For some reason I never got the email notification alerting me of further replies to this thread, so I never even realized they'd been posted until I checked back just today out of curiosity. That SelectOn/Off pose tool really does the trick nicely and is exactly what I was looking for, thanks so much! I've found the easiest way of using it is to apply the OFF pose to the entire clothing figure at once by using Body, then simply using ON immediately afterward for the actual character figure onto whom any of the effects may have spilt. Works perfectly, in two easy steps.. thanks again!! :)

Thanks for the replies everyone! I've gotten some okay results with the morph combinations mentioned and I'll check out the marketplace items as well shortly. At least now I know I'm not daft and didn't just miss something obvious in the free area or elsewhere. I'll keep playing around with what I have so far and any further tips and tricks are still welcome and appreciated, thanks again!

Hehe ya, that's the method I've usually had to resort to as well. Or vice versa, selecing the right object but on the wrong figure, then changing the figure to the desired one with the selection box. Being quite lazy as well, I was really just trying to save myself that step if possible. Basically move things effectively "out of the way" as far as selectability goes. It was probably just wishful thinking... thanks again!

Thanks for your reply. Lock actor does prevent the figure or object from actually being moved, but it doesn't prevent it from being selected. So, if you're trying to click on a character's right shoulder, you can still get the garment's left shoulder by mistake, and have to move the mouse and try again. I was hoping for a way make the garment completely non-selectable. It may not be possible, but I thought it might be worth asking..

Thanks for your further replies everyone, they've been quite helpful. I am in fact using Paint Shop Pro and have succeeded in getting the desired results by using the methods suggested above. So to be clear then, paint program image manipulation is the only way to get that non-gridded transmap template, and I shouldn't bother trying to get UV Mapper to output the file that way initially, correct? Also, a slightly off-topic yet related question. In Paint Shop Pro, is there no way to use the kind of flood-fill that was common in older paint programs? The kind where it fills with the color but automatically stops as soon as it hits any other differently colored pixel? So that if I had an empty white rectangle with a black border, and I filled inside it, it would only fill to the border and then stop by itself? That used to be very easy to do and still is in simple apllications like MS Paint, but I see no way to do it with PSPro. You can select a limited area to be affected by a fill, but that's useless if your desired area is of a weird or unorthodox shape. Any tips? Thanks again!

Okay I should have made my question clearer. I already know how to work with existing transmaps with a paint program, as I do this all the time. But I'm talking about how to create a brand new transmap for an .OBJ that doesn't already have one of any kind to start with. Specifically, clothing items not from DAZ that don't come with any. I can get UV Mapper to create templates from the object files, but the problem is that those templates have all sorts of criss-crossing gridlines and seams all over them, which makes them impossible to work with in a paint application unless I want to spend 400 hours flood-filling each and every tiny little square of space created by those intersecting gridlines. I will try to upload examples here of two different transmaps Little Dragon once posted for the same item, to give a better picture of what I mean. See below.

Thanks for the replies, guys. The blazer on PhilC's site is in fact what I was looking for, but unfortunately I don't have V3 because my older machine just can't handle her. I should have specified V1 or 2 in my original message, and Poser 4 for that matter. The jacket at DAZ is nice but looks like more of an outdoor one than an indoor "sport blazer" which I was going for. Phil, you don't happen to have a version of that blazer for Posette do you? ;)

Thanks so much to both of you for your replies! You were both right of course and I'm now happily able to put that mystery to bed, as well as finally make use of that texture which has been sitting on my hard drive for months. Believe me, I did try to identify it on my own but without any luck. Much gratitude!

Thanks for the replies. I did try the Vicky one but didn't have any luck altering it for Posette. The dimensions are just made such that any stretching or shrining make th angles go all out of place. It was a good idea though. If that other one is indeed around somewhere I'd love to try it, who is Geralday?

Thanks for the responses. So it's a programming language, okay got it. So why are there many references to "Poser Python"? Is there a specific program made with it that plugs conveniently into Poser to enable all kinds of scripts or something? From the screenshots of all the python scripts available here, it looks like they integrate naturally into Poser without having to run any external programs. Any info on that?

I've been using some of the suggestions here and having some good success, thanks all. A further question: I've noticed several "python scripts" that let you manage all lights at once, but I don't quite know what "python" is. Do I have to get Pro Pack in order to have it, or is it available for regular Poser 4 somewhere?

Hi everyone. Thanks so much for all the very helpful suggestions; I really appreciate them and I'll be giving them a try right after I finish typing this message. On the subject of shadows, I didn't actually mean literal shadows, sorry about the mistake. I have the master "display shadows" option turned off at all times, so unless lights act independently of this setting the shadows themselves aren't the problem. It's more just, one area of a figure (on the side where the light is) is more illuminated than the other darker side by sheer virtue that the light is coming from one direction rather than all of them. The other problem is that I'm not trying to get just one good shot from one angle, but rather have a whole scene that's perfectly lit from all angles, so I can move the camera around and do a hundred different renders that all look the same lighting-wise without having to touch the lights even once. I should also point out that I'm still a bit of a novice and not that familiar with the "parent" and "point at" options. I know they're covered early in the manual but I didn't quite get the concepts when I read about them, other than the obvious one of pointing a camera at an object. I don't know what parenting or pointing-at a light would do, but I don't want the lights attached to any one figure more than any others, since I might have ten figures in my scene and want them all illumined all the same all the time from all possible angles. Anyway, some of the solutions mentioned do seem to address that goal so I am going to try them out presently. The "glowball" looks like it actually consists of several thousand individual lights arranged in a spherical pattern, which would probably crash my system. But, maybe it only looks like that in the preview. I'll try it and check back, thanks! :)

Thanks everyone! All the suggestions are helping greatly and I'm already getting better renders. I'll continue to work with everything mentioned and am sure I'll have constant improvement. Much appreciation, as always.. :) Cenozoite