I'm just starting out in Poser. I'm trying to model scenes in the fantasy genre, but I'm running into some snags. I was wondering if anyone could help: 1) I modeled an awesome sword in Bryce, and after a mind-numbing week of trial-and-error, I finally managed to export it into Poser. How did I do it? I exported it piece by piece -- the handle, hilt, blade, and decorations -- and then put them all back together in Poser by parenting the blade to the hilt and the hilt to the handle. This worked fine, but now I have a problem: how do I refer to them all at once? In other words, let's say I wanted to scale the sword bigger. How do I scale ALL the sword's parts at once? I need to either create one unified object that includes all the parts, or set the other parts to automatically scale when the handle gets scaled. But I don't know how to do either! Any ideas? 2) This one has probably been addressed many times, but I can't find an answer that matches my needs. HOW do I get clothing to properly conform?! I'm using a Michael2 model and a Voluptuous Vicky2 model, and neither of their supposed "conforming clothes" actually conforms right! The body parts always poke through the clothes! I've tried making the offending body parts invisible, but that creates a problem: often, the offending body part sticks out PAST the end of the clothing, so by making, say, the wrist invisible, the bottom of the shirt would fit right, but then my figure would have 3 inches of invisible wrist sticking out of his shirt! And plus, many times my figure has altered geometry or proportions that I don't WANT to change!! 3) How do I make realistic-looking anime eyes? I want to create both the large, rounded, "glittering" eyes used by many anime women, and the sharp, angular, hawk-like eyes used by some anime men. Anyone want to give me some pointers there? Please note: I'm doing this whole thing for FUN. So I don't want to have to fix these problems by spending $200 on a new 3d program or package! Many thanks in advance!

1. you can export all the objects as one in obj then just import it back into poser and you have one object instead of several 2. you might want to try to scale the clothing item or the figure to see if that will help other than that i am not sure what you can do there sorry 3. i have no idea on this one

Ah, thanx! But...why did the sword come out yellow? How do I preserve the color of each part when I combine them?

Go into the material editor (cntl U) and pick the color(s) you want, then save it to your library. I think. I'm rusty in this area but I'm sure someone will come along.

I did that already. The parts look fine when they're still separate. But when I export the whole thing as one OBJ file, the whole sword automatically becomes the same color -- yellow!

1. Amazing that you got anything out of Bryce to import anywhere. You might try 3D Exploration, a unfree app, or something similiar to change the format that the model is in after export from Poser. Another rather clumsy method I use is to parent props to a character like a fish, then make the fish invisible and save it as a character. You can't save props that are parented to a prop, only a character. 2. Conforming only goes as far as to line up legs to legs, arms to arms ... body parts, not how the fit the body part. Magnets are the tool of first resource to make clothes fit ... see tutorials at Morphworld. Magnets are props that you glom onto a particular part or parts and pull/stretch into shape.

When you export the OBJ from Poser ensure that the "retain existing groups" box is selected. Now go to www.uvmapper.com and download the free UVMapper program. Open the OBJ in this application. (Ignore what the screen looks like at this stage we can look at UV Mapping later). You can now select by group and assign a unique material name to each. Save and import into Poser. Open the Materials window and define your colours.

Hope this helps.

Ah, many thanx! That worked perfectly -- and gave me the added bonus of automatically adding a gray highlight color, which made the sword look all shiny and cool! :-)

And as to your conforming clothing problem...conforming clothing ususally isn't. At least in my cases 95% of clothing has minor problems that can be adjusted by minor tweaking of both the model and the clothing item to get it to look just right. It's a pain, but unfortunately necessary at this time. I, however, did hear of a rumor that Poser 5 was going to address this issue somehow, didn't fully understand what was said. Although it was only a rumor, it can't get worse LOL Good luck in your endevors and Welcome to Poser. Prepare to get addicted LOL

From what I heard They are planning to Use a collision avoidance system in P5 basicly that means if object A is at X location then object B cannot occupy the same location and therefore has to expand slightly to avoid occupying the same space, meaning cloths would automaticly conform to any charicter no matter how distorted. also two charicters could touch but not occupy the same space. it is a system that is already in use in every video game out there, in fact they wouldnt work without it.

collision detection!! better years too late than never.

I rarely have problems conforming clothing. Maybe you could tell us what chararacters and what clothes you're using? Is it Vicky or Mike? If so, are you using Vicky or Mike clothes? Are you using morphs? Morphs on the clothes, etc?

Heh, standard issue problems for me...The Catsuit! On either Posette and Stephanie (well DUH it's stephanie, but I always set the Steph full body morph to 0)...some things still poke through, like her nipples, but that's easy enough to fix) A few minor bugs with some freebie clothing, but nothing MAJOR...I'd just like to see a lil better skin tight look. My fishnet trans looks good, but it'd be better with that "second skin" feel to it. :)