Okay, I've managed to get the Poser extension into the right place and import a PZ3 file into RDS 5.5. I have applied the figure's native textmap, and found that the map is being indescriminantly applied to every part of the figure. How can I define material groupings, or whatever equivalent one uses in RDS? Also, I thought the RDS-P4 compatibility meant that one could actually pose a figure within RDS, which I can't seem to do. Does a figure need to be pre-posed in P4, saved, and then imported? If so, how does one animate? And why is the manual put together so that one can't use it as a reference, only as a linear series or tutorials? I am full of pesky questions this weekend. Thanks, and sorry, both.

Cage - hehe Yea... Ok here we go: 1) No clue why the manual is put together that way. :( 2) I think you have to drop the T-Map Shader in RDS on each body part...ouch! 3) P3 and RDS 5.x worked fine. I personaly had problems with this also. Try using a P3 figure rather than a P4 figure. I think that will work. Yes - You can pre-pose the figure then Export from Poser as an OBJ. This is for still images only. No animation. Import that OBJ into RDS. I guess I need to re-visit the animation of P4 figures in RDS 5.5. Im pretty sure its a no go. BUT, P3 figures should be OK.. I assume you have the P3 Plug-in for RDS loaded up in RDS? Clint

Thanks again, Clint. I would like to ask Meta. which thumb comes up on top when they lock their fingers together. I could not figure out how to select specific body parts on this model. I was able to do so with a different model, who incidentally uses no textmaps, but had all kinds of wonky material distortions that I couldn't fix.... I have the Plugin, the figures were impoted as PZ3's, sometimes a whole scene! One was P3, the other P4, I believe. The textmap issue was with the P3. On the body itself, textmaps were okay, but selecting props to fix their texturing? Couldn't do it. I got the impression from my post elsewhere in this forum that P3 figures were animatable. According to the response I received, they act really "heavy," which I assumed pertained to the application of physics or behaviors in an animation. Wrong again? One should at least be able to animate a Poser figure like any other geometry in RDS, righth?

Cage - Yep - I agree on the animation issue. I was running RDS 5.02 and Poser 3. Life was grand. I could bring in a Poser figure and move him around and animate in the timeline. I bumped up to RDS 5.5 and Poser 4...I tried it once and it didnt work. So I stopped playing with it. I know, Bad Clint Bad! Should keep trying. But I didnt have a specific project at the time that required this function so it got placed to the side due to the fact that I had other still image projects that I needed to work on. So, I think I'll play around some this afternoon and see what I can come up with on this issue. I'll try my best to post the results today. I've got the honey do's going today. Clean the gutters, Paint a wall, Go to Kroger and Block Buster then its my time. Hmm..that might be about 7:00pm this evening! DOH!.. Oh well, I will try to mess with it this evening and post back. Talk to ya soon.. Clint

Thanks, Clint. The Honey-Do's and Sunday cleave to one another inseparably. Not necessarily so, Saturday. I have a whole other set of questions about posing and animating in RDS. I really wish the manual wasn't put together orthogonally. Poser has such a friendly interface. How did RDS end up so convoluted? Inherited from another company? Did the various development teams not communicate? I have a headache. I'll stop whining now. MetaCreations, I DO think you are great, but very confusing sometimes.

Do you think Meta would let me Downgrade to P3 if I whine enough?

LOL! Thats funny.... Well, They might give you a really cool deal if they still have P3 in back stock. Never hurts to call. I'm not sure if the number you call for new sales will have the power to help you out. They might only be able to sell current products etc...But try them. If they cant help see if you can talk to the manager or supervisor. They might be able to help on this. Ok - Wall trim done....Now on to rolling the wall with paint. Talk to ya soon. Clint

cage, Ouch - Ok lets start this way. I'm running WIN98 SE on a PII 400 with 256mb RAM and a TNT 16mb AGP card. RDS 5.5 with Poser 4 I located the Poser to RDS Plug-In on the Poser 3 CD. I couldnt locate it on the RDS 5.5 disk or the Poser 4 disk. I loaded up the RDS Poser extension from the Poser 3 CD. I then went to MC's web site and DL'ed v27 of the Plug-In and installed the 4 files. Since you dont have the Poser 3 CD - I think you can just DL the Plug-In from MC and install it in the following folder. c:ExtPoser 3 I was not able to place a figure in RDS with the Poser Plug-In. I WAS able to Import a PZ3 file without any problems.

I went into Poser 4 and loaded up the Casual Woman. Set the animation for 3 seconds at 15fps totaling 45 frames. I did a little 3 seconds animation - she just moved her arms and head around. I saved the PZ3 file from Poser. Brought up RDS, did a Import and brought in the PZ3 I just saved. Make sure to note the duration of the animation and FPS that you used in Poser. When I brought in the 3 second PZ3 RDS defaulted to 2 seconds at 6fps..LOL. I increased it to match what I did in Poser, 3 Seconds at 15fps. Also when I Imported the PZ3 it imported a Camera and light. I went to the Timeline and dragged the "Poser Scene" up and droped it on "Universe" in the TimeLine. I then deleted the left over stuff leaving my RDS Camera and RDS Light along with the "Poser Scene". I setup the animation output (filename) and compression as well as a solid Background Color. Rendered and it worked! I tried the same steps with the P4 Nude Woman - She worked also. Seems that the PZ3's Import into RDS fine along with Texture maps. The only thing I had a problem with was trying to add a Poser Scene in RDS by clicking the little Poser icon on the Tool Bar in RDS. The default figure was kinda warped looking. His arms were all screwed up. I deleted him and tried to change the figure to something else and the Plug-In wouldnt give me any options. I think because I dont have Poser 3 installed. I told RDS where Poser 4 was but that didnt seem to make RDS happy since the figures dont seem to be available. So to sum up my findings. Importing PZ3 files P3 or P4 characters Still or Animations seems to work fine. Trying to add a Poser Scene from scratch into RDS didnt work properly. I assume it doesnt dig Poser 4 and needs Poser 3 for this to function. Cage - If I lost you anywhere make sure to speak up and I'll try to re-word it for you. Let me know how you make out on this - Please. I am very interested. I hope this helps you along. Regards, Clint

The extension path should have been.. c:RDS FolderExtPoser 3 Also - If you Double Click on the Poser Scene in the Timeline window RDS will launch the Poser/RDS screen. In here you can move the figure around by selecting the body parts and changing the dials as needed. You can also look at the Timeline while in this window to see what the body parts are doing. You will see the KeyFrame markers as well as the Tweners for the Poser figure. Just Click the little green "+" sign next to the Poser Scene in the Timeline and it will open up the figures geometry for you. Another thought - Click the Eye Dropper on the Tool Bar and "Suck" the Shader off the Poser Figure. It should have the proper T-Map loaded in the shader that is applied to the Poser Figure... Again - I know this is a lot of info. If you are confused on any of it let me know. Clint

I have the Poser patch for RDS from the Meta site - not sure whether it is the one you mention above? I placed it in the Extensions folder under Ray Dream directory. When I next booted up RDS, it asked me to locate the Poser extension. Since then, I've been able to open the PZ3's. You don't think I've have posing capability within RDS? Grr. The program DID seem to treat the whole figure as a single unit. I had hoped that this was due to my not knowing what to look for. I'll need to try some of the things you've mentioned, and get back to you. Thanks, Clint!

Yea - It will Import the PZ3 and label it in the Timeline as a "Poser Scene". Double click the "Poser Scene" in the Timeline. This will launch the Poser interface within RDS...Well the RDS/Poser Interface. In there you can manipulate the figures. Anyway - Yea...Let me know. I hope the info helps you along. Clint

Okay... I got Poser 4... put all the character geometry in my Poser 3 directory... and promptly never opened the piece of $#!+ again. I have never seen such a buggy program in my life. No scaling on conformed conformable figures. All my dials were working totally backwards from P3. Junk! Every faerie picture you see of mine has been done in P3. So anyway, yes, .PZ3 files import great into RDS. There are some tricks to texture mapping. The best way I've found is to open the shader editor. Click on "Poser Scene". Then in the properties window under mapping, select the scene element you want to color or map. Double click the little icon in the scene element window, which will bring whatever map is there into the shader editor. Then you must unselect the "scene". Add a texture map, bump map, highlight, reflection, transparency, etc in the shader editor. Then, kill the shader editor window. Select the scene again, then open the shader editor window again. Drag and drop the shader editor icon over to the property window's scene element icon for the element you want to shade, then apply it in the property window. Anybody come up with a better way to do it? Seems that if you have the "scene" still selected in the properties window while you are working on shading, the shader editor will default back to the base shade, usually after you've spent about 15 minutes doing a combo blend of color + texure map, highlight, and bump map for the figures skin texture.... Boom! Have to start all over. So When mapping Poser scenes I always uses the two windows separate frome each other. Thorne