do it, thanks!

It can be done in the mat room quite simply, but depending upon the character may take a bit of work. Animate the textures. The little key icon beside each parameter in the mat room is the animate icon. Go to the frame you wish your character disappear in and set their materials to not render by turning off the diffuse, spec, et al. and turn transparency to 1. Your character will fade away from frame one to the frame with the non-light reactive (transparent) doll. If you want to have the disappearance more instantaneous then key frame the doll with good textures the frame or two before the vanishing which will speed up the fade immensely. To make your life easier EZskin or VSS can be used to set all the character textures at once so you don't have to go through the tedium of setting each texture one at a time.

Thank you for the suggestion, but I would prefer a geometry based solution, because some of the figures I intend to hide have many materials and some have transparency too. It's a good idea though.

You can animate the Visibility parameter dial for the figure as well.

As for the many mat issue; that is why i suggested VSS or EZskin to mass apply the non-reactive texture across any or all the figures material zones. This allows for a simple mat to be saved as a preset to be used on any figure or prop as necessary irregardless of the mats or maps used in the original textures. Both are free and can be non-destructive to existing materials changing only the surface parameters and not the maps.

If you want to do body part replacement then we are talking a different solution but for making parts or props disappear I find animated materials invaluable and there is no CR2 hacking necessary.

Are you wanting to make a dial to turn parts on and off? That would require cutting into the CR2 as would a geometry switch.

You can use the key behind the visibility switch to generate visibility dial control, which can be controlled by other control dials. You cannot to this for a figure IIRC, you need to do it for every body part.

Oops, Parkdalegardener was a bit quicker....

parkdalegardener posted at 6:38PM Tue, 27 February 2018 - #4325123

Are you wanting to make a dial to turn parts on and off? That would require cutting into the CR2 as would a geometry switch.

Most definitively, I'm comfortable editing the CR2. Could you teach us what to do?

@bantha, great thank you! that solution is pretty straightforward and it works! However, I'd still be interested in the CR2 solution, for learning and Poser compatibility purposes.

PS: I'm using Poser 11

I need to know your purpose. What exactly are you trying to do? The two suggestions above are solutions to the stated problem and you are looking for a more complicated way to accomplish your task. That or I do not understand what it is you are trying to do. One assumes that you are doing an animation and need this as a a special effect. That was the basis for the answers given. For a still render; the whole CR2 editing thing is way more work than clicking in the Hierarchy window to hide body parts, or animating/unhiding an existing Visibility dial. That is probably why you can't Google the answer you want. You aren't asking the correct question for the answer you want to be given.

Fair enough, I'll elaborate a bit more.

First, I'm not doing animation, I'm working in a series of images to later be composed as a comic book. I want to avoid the material approach, for personal preference It think the animated figure visibility is with a master parameter is easier. However, master parameters are not available in all versions of poser, that's why I was interested in learning how to do it in the CR2, which should be more backwards compatible.

I guess I could try to figure it out from an existing CR2, but they can be huge so I was hoping for some directions.

You are asking for a 20lb sledge hammer to drive in a furniture tack if you are doing stills. That being said; if you are comfortable editing a CR2, look in "actor BODY:1". You will find all the parameters mentioned in the above posts. "0" is OFF "1" is ON. The amount of info available you can change, such as "visibleInRender" is dependent upon the version of Poser used. That parameter would not be available in CR2s made with Poser 4 for instance. For individual body parts look in "actor (body part name such as hip):1" where you will find the "hidden" parameter. It will be 0. Changing this to 1 hides the actor (body part). Dials can be made to operate these functions, but again; you are going in for overkill to hide something in a still render via a dial on the figure. I'm sucking back the morning coffee waiting for the wife to awake. Then I have to go out for a bit. I'll post a method later today if I get the chance.

A possible hack I often use for image sequences is to either hide unwanted items below the floor, or scale them down to microscopic. I would prefer a simple on-off in the body though.