The biggest problem I have with Poser is Drop-to-the-Floor. First: I find that an animation saved in the Poses/Animations library with a figure firmly placed on the ground doesnt always open that way. The opened figure may be consistently low or high, or it may float up or down during the animation, requiring re-setting with Drop-to-the-Floor. Which brings me to my second problem. This adjustment apparently must be done frame-by-frame, so if there are many key frames that is inordinately time-consuming. Two questions therefore: 1. Is there a way to lock animations in relation to the floor when saving to the library? 2. Is there a shortcut way to effect Drop-to-the-Floor across all key frames in a timeline rather than frame-by-frame?

• Educated guess... try saving the animated pose with IK turned off.
• If you have the Pro Pack there is a Python script to do this automatically.

to answer Q2 open the graph and with body selected and the y tran drag select all the frames then you can Ctrl drag everything down while watching her feet in the window...coz you have all frames selected it will do the same across the animation........Steve

BUT when that animation is saved to the poses/animation Library or as a BVH file the figure will once again be above or below the floor when reimported into a new scene .
for some reason poser wont record those"drop to floor" keyframes unless you set one for each frame manually

Phil: if you know where such a python script for key framing a global "drop to floor exists" i would love to know where to get it.

thanks

Thanks to all. Steve, I believe that graph approach with body selected is the answer. I've tried it and it seems to work. (How do you guys figure these things out?) Wonderful. Many thanks.

Well, I spoke too soon. On my second test the body floated down after frame 1, even though the y-tran line in the graph was flat and though when sweeping through the frames the body's y location as shown in the dials remained constant. It seems Body-to-Floor isn't the same as the body's y tran.

Strangly enough, Drop to floor moves the Hip of a character instead of the body... try it. So the x,y,z for the body and hip are no longer aligned and as poser interpolates it will carry the values to the next keyframe for those parts. Hence the float - I've quit using 'drop to floor' in animations for this reason - cleanup's a bear. Apparently one or the other coordinate(hip or body)is lost or reset in the saving process... if your figures are misplaced when retrieved? >;) Does this remind any of you of the "imported pose hip problem??? :)

But hip height isn't the same as the relationship between the figure's lowest part and the floor, is it? You don't want the feet to sink through the floor when the figure sits down just because the hip descends. It's pretty clear to me that Drop-to-the-Floor is a specific command controlling the lowest part of the figure -- which may not even be the feet -- in relation to the floor.

SInce I render all of my poser animations in cinema4DXL this is not an issue for me in my personal projects as i can just raise the floor in cinema

But I do sell custom BVH files here in the market place
and to assure that my buyers get files that render with feet on floor I have been manually performing a drop to floor for each frame and setting a key frame for each one. But i have been informed by PhilC that as a propack owner I may have a python script to do this automatically fro me so im checking on it now

The problem I experience with the drop-to-floor Python script in PPP is that it often makes the figure appear to walk on tiptoes, as the slightest contact of any part of the foot with the floor stops the rest of the figure's feet from dropping properly to the floor.

i foundthat it points the toes unnaturally skyward
but that is easily and quickly fixed in the graph editor

this is Great!!

How well does the script work with animations where the character is jumping or skipping? Does it apply the drop-to-floor process to the entire animation, or to selected portions only?

It applies drop to floor to ALL of the frames of the animation so any leaping animations will have to be corrected in the graph editor. nevertheless this script is a tremendous time saver for me.
and since lifeforms and can import /exprt selective frames of a BVH file I can easily break up running and leaping animations into separate parts and recombine them.

For me this single python script alone justifies my purchase of the propack !!!

If leaping animations have to be corrected, then it can't be applying "drop-to--floor" but merely commonizing hip height.