Sorry for the repost, but I seem to have gotten buried... Hi, I'm attempting to get a more realistic head/neck bend for extreme negitive x-rotations and have run into a slight snag... A you can see, I've managed to keep the neck curve straight, but something wierd happens when I try to use any of the morph dials...The Open lips morph acts REALLY flaky (whether I'm just using the magnets or I actually spawn the morph target for a new dial.) Is there some setting I'm not aware of that can help? If not, and this is the best I can do, I'd appreciate it if anyone could direct me to a fix someone else might have done. BTW my stock figure is Arduino's version of EVE, if that makes a difference! Thank you! Starlok

You are doing a morph on an already altered geometry. The result is not predictable. But it does give me an idea of a way to do remote morphs and not have to do 15 trials to get it right. If the neck bend part of the morph does what you want, look at that part of the morph in mesh view, and try to duplicate it using the head-neck in its native location. Your present morph would show you your target shape. You may have to export the morph and import it as a prop to see it in its native state. I do not use magnets, so I do not know how you avoid affecting unintended verts like the inside of the mouth. In RDS, I just hide everything but what I aim to move. What I mean by remote morph, is one that edits the effect of a joint movement and what JP do to the mesh. You cannot see the final result while making the morph, only after the joint is moved and the morph applied.

You can avoid using unintended verts by creating a new group consisting of only the materials you want the magnet to effect. In this case you would only choose the entire neck materials, then create another group on the head, using only the head skin mats. When you include the head in the magnet properties as an additional element to deform (assuming the magnet is parented to the neck), check the grouping box in the properties window of the magnet zone and check the appropriate group (head skin). the magnet will then effect the neck and the head, but not the eyes or any part of the mouth.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I am a little too... confused by Jaager's method. I fully understand why you don't use the magnets in Poser... maybe thay'll improve it in v 5.0??? I wish I could use the Amapi (free version) to modify meshes, but it seems to do funky things when I try to modify/import a morpf target. I really wish I could afford a more professional version! MomCat, I tried your method, but the problem was when I Rotated the magnet, the skin moved correctly but the mouth, lips, eyeballs, and tongue stayed in their original positions! Sorry, I'm not into melting faces, much less clocks! (think Dali(?)) Ah well... It's better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all! It's really just a petty little annoyance that I decided to try out... Mo biggie! Thanks for the advice, though! You guys are great! Starlok

Here's another thought you might want to give a shot. Magnets can work on groups. So, make a group of just the faces you want to change, then apply a magnet to those and see if you can get what you're trying for. It doesn't hurt to try, right?

OK. I see. 1- Figure out how to isolate just the verts you want to move.. 2- Do your magnet morph on the bent head to get your shape. 3- Return the head to the default position and reapply the magnets and spawn this morph. It should look bad until you bend the head back. You do not want to spawn the morph with the head bent. I don't know if you want the magnet to bend with the head or stay. The head moves, but the neck does not? The morph is for the neck? If it is for the head and neck - and the head is bent and the neck is not, I have no certain solution: spawn the neck with the magnet at the bent location (but the neck back at default) spawn the head with the magnet moved with the head when it goes back to default. You have to experiment.

To Jaager, Unfortunately, I haven't used any of the "bend" parameter dials at all. The magnet is parented to the head, and the magnet itself is the only thing altering the geometries! And (to FyreSpirit) all morphs seem to warp when I apply the magnet and rotate it. ...No Joy! Ah well. Also, I HAVE tried modifying the joint parameters, but you do NOT want to see what happens then! Thanks!

I misunderstood what you are doing. I thought you did a bend and then used the magnet to smooth the neck. I should have recognized that the head xrot would never look like that. Rotating the whole head 90 degrees with a magnet, I would not have been surprised if the head did not shatter when the spawned morph is applied. RDS has a rotate function for making morphs and it would be handy too, except that the morphs made with it only work when at 1.0. Anything in between zero and one, or greater than one is really deformed. I guess you could that comfort that the head does not bend like that anyway. You try doing the bend and then cranking down the yscale on the neck?

Yes, but the chin is STILL way out of line with the neck. I'm trying to eliminate the extreme neck curvature when the neck is tilted back (think sword swallower/fire-breather) If I understood joint parameters better, I'd move the head origin closer to the larynx, but I really have no idea how to do this without making everything go kablooey. The problem with rotating then using magnets to smooth the neck is that some of the critical facets are on the head directly under the chinbone. When I try to smooth polys across that border, I can only do so much before the seam splits to either side of the larynx giving her a "fish gill" effect. You may have noticed the "Poser Fold" at the base of the skull/top of spine in the first set... I planned on removing that during post and letting the hair cover the rest. The gills, however become far too pronounced for me to fix using PSP 5... I DO seem to recall something called a "JCM" morph (Joint control morph??) that was meant to fix similar problems with knees and elbows at extreme bend angles... has anyone heard of such for the neck/head? Thanks! PS the picture is of just head rotation and neck/Y Scaling. Posette doesn't do yoga very well, do she?