OK, you have a character textured just like you want it, and you would like to have a MAT pose so you can quickly apply this texture the next time you play? Easy to do, and costs nothing but about 10 min of your time :-) Save your character as a cr2. Now launch John Stallings Cr2Edit, a wonderful little free program. (Yes, you could also use any text editor, it is just text, nothing scary) Open your cr2, it will look like this... (continued)

BRB, got to cook dinner.....

ok, steaks ar on the grill... Now, I like to change the number if I plan to share the file with others, that way folks do not get that annoying error message about the wrong version #. Now, you will see a bunch of stuff between the "Figure" near the bottom, and the version # near the top. Delete it all. It is fun, my kids laugh at the little beeps...

You do not need that very bottom line either.OK, yes, there are more lines within the material settings you can edit out, but the file is mighty small already, so I do not usually bother. Now expand the figure data. Delete all the lines within it that are not "material" lines. You are almost done! Now save this as a pose file in a pose library. When you open it up in Poser, you will get a silly little shrugging guy, but the MAT Pose does work. Now to get rid of the silly little shrugging guy, Yarp has a free application 3PDO, that will help you create an rsr if you need it, and any 2d app can make a png for you.

You will not have to reformat your hard drive or re-install windows this way :-]

or, for those that are really not into this much work, just download mat pose edit from free stuff. works great. both are much cheaper.

Now see I didn't know cr2 editor could do this.. :) helps S Thanks Pam :)

:)

yeah pam, that's what i do, just cut out from a cr2. :) didn't use cr2 editor though, just text editor, lots of times the cr2 takes too long to load. :/ by the way, this works in poser 5... save as a pose file. unfortunately not able to use it in the new materials library :( materials only change one material at a time! :(

Many thanks, Pam! I'd been puzzled by the MAT pose because it had been explained only in terms of fancy applications. Your raw-editing explanation worked.... I just now used it, and on the first try succeeded in re-upholstering and repainting a chair! Incidentally, the various CR2 editors don't work well for inanimate objects like furniture because they assume too many "humanoid" properties in the CR2. So I'm thankful when somebody gives a description that can be applied to raw editing.

Very clear and concise - Thank you!

And she cooks steaks with one hand while hacking CR2s with the other... while raising children with... er... Never mind. :-) Thanks for the tip.

Mat poses seem complex, ockham, but they're really not black magic. They just look that way. ;] ERC and JCM - now THAT's black magic. ;] Seriously, if you collect a lot of them - not hard to do in various freebies and store items - and spend some time dissecting them in WordPad, you start to get a feel for how they're constructed and what makes them tick. That's basically what I did... plus banging my head against the monitor on occassion. Cool tips pam, thanks. ;]

EnglishBob wrote: "while raising children with... er Never mind. :-)" a multi-dimensional, multi-tasking, multi-limbed, multi-personalitied alternate me, with the optional eye in the back of my head installed in cloak-mode, just like any other mom. :-P

The easiest way to make a MAT pose file is probably using the free utility MAT Pose Edit. The down side of using MPE is that you don't learn anything about the insides of poser files, and that's why tutorials like Pam's are valuable. The same technique as Pam describes here could also be used with the free CR2Builder utility. As Pam says "Yes, you could also use any text editor...", and this is actually much quicker than using CR2 Editor or CR2Builder (though probably not as quick as using Mat pose edit). If your feeling brave and don't mind getting your hands dirty in a text editor, this is what I do. I start with a template file, like so: { version { number } figure { #---Start MAT Section--- #---End MAT Section--- } } (It's a good idea to write protect your template file, and also the cr2 you will be using, so that there is no chance of them being accidentally damaged.) With this template open in a text editor, I resave it with a new name and a pz3 file extension to a props pallet I open the CR2 in another text editor window, and use the "Find" or "Search" function to search for "canonType", this takes me near to the start of the materials section. I then copy everything down from, and including the first line that starts with the word "material", down to, but NOT including the line that says "displayMode USEPARENT" (this will be one of the very last few lines in the file). I now paste what I copied into the template between the two marker lines, and resave the file. That's it, test your file to make sure it works, and your finished. The lines starting with "#" are just visual markers, Poser will ignore them, and you can leave them out if you want. If the file doesn't work it is usually a case of miss matched braces, there should be an equal number of right and left facing braces in the file. The end of the file should look like this: reflectionStrength 1 } #---End MAT Section--- } } Except the value of " reflectionStrength" may be different. One last and very important point, if you are going to distribute your MAT files you should check all the map references to make sure they do not include a path. This is WRONG: textureMap "C:Poser 4RuntimeTextures01V2AnnaVhedTex.jpg" This is WRONG: textureMap ":Runtime:textures:Poser 4 Textures:AnnaVhedTex.jpg" This is RIGHT: textureMap ":AnnaVhedTex.jpg"

Good additions Les :-) (looks around the room, oh my! maybe this IS a learning place :-) )

maybe indeed pam ;) lol lord that was easy enough even for me to understand - thanks for sharing. Ok now how about a quick and dirty MOR pose creation thread?

Thanks Pam, that is useful.

Woo hoo! More MAT pose fun! It hasn't even been a week since the last one. You'd think people just invented MAT poses last week! Is cr2 Editor a free program? You're certainly giving it some good advertsing. I hope it's free or Spike may get after you for advertising in the Poser Forum. You're not allowed to mention marketplace stuff in this forum. Here, I'll beat you to the next topic: Yes, you can use Poser 4 things in Poser 5. No, you can't get Vicky for free- you have to purchase it from Daz. No, fairies are not child porn. You can get the latest Poser 5 patch from CL's website. The patch is free, but you have buy Poser 5 first.

:-)

Jade asked: "Ok now how about a quick and dirty MOR pose creation thread?" ok, those are a bit more complicated, but do-able :-)

I just saw it Pam - thank you so much! lol I think I've got MAT poses down now - but I still have a heck of a time with those darn MOR poses! That was so much easier for me to grasp then those Arcana tuts - I need things explained in small words as I'm getting older ;)

Woo-hoo! More coffee and donuts! Normally I eat bagels, but this is great! And the coffee looks fresh-brewed! Are those meant for me? What do I have to do to get devils food cake?

LOL, what do you have to do to get devils food cake? Ya got to fight me for it! All chocolate belongs to me.