Awk! Missed the right forearm internal name, needs case adjustment.

The Lurking Proofreader Assoc.

"Ve haf you under surveillance!"

Insert  "and case" into your note about spelling of part names.

Modeling the treads has the advantage of being usable at all viewing distances and isn't much trouble.

A quick rundown of the process in Blender.

1. Open Blender split the main screen into two windows and change one to UV mode.

2. Import the mesh from the geometries folder to avoid any posing that DAZ or Poser might do on loading a file.

3. Press NUMPAD 1 then NUMPAD Period to frame and center the obj

4. Select the tires, press CTRL+I to invert the selection then press H to hide the selected parts, you should have nothing but the tires visible on screen now.

5. Select the tires, if you are lucky they have been mapped and will show in the UV Layout window.

6. If the tires need to be UV mapped  use ALT+LMB to edge select the ring at the junction of the tread and sidewall then press CTRL+E+1 to mark the seam. Do the same for the other side of the tire. Mark a seam across the treads at one point and mark the seam.

7. Unwrap the tire in edit mode by pressing U key with the cursor in the 3D view window and choosing your preferred unwrap option. You should have two circles and a long rectangle in the UV Layout now. Arrange these for easy texturing in your paint program.

8. Now to the modeling, if the mesh has enough polys in the tread area simply move them as you need to make the treads. If the tires are too low poly in the tread area use the K key to open the loopcut dialog and add as many loops as necessary for your needs. The new loops will automatically update in the UV Layout window.

9. Make your modifications, select all the tires press CTRL+N and recalculate the normals to ensure they all point the same way.

10. ALT +H to return everything to visibility, save the UV Layout, export the model.

TEXTURING

1. Open the UV Layout you saved in an image editor.

2. Add your photo images of the sidewalls and tread over the UV Layout and adjust to fit.

3. Save the manipulated and combined image as your diffuse map.

4. You can use this map to create the bump or displacement map also if you wanted to have raised letters on the sidewall for instance.

5.In DAZ Studio load your model, select the tires under the Surfaces tab and load the tire image you created in the diffuse channel.

1. Do a quick test render, if seams show on the tires at the sidewall - tread junction re-open the map and adjust the image so the photo extends slightly past the edges of the wire of the UV Layout.

This should have covered everything, if you run into a problem or need something clarified give me a shout.

Quote - How many leather bomber jackets can there be? :)

OOH, I know this one!  "As many as thongs for V4"

(Dropped a blasted bracket.)

Pleasantly surprised after downloading. Thanks!

Yeah but those textures are only used for Poser Pron as a tribute to her real life job. :biggrin:

The one that annoys me is the other with the three distinctive moles on the torso that keeps showing up over and over ad nauseum.....I don't even consider looking at "new" Poser characters anymore.

But,but...it's on sale at 25.01% off (?!?) and you'll save $4.24........ :rolleyes:

Loathe the grouping tool in Poser; with this in mind I created "dummy" objects color coded by group for each character to use as a visual reference for creating groups in a clothing item directly within the modeling app, Blender in my case.

Having the visual reference greatly simplifies the process plus allows you to see the interactions and decide on best grouping prior to import to Poser...should be applicable to Lightwave, etc also.

Had this problem with a different outfit awhile back and it's fairly easy to resolve. It's caused by corrupted morph target data during transfer to the clothing.

1. Make a COPY of the cr2 file.

2. Open the cr2 COPY in an editor and goto the line number throwing the error.

3. Determine which morph this line number is part of, you can either scroll up or do the math and goto the first line of the deltas then scroll a short way up, depends on morph size which way is easiest.

4. Note the morph target name, simply remove all references to it in the cr2 COPY using something like Morph Manager, CR2Editor, etc.

5. If it is a morph you want to keep you will need to re-insert the morph data into the cr2 COPY using the method of your choice.

6. Texture maps should also load correctly now since the break point caused by the error has been eliminated. Test by loading from cr2 COPY, since everything is good rename the corrected cr2 COPY to the original cr2 name.

"Another Friday, another problem solved"....... 

If the tires are textured using bump or displacement mapping would be viable and quick to do.

I would actually model the tread and either replace the tires with the mod or create a morph for the tires before trying the hide and replace route.

Hide and replace seems easier than modeling but would probably take more fiddling and tweaking to get right than altering the mesh itself would unless you get lucky with the replacement tire selected.

Enter EDIT mode select the tri polys and use any of these methods:

   1. Under the MESH TOOLS tab select JOIN TRIANGLES

or

   2. In the 3D window header select MESH then FACES from the drop-down and select Convert triangles to quads

or

   3. Use ALT J after selecting the tris if you are comfortable with the hot keys.

GAAH! Did I have the only version of Java 1.5 that Compose wouldn't play well with?!?:laugh:

No problems with group edges distorting if Compose is used  to create the vertex mapped contiguous mesh, regardless of modeling app.

Blender sculpt brushes - adjustable fall-off and limited use of textures as brushes. (Don't forget proportional editing is another option in Blender)

Turning back onto the thread topic now after the detour.

IMO....don't worry so much about the time to output ratio, if you're not generating a significant amount of your revenue from your efforts then concentrate on the quality/detail, relax and enjoy your hobby.

Simplification is fine so long as you maintain your quality standards considering the different requirements for stills vs. animations. Good quality simple meshes definitely have a place and use alongside the more complex detailed meshes.

Blender is fine for creating morphs. Here is a quick run-through of my workflow.

1.       Load figure .obj from the geometries folder into Compose.

2.       Create  then save a joined and vertex mapped copy of the parts involved in the morph.

3.       Import that obj into Blender.

4.       Press the NumPad 1 key with the cursor in the 3d window.

5.       Press the s key and enter 4 or 5 as your scaling value.

6.       RMB click the figure to select it then press the NumPad . to frame the selection in the viewport.

7.       Enter sculpt mode and begin sculpting the morph or use proportional editing to move vertices into rough proximity for large changes then sculpt detail.

8.       When finished press the s key again and enter .25 if you scaled by 4 or .2 if you scaled by 5.

9.       Export the .obj.

10.   Open Compose and morph the parent figure.

11.   Use Poser’s Little Helper, Morph Loader in DAZ Studio, or the native Poser morph loading to add the morphs as included or INJ/REM files.

I use Compose in the workflow because it solves the nasty issues of exploding vertices of the imported morph data and separation at the edges between groups when using the smooth brush in sculpt mode.  Also you can save your joined and mapped meshes in a work folder and re-use them to make later morphs without having to repeat the entire setup process.

The downsides to Compose are that it only works properly under Java 1.1, 1.2 or the current 1.6 version and that it can’t handle the vertex count of a full G2 or Mill3/4 figure so you have to create separate groups for the body and head if you are making FBMs. (It was written in 1999 when meshes were a bit less poly heavy.)

If you want to use INJ/REM to load your morphs Poser’s Little Helper is easy to use and it’s free.

I have a tutorial available for download that more fully describes the process.

Yep, Scott is good at that, he produces some of the more well written Blender tutorials. 

Rigging in Poser and Blender are approached differently so anything rigged in Poser has to be re-rigged for use in Blender and vice versa. You can outside rigging into Blender with the FBX and Collada file formats but you have to bind the mesh to the skeleton and adjust all your deformations to work in Blender, slightly easier than building a rig completely from scratch but still a chore.

When creating new Poser objects it is MUCH easier to create your grouping in Blender then export to Poser for rigging rather than using the group tool in Poser.

Naming conventions have to be closely adhered to when naming object groups, Blender adds data blocks automatically and appends the block name to the naming. You just have to be sure of the naming of groups prior to exporting to Poser. You can rename object groups using a text editor inside the .obj file but it's just easier to handle everything up front.

Poser's tiny scale is a problem anywhere you try to work outside of Poser. I make it a habit to scale up anything Poser related by a factor of 4 or 5 after import, do the work, return the object to Poser scale, then export.

If you decide to try Blender I have a tutorial that is specifically for creating clothing items for use in DAZ Studio and Poser. The tutorial covers modeling a simple t-shirt  as a way of introducing the tools and preparing the item for export to Poser. It does require you to be somewhat familiar with finding your way around the Blender interface though I do try to define key combos used.

Blender can be tough to learn but so is any other high end modeling suite, fortunately there is a strong community of Blender user's that can provide assistance.