I am making a character with two large tenticles sticking straight up into the air from the shoulders. how would i go about doing this??? the tenticles have 14 segments each (sorta like whips or octopus tenticles). How should i go about setting them up?? (the mesh is done but the joint setup is drivng me crazy - i can't get them to bend smoothly like the fantasy whip articulated prop or the snake model!!!)

In the PHI file write:-

1 rTenticle1 yzx curve
2 rTenticle2 yzx curve ......etc

you need to add "curve" to the end of each line of the body parts that you want to ..... ummm...... curve :)

If you've already created the "character" and don't want to go through the phi and rebuild routine, you might be able to solve the problem by editing the cr2. It's possible you might be able to achieve the same thing by changing the bend sections of your character. If you open the cr2 in a text editor and run a search for "bend" in the file check to see if they're set to 0 (zero) if so, change that to 1 and those sections should now bend appropriately. It's worked a couple of times for me but there's no guarantee I'm afraid that it'll work for what you're doing. If that fails, then it may be you'll need to do what Phil suggests and rebuild the phi and character files. Just a thought. :)

would the same method work in poser pro pack (it lets you change the XYZ to various settings including curve under joint editing).

one last question: the last joint that touches the chest - should it be a curve joint or a regular joint??

The one closest to the chest should be a regular (no curve) joint.

tentacles!! he has tentacles sticking up off his shoulders! not them... other things. ;) there's a way to chop the cr2 to change it from a normal joint to a 'curve' joint. i dont know what it is, though. ;) you'd have to compare yours to a curved figure (the animal tails or whatever). most times it is best to try to avoid that 'curve' deal. you could get smoother bending (in more directions) from making smaller tentacle segments and using regular jps. but if you made them very long, then yes, use the curve. and for the jp Xs, you want to squeeze the green and red arms down around the parts as far as you can, to get the largest smooth blend zone possible.