With P11/PP11 there is the new feature of facial control chips or control props. I know this is already in DS' genesis3 character as well ... I also know you can create your own chips for other characters.

Has anyone considered making a control set for characters like Miki (all versions, they are great), Koji, Olivia, ... and/or Dawn, Apollo, Antonia ... this would be a great addition and ... a great MP product. Free would be nice but hea vendors need ideas too.

Control props aren't actually a new thing. They've been possible for most of Poser's history, they're just newly added to the P11Pro suite of creation tools. I don't think the creation option is in standard P11. Prior to that you had to add them into the cr2 manually. The new feature just makes it simplified without the need to edit the cr2.

As for adding them to older figures, not sure that would work since they require a bone to be connected to. They work on Paul and Pauline because their faces have actual rigging, unlike most previous figures where the facial expressions are all done by morphs. I'm not familiar with a way to make them work on a morph unless the morph is also bone driven.

That's what I originally thought too. But upon reading the manual implies you can do this to ... wait ... yeah ... I get it. But, these bones can be replicated to other characters as well. At least theoretically. Hmmm. I saw it being used on Roxie, but it was with the jaw which was already a separate part. So ... extra rigging need to be applied to the figures for this to work.

I don't have PP11 yet, so no Pauline and Paul, but to be honest, I don't really get what the big deal is with the facial control props and rigging. Is it better and how?

@EClark1894

Facial rigging is more versatile than morphs, but at the same time you can use some morphs along with facial rigging. But only to a point.

A morph is basically fixed, all it will do is is apply the morph as an offset. Facial rigging can do far more than that. You have rotations, scales, and translations all in one simple handle. You can get far more combinations when using rigging, and it is far easier to personalize the figure than with morphs alone. With a morph set, you are basically stuck with whatever the combination of them will do. This has lead to some figures having hundreds of facial morphs, and then they still all sort of look similar with the expressions applied.

Facial rigging has another benefit, and that is when the character is morphed. If you morph V4 to look like the Joker, many of the V4 expression morphs don't really work so well afterwards. A morph like that drastically offsets the mesh, and the expression morphs do odd things afterwards. With facial rigging, your not stuck with a bunch of morphs that don't work. You can still get a lot of different expressions out of facial rigging, even with a drastic morph like the Joker applied. With the facial rigging, there is little need to make new expression morphs for such a drastic face morph either.

If you view our latest tutorial here at Renderosity it explains facial rigging. I does add some pretty natural pluses to expressions so that they have a unique quality that morph dials just can't do. Granted it is subtle, but there is a potential here that an innovative Poserholic can run with ... (look what Koz did with transmapped hair when transparency was introduced in Poser 4?).

Hi, how does one create control chips in Poser Pro 11?

They look like this in the Hierarchy (La Femme):

They seem to be parented to the ungrouped bone, and have the icon for props.

But how are they actually created? I can't find anything in the menus under Figure, and nothing in the Editing Tools in the Setup Room... so does it require importing a small mesh plane .obj or are they supposed to be able to be created directly in Setup somewhere that I missed?

Anyone know? Thanks,

// Frequency

You have to have a prop selected in the scene for it to work. The feature is in the Object Menu:Convert Prop to Control Handle.

You can select what you would like to add the controller to from a list of things in the scene including figure body parts...

Use your grouping tool to select vertices on the figure you want to control a bone (There must be a bone to control), spawn prop from selected vertices. Then as EldritchCellar posted use the "Convert Prop To Control Handle" would be easiest way, no need to import special planes, outside props, etc. Info begins on page 302 (Chapter 287) of your Poser Reference Manual.

Wouldn't it be possible to do something equal with weightmaped deformers? Just without additional bones? A previously used morph (the delta information) could be used as weightmap data.