As you can see from the figure, these bends leave a lot to be desired... I need to bend the arms in these extreme ways and no matter what I do, it keeps looking like crap... How can I bend the arms and the hands and make sure it looks natural??? Any info appreciated, thanks...

Try posing your body parts (well the poser body parts not yours) using the dials rather than using the mouse. First click on the body part you wish to pose and by using the dials (they pop-up on the side of the screen) it makes posing a lot easier. This is coming from someone who kept tying their poser people in knots for the first two months. Good luck, hope this helps.

I've never see the hand break off like that before, but in extreme bends the poser figures, especially the P4 default figures, tear at the bends... it happens. The newer figures have morphs built into them to help smooth out the joints, but even then they tear. If you're doing static images your best bet is to correct it in postwork by smudging the joints to make them look smooth... if you're doing animation you may just have to have tears in the joints, I don't know another way around it, but there very well could be... K-

Strategic camera angle and prop placement.

It's the twist getting messed up (check the setting on the twist dial to see how far it went, you'll be very surprised) that's causing the wrist breaking away. I've had that happen. I ended up having to zero out all the dials and start over. It's from using the mouse tools to bend the parts. Use the dials, as ladynimue mentions above. You can make fine adjustments much easier and more precise this way. Melanie

I noticed, If Curious labs were to put a metaball geometry Engine in poser 5, This Bad poseing effects could be eliminated forever, metaballs like to streach and give, So if the figures were metaball based they would act like rubber.

this tearing mesh problem is a common part of "bonding" with the program, it is like an initiation, you have to simply learn by doing. I suggest you practice bending and twisting from the shoulder down to get your hands in the right position, sometimes it simply cannot be done without there being some problems, but mostly this can be helped by using some of the newer models as has been pointed out. mostly though it is part of torturing the poser people until you get the hang of it....:-)...it took me several weeks to even get their feet off the floor!...and I have twisted the head in some unreal positions...dials are best to use to move the figures unless you are pulling the feet or hands to stretch the limb....it is like playing with silly putty....you stretch it twist it and at some point it just breaks......

Another thing that can cause problems, especially at wrists and ankles, is to select a pose from the library for a figure with "inverse kinetics" turned on. Make sure that is turned off for the arms and legs and library poses shouldn't be a problem. Scarab

Thanks folks, I truly appreciate all the feedback... I know that I'm really pushing this particular pose here, but unfortunately, she has to be in this pose to be carrying something... My first inkling was to fix it in post, but I figured, perhaps there is somethign I'm not doing... Ladynimue and others, believe me I've used the dials, anything and everything that I thought would make a difference, starting from scratch each time, and no matter how careful I was, I would wind up with the same results each time... Luckily, the figure is going to be in the distance, so the hands won't show, I'll just fix the forearm joint in post.. thank you all for your help... I'll post the picture when I'm finished... :)

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Not much to do about the elbows. It will have those faults in them, even with the elbow fix and such with extreme bending. That is why, if you really want it to look good, you have to postwork in Photoshop or similar programs. As for the wrists... people seem to forget that a wrist does not twist. The forearm twist, NOT the wrist. A wrist can only bend and go slightly sideways. Ok, if you really constrain your forearm you can slightly twist it, but not as in normal movement. In this particular image you have to twist the forearms to make the hands look the way they do. Also, like mentioned before, do NOT use your mouse for posing, but select the bodypart you want to work on and use the dials assigned to that particular bodypart. You can do much more precise work by using them. Try it out, I'm sure you'll see it works out... Finest regards; Johnnie...

One thing you could try is select the hand goto Edit- restore - element; this will unbend the hand and you can then pose it with the dial then as swannie wrote use the dial to twist the forearm and not the wrist to get the desire effect and position hope this help

heyas; if you have arm ik turned on, then turn it off, the hands will twist off like that. after you turn the ik off, go to the hand and reset the twist, and probably the side-side/bend dials, too. remember to twist the forearm, NOT the hand. you might also try turning limits on as you start posing, then turn them off if/when you need to move the body parts faster than their recommended limit. (at least, this helps me.)

alright bloodsong, I'll try and see if the ik has anything to do with it... I've been twisting the forearm, but when I bring back the wrists, I get the above.. The wrists won't show cause they're going to be covered.. I just figured I'd ask if there was somethign I was doing wrong... also stallion, I've tried from scratch, using just the dials and I get the same results... So, I just think that this is a bit extreme for whatever the poser creators were thinking.. IN any event, I'm definitely going to play with it some more, and if it doesn't straighten out, post work will take out the kink in the forearm, and the wrist aren't going to be showing cause she's going to be holding a big thing that goes over the edge... anyway, thanks all for your suggestions and I'll post when I'm finished... :)

looks like the forearm has side to side applied and teh wrists have twisting applied... ermmmm.. they don't work that way? you get the side to side by rotating the shoulder and collar, the hands by rotating the forearm just like your's do 8 ) I think if you look you'll see that the hands are twisted well over 100% which causes the breakdown of the mesh.. Blood has it about right with the IK chains... and using the dials instead of the pull about works a bit bettre 8 ) though sometimes you have to use a smudge tool to clean up some joints in very extreme poses 8 ) Good luck

Well one thing i wanted to add for a slight understanding for people was. I created a female character called felicia from darkstalkers. I completely redid the joint parameters for the p4 figure and i get no breaks even at the extreme pose. I fully believe 100% that the joint parameters are to blame on the p4 figure. After working and playing with the joint parameters i was able to get smooth bends and stretches. -Love Lady Cherry