Does anyone know why certain parts of meshes get the normals flipped when chopping them up in Raydream with the rename function? I can easily flip the vertices. But it gets to be a pain in the butt after a while. Just what is it that makes the normals change anyways? Thanks for any ideas ScottA

I'm not sure. But I found results were better without exporting the normals, as Poser will build them itself. Not everyone agrees, however.

Thanks for the reply Kevin. Actually. The way I go about creating Poseable meshes is rename a section of the mesh in the MFM. Then "Save AS" as a new .obj file. Then "open" that new .obj and repeat until the model is completely chopped up. I'd do it all at once. But the parts you rename are still visable until you save the file and then open it back up in RD. And it makes it easier to select the next adjoining part to name it this way. I'll try using the rename function. Then hiding that section and only save it all at one time to .obj and see if that will keep the normals all the same direction. By the way Kevin. I'm having problems with your PERL Materials Utility. It worked after I got the .DLL file from Bloodsong for a day or two. Then it stopped working again. I end up with files with no content in them. Any chance you can write a windows version for this Utiliy? It seems like a fairly easy thing to write for someone who knows how to write programs. It's just renaming text in the .obj file from one way to another. To convert materials to and from groups. Thanks ScottA

I would sugest not saving multiple times as an obj. Save as RDS multiple times, then save as obj when you are done. I have noticed that if you import an obj into RDS, and save it out as an OBJ the least significant digits tend to wander around. I would expect these errors to add up over time. The perl script reads the entire obj file into a set of dynamically created arrays, then writes them back up. Trying to write the dynamic array resizing would be a pain in any language that I've used, other than perl. Not to mention the regular expression pattern matching. And I did it as a perl exercise. My guess is that you need to select either the mac or pc setting. How many lines does the file say it is? If it only sees one line the line terminator is wrong. If the entire file is blank (or mostly blank) but it saw the right number of lines then it indicates that the eol character is appearing twice per line. Exported poser meshes do this, at least they used to. I think I fixed this in the most recent version (which isn't all that recent). I've sometimes had to examine the obj file in a binary editor to see what was going on. Also, open the .pl file up and look at it. The docs are in the lines at the start. Heck, if you want to convert it into delphi or C (good luck there) feel free. It is freeware. Just credit me.

Thanks Kev. But I have no idea how to write a program in any language. I have no idea what you just said ;-) I was under the impression that you can convert .mtl to groups and vice versa by simply changing the structure of the file. "g lHand usemtl skin" to this format "g lHand_usemtl_skin" Since this is just text editing. I thought it would be easy to write a windows program to do this. But I guess there's more to it than I know about. ScottA

The problem is that the obj is broken up into some 5 to 8 thousand groups. RDS automatically crunches them together, but lots of other programs don't. That is why importing the geometry files into Painter 3d doesn't work. That is part of what my utility fixes. The zillion groups are an artifact of the way Zygote builds the figures. The build half a figure and mirror it. In addtion, they have lots of vertices as members of multiple groups. RDS goes bonkers when it sees that, and poser doesn't like to all that much. So they get fixed as a final step before the UV maps are done. The multiple groups are removed and some of the groups are converted into materials. But in Alias 4.2 the tounge is an actual seperate object (group). It is also part of the inner mouth group, and part is a member of the left half group, and the face group, etc. Zygote accidentally shipped the black and asian female nudes with the complete obj heirarcy. Interesting to look at, if not very useful for poser.

heya; scott: normally, i chop (detatch polygons) and hide, then grab the next set, chop and hide... (and save a lot...) the reason the normals get reversed is.... well, something like when you detatch the polygons, the new starting vertex's first line might be going counter clockwise instead of clockwise or SOME weird nonsense. i havent been able to determine a pattern, though. what i do now is, slice, save, export, then open 3d exploration to quickly look for abnormals. jump back into the model in ray dream, select all the abnormal parts (you can shift select 'em all at once), and hit reverse normals, then re-export. as my first step. that way, i havent done all the uv stuff and hierarchy and junk then have to backtrack! :)

Really? You use the detach option? I used that the first time I cut up my T-rex to poserize it. And oy the seams it created were really pronounced. If I use the rename option instead of the detach option. I get much better results. That's odd. ScottA

heya; i had the seam problem a long time ago, but... i dont seem to have it nowadays. i use detatch polygons because that's the only way i can see what has already been named. i mean, you can grab a handfull of polys, name them, then grab the adjacent handfull.... but did you miss any? overlap? you can't re-select by poly name. (at least not that i know of!) if you're not detatching the polys, then i really cant splain why you get abnormals! :/