This is the supporting topic for my "Multi-figure bookstacks for Poser" freebie in the Renderosity Free Stuff.

Details will be added in the next post once the freestuff upload has been approved.

(Note: This topic needs to be in place before I actually upload the freestuff item so that I can link to this topic from the freestuff item)

The freebie's been approved, so here's the link to it in the Renderosity Free Stuff - Multi-figure bookstacks for Poser (renderosity.com)

Please feel free to post here any comments (good or bad - constructive criticism preferred), suggestions for improvement, and/or questions about this freebie.

Basically a Poser figure containing four stacked books, each of which can be independently swapped, morphed and adjusted (within limits).

Figures can be stacked one on top of another to create larger stacks.

Stacks of 4, 8, 12, ... 60, 64 books are included, along with a 128 and a 256 book stack .

Since manually adjusting each book in a large stack is impractical there are PoserPython helper scripts to randomize, reset, and change textures. These scripts can be accessed directly from proxy CR2s alongside the stacks.

*** WARNING: DON'T USE POSER'S BUILT-IN 'DELETE FIGURE' WITH THE 'DELETE ATTACHED' OPTION CHECKED FOR STACKS LARGER THAN 40 BOOKS AS THE DELETION TIME IS HUGE AND POSER WILL EFFECTIVELY LOCK UP FOR HOURS. USE THE INCLUDED 'DELETE LINKED' SCRIPT WHICH ONLY TAKES A FEW SECONDS EVEN FOR HUGE STACKS ***

Created in Poser Pro 2014. Tested on a Windows 10 PC in Poser 6 and Poser Pro 2014.

If anybody's interested in how this came into being then posts #54 to #135 of "My rather infrequent, and possibly apocryphal, 'books project'." topic on HiveWire3D has all the ins and outs.

FIGURE STRUCTURE / HIERARCHY

The BookStack4 figure has six bones/bodyparts in a chain:

Body > Stack > Book1 > Book2 > Book3 > Book4 > TopOfStack

The first bone/bodypart (Stack) and last (TopOfStack) have no associated geometry and all their parameters are fixed (force limits is set and the minimum/maximum limits are the same) and the dials are hidden. The reason for the 'Stack' bone is explained in post #67 of the HiveWire3D topic (basically the joint parameters are different for the first bone and I couldn't do what I needed) and the reason for the TopOfStack bone in post #66 of the HiveWire3D topic (basically ensures that a nested child stack will respond correctly when the thickness of the top book changes).

The remaining four bones are for the four books. Here's the hierarchy for a single figure:

and four a stack of two figiures, the second being parented to the TopOfStack bone of the first.

A COUPLE OF SEUSSIAN 256 BOOK STACKS, JUST BECAUSE...

I love scrolling this picture, but I think it needs some birds, mountain goats, etc...

The following renders give a hint at the flexibility of this approach, a few examples of what you can do by simply loading a bookstack, in this case tthe Stack08 (2figs).cr2 figure and then running the reset and/or randomize and/or material helper scripts.

The (non-interactive) reset script makes it into a very tidy stack of curved hardbacks (the odd shadow here is, I think, due to the books being very small and not using ray-tracing for shadows)...

then just run the (non-interactive) randomize script  to get a jumbled stack....

Next run a material helper script to change to the classics and the interactive randomize script to select full 360 degree rotations....

...and the interacive randomize again to select only hardback geometries, twist and shear morphs, and small rotations...

...and again, but selecting just paperbacks, all morphs, position and size, and very small rotations - and run the material helper script for Pulp02

Just about to upload an update version, release 2

Cool!  Thanks.

Update uploaded

Multi-figure bookstacks for Poser (release 2) (renderosity.com)

If anybody's interested, and also for my own cross-reference, the additional work that went into creating this is documented in posts #146 to #177 on the HiveWire3D topic