I am building this prop and as usual I have got myself into somnething I don't know how to do yet. I figure it's a good way to learn, but Poser's tutorials suck. I want to make this so when you pull the crank down the chain goes up on the y axis and thus pulls the top of the Bellows up. the bellows top needs to rotate at the Z axix where the line crosses. also all this would make the Bellows leather expand and contract. Any help out there? I don't even know where to start beyond the parenting. Ironhart

Attached Link: http://host1.bondware.com/~syydr/index.ez

Traveler's got some great clases going over at Runtime DNA you may be interested in. Check out the DSL LAB

wonderful class! going too slow though. I want this done b4 Christmas. Thanks for the point in that direction though, I'll be sure to do the class. Ironhart.

First you do have them all parented correctly right? It won't be that hard, look at my IM and you will definately be happy. Go to the end and your answer will be there. Sharen

i think your best bet with this one would be make a set of morphs that effect the pieces. You could build it as a figure but because of how some of this model is put together you may end up with some odd bending effects. I'd suggest making a morph in a full position of how the object should look when at its max draw, and applying it to the model, and see how the dial effects it. Set the dial to go in .01 increments.

There is one problem with using morphs on this type of prop mechanics... the moving object will tend rescale while transforming positions.

only other option is making it into a figure but his blower might give some funky results when trying to pivot, had some bad effects with a spotlight and its sidebars when pivoting doing it that way. most of the mechanics of this don't look like they'd rescale bad, maybe a tiny on the crank. limit settings could be set to stop the over/under effects on that behalf. hrm.. maybe two figures? one being the wood body, the second being the main mechanics?

Attached Link: http://www.rbtwhiz.com/rbtwhiz_ERC.html

I think you are heading into the realms of Joint Controled Morphs and Joint Controled Joints. A Poser technique developed by rbtwhiz and Nerd. Not for the faint hearted but I'm sure you can use it to control your model in the way you intend.

Best of luck :)

I would do exactly what Caleb said just make a morph. Much easier and will work better. Ron

Seems like Cal has a bellows in the downloads area of his site, although not as complex as yours, and he has a lot of clever old-fashion mechanical things that might give you some rigging ideas. Don't have his URL right here, but can post it later, if you need it.

this is just way over my head at this time. I guess rather than waiting till christmas to release this I will probably put it out as not working.. and work on it, with the possibility of an updated version. my house models only go for 5 bucks and I ain't gonna put more effort than I already have into it. The Pic above (dork not included) is of the complementary items that go with the house and attached shop. As you can see there is alot here, not to mention the buildings. Gotta stop at some point. Ironhart

The billows look great as they are, Ironhart. They don't have to be posable. A later update would be fine, in my opinion. Jay

what you might be able to do more easily is to make it a figure, nto a prop, and use the dial obj switch ala the genitals

If you would like, I could work a little on it and send it back to you with the coordinates done, it is a fine model and I would hate to see you loose all that work....Sharen I would like to do this for you, I just don't like to see this all go by the wayside, I have a few days that will be quiet...

great Sharen! I sent it to your Domain address. check your IMs for additional info. Thankyou so much.. I owe you a big one. as I said in my IM "I wish I could watch how you do it." Ironhart

i think you'll need to create a morph to stretch the bellows (leather part) so you may as well add the bellow covers in that morph,...then make the whole thing a figure with the handle and chain both body parts, then you'd need to turn the handle, adjust the rotation of the chain (to make it vertical) and apply the morph to get one cycle of the device....if you rotate the handle more than 90 with a morph poser will just take a short cut from position 0 to 1 on the dial and deform the handle but if you could get away with a 45 degree turn you could do it all in one morph....Steve