You hacking geniuses out there have started injecting new geometry with MAT/MOR files. What I could do so much with, if it were possible, is a way to create some material groups on Vicky with the grouping tool, then put them in a MAT/MOR type file so that they could become part of a product I could sell. Currently, the only way I can do that is to make my customers Objaction Move Vicky's whole body to get my groups. (Or, even worse, give them diagrams so that they can make the groups themselves.) Newbies won't touch objaction mover -- I'd rather just have all the work done for the customer so they can use the product with no set-up on their part.

I don't think that it would be possible. The mat files act on the figure (or parented prop) and not the object itself so you won't be able to edit them directly with a mat file....of course I could be wrong.

You can use a pose file to reference the new object and apply textures but you would still need to use Objaction Mover or the encoder at PoserPros to encode the mesh.

Example here

This is more or less useful if you can't redistribute the CR2 pointing to the new mesh. For example the Mil Figures. All your customer would need to do is decode the obj, load up the figure into a scene and use the pose file to make that figure use your obj as well as have the textures loaded for it.

Lourdes

I understand what you're saying, Lourdes. It's what I would have said a month ago. But after reading this description of an "injection morph" --

http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=968818

--I'm wondering if there isn't also a way of "injecting" material zones. Maybe I should repost this in Poser Technical.

Subdividing materials is as close as you'll get. It will create new material "zones" based on geometry groups. I don't know the technical aspects, but there was a free "body suit" file that used subdividing materials, DAZ has subdividing mat poses for Vicki by Anton, and clothing for the house mouse.

The only way I can think this would be possible is to "inject" the geometry into the cr2 where the part in my example above that references the external geometry be replaced with.... { geomCustom { ..insert geometry stuff in here } } If you look at some of the "older" characters in the freestuff that have regrouping and new materials...the modified geometry and new materials are embedded in the CR2. Making a pose file similar with the geometry embedded in it rather than having the external reference may "inject" the geometry stuff into the figure. This would be fine but all anyone would probably need to do with that pose file is cut and paste the geometry info into a new file and voila...instant geometry for something they probably shouldn't have...because in a nutshell, the customGeom stuff you put in there is actually the contents of the .obj file with the modified stuff. As wyrwulf said above, you can use the subdivision materials... Lourdes

It may well be exactly as you say, Lourdes.

Still, it's not obvious to me that a file which supplies only the information that Groupname-X-comprises-faces-such-and-such gives away the actual geometry of those faces. If subdivide mats don't give away geometry people shouldn't have, why should this?

Maybe it's only my ignorance that still sees a possibility here.

Well, to answer my own question, a sub-divide Mat just has to refer to an already-existing body part without spelling out any faces. But is naming the faces sufficient to give away their spacial relationship?

OK...I tested this with posette in Poser4 (not propack 'coz I wanted the geometry in the cr2) -I loaded up posette -Selected the abdomen and made a group -Assigned a new material -Saved her back to the library with the new material and group -Opened up the CR2 and stripped out everything from the second "figureResFile" line upto figure{part. (you need all that other actor stuff in there and both figureResFile pointing to the original geometry. - Stripped everything in the figure section except for materials. - Saved as pz2 file - Deleted posette and reloaded her - Applied the pose file and it seems to work. Note that the embedded stuff is only in the bodypart (actor) that was changed. In this case, only the abdomen had the embedded geometry. I tried to strip out the extra geometry info and left in the f lines but that didn't seem to work. Not really sure what parts of the geometry actually need to be embedded and have it work without someone being able to do anything with the info...kinda like the morph files that have the extra stuff stripped out. Well hopefully this gives you enough info to get started... Lourdes

Thanks tremendously, Lourdes! I guess it's my baby to play with now. I'll tell if you if I learn anything.

If I understand lourdes method correctly, it think it would still be a breach of copyright to distribute even a part of a copyrighted geometry in this manner. Although it wouldn't be possible to use a single pose file in this way without the original object file, it may still be possible to reproduce an entire figure using multiple pose type files and some parts, such as the heads of millenium figures may be deemed to have a real copyrightable value in themselves. The question for copyright holders would be where to draw the line. My suspicion is that they would stomp on it immediately. The difference (and advantage) with mover is that no copyrighted information is ever distributed, only the changes that have been made. Bill

And it's certainly true that the thing isn't worth doing unless you could mark up the body into a number of zones; if there's no way to define a zone without carrying over geometry, then you'd be carrying over a lot of geometry. I guess there's still an "if" in there . . .

• Geometry info strikes me as a copyright no-no. * As you say, it would take a LOT of geometry to mark up the body into useful zones. Regrettably, I see no practical way to proceed with this.

I accept the verdict. Thank you all -- particularly you, lourdes -- for going to the trouble of thinking it through for me. I appreciate it. Bill