I've never used universal poses, but I have a situation where they might possibly be helpful, even if not a complete solution.

However I can't find that facility in my Poser 11. The manual says my library preferences should look like this:

My library preferences actually look like this:

Spot the difference..! I'm running Poser 11.2.319 - not the latest, I know, but I never felt the need to upgrade any further, and the release notes have nothing to say on the subject of universal poses. Nor can I find any discussion of it in the forums, so either nobody misses this feature, or the forum search isn't terribly good.

If you can throw any light on this, please do. Does your Poser 11 include universal poses? Have you used universal poses and found them to be lacking / the best thing since sliced bread? Is there any other credible method for converting a pose from one figure to another?

Indeed, the Universal Poses are no more!  Your best alternative is Netherworks Studios PoseWriter, it does a very good job translating a pose from one figure to another.  It is bundled with P11 and you will find it under Scripts>Partners.  The only instances where it does not work are the DAZ Genesis figures and Antonia.  There might be others but I haven't had the opportunity to test drive other models in my Runtimes.  Unfortunately, PoseWriter was not ported over to P12 because of the Python change and I don't know if it will ever be updated.

Thanks @hborre! I probably don't use PoseWriter enough, I'm aware it does lots of useful stuff but keep forgetting it's there, hidden in the jungle of my scripts menu. :)

There was a brief mention that the universal pose feature was removed because of poor functionality and not working well with most figures.

That could be the case.  The learning curve on that feature wasn't steep but you needed to be careful how you implemented it.  Puppet Master was far superior when it was available in its time.

The only instances where it does not work are the DAZ Genesis figures and Antonia.

I imagine that's because Antonia's root node is the waist instead of the hip? I might have to go and try out that script with Antonia 1.0 then, where the waist is called hip and the hip is called hip2.

ETA: Oh dang, P11 only, so I won't be able to try it.

It could be that in addition to perhaps other body parts not compatible with other figures.  I would need to do a breakdown to be absolutely sure.  As for Genesis, you can swap between Genesis models, i.e., G3F and G8F although they won't be exact but if you attempt Generation 4 to Genesis then there is not compatibility.

Just my two cents here ... I'm mostly using the old P4-poses (the complete range as given long ago) and than adjust as necessary step by step. If there is no original pose usable for the figure thats the easiest methode as you every time need to adjust given poses to what you have and want. Only bigger problem with doing so could be with figures which have a double neck part but also there as in all other cases I had never exploding objects or similar crazy stuff. By the way I have never used universal poses ... may be cause I was happy that other way ...

Thanks folks. I've tried PoseWriter Panel, but I can't find any specific features relating to converting poses between figures. Maybe there was a PoseWriter Pro or something like that?

It may help if I explain why I want to do this. Over the years I've been making a graphic story / comic which has grown without any real planning. One problem I have is that I used older figures such as Victoria 1, and low-res figures such as Lorenzo Lores in the background in some early scenes, which is fine; but now some of these background characters have become more important to the plot than I'd originally foreseen, and their limitations are getting in the way.

It would be great if I had a relatively painless way to re-cast those characters. I don't mind a little tweaking of poses - poses always need tweaking anyway. I don't mind that the new characters will look different; that's partly the point. I'll have to re-render the updated scenes, of course, but the computer does most of the work there. I just want to avoid re-working a lot of poses. They could run into the hundreds, and I'd rather spend my time making new images. Posing is one part of the process that still takes a lot of effort; I've got better at it over time, but I've also got more self-critical so the net gain tends to zero. :)

In a nutshell, this is what you do to convert the pose from one figure to another using PoseWriter.  Load the posted donor figure into your scene along with the new target figure you want the pose applied to.  Make sure that the body parts between the figures are the same, otherwise, you will get either bizarre results or none at all.  DAZ Generation 2, 3, and 4 should not be an issue.  IK must be off or, again, you will get weird results.  

Where 'Pose' appears, that is an entry field for the name of a pose.  If you are actually writing a new pose to disk, that is where you name the pose.  The window below that are the body parts of the figure, double-clicking that window will select all the body parts including body morphs,  Again, the body parts must match or the pose won't translate.  Right-click the window for the contextual menu and select 'Copy Pose' from the Donor.  Select the Target figure, right-click, and select 'Paste Pose'.  If everything goes well you will get the pose transferred between figures.  Below is a preview of a V4 WM pose transferred to the V3 WM 17k figure.  Not an exact match but close enough to tweak.

Words of caution, you might see distortions of the target mesh after applying a transferred pose.  Load a second target figure and copy its joint centers to the posed target figure, which will usually correct the problem.  If your old scenes have numerous figures that need their poses converted, simply load the scene, go to File>Export>Partial Scene..., and select the figure(s) you want to isolate into a separate PZ3 file.

Thanks for the run-through! Much appreciated.

I can't see any actual conversion taking place, though. It's just a simple copy of the joint angles between the figures, and factors like the difference between the angles of V4's and V3's feet aren't taken into account. However that could conceivably be taken care of by a little Python, if I'm careful in the choice of figures I use to substitute for the lo-res ones. I think I can cook up a solution.

I have an old script I wrote for lesbentley that can be used to convert poses between figures.  Somewhere in the Poser Tech section, there's an archived thread in which he uses the script to convert Walk Designer poses for use with Antonia.  It works tolerably well, IIRC.

I have no idea how to post a script or anything around here nowadays, though....

You mean this one? Antonia & Walk Designer

To the best of my knowledge, such as it is, attachments to forum posts are no longer possible. Hard disk space is so expensive these days. :) You should be able to post a link to an external file host though.

Oh, by the way, you may want to update your sig line some time. ;)

Well, fazz bazz.  I may be confusing that thread with script development and walk pose editing that took part later, in PM.  I'm pretty sure the final poses ended up posted to the Antonia Free Site, at any rate.

I'll see if I can work out where to post something.

And see what I can do about the sigline.  You stop lurking, and suddenly it's just... things!  Dang.

Are you still at your Yahoo address? If so I'll email you from my post-Morphography address and you can send the file old-style. There was plenty of discussion about the script in that thread, but I came to the conclusion that it had been shared elsewhere / elsehow.

You can attach an image to a thread, and I thought there was a workaround where you could change the extension of a zip to jpg, for instance, but that seems not to work any more. Incidentally, thread attachments from the days when you could attach things have been destroyed. [rant deleted]

Yes, I'm still there.  Rant deleted, indeed.  Heh.

In the future I will simply end a large portion of my comments with "[rant deleted]."

Email sent.

odf posted at 9:49 PM Thu, 17 February 2022 - #4434909

In the future I will simply end a large portion of my comments with "[rant deleted]."