actually it doesn't seem to quite work like that, because one figure that wont work i checked the cr2, it was named figure 1, and all instances in the cr2 were :1 but when i added that figure as a second figure, or used it first and just brought in a second copy of itself, or any other figure for that matter, it was mangled. i have a hefty system so i dont mind importing a couple figures extra then deleting one or two. actually yesterday it seemed to work fine with only one extra figure; as long as the first one was hunky dory the second, third, and so on would work fine. not sure why one of the figures with the correct cr2 setup worked and one didn't, but for now i have a good workaround. thanks :)

well i think i found a work around... it seems that if you import 2 figures of any kind, even if you use the normal vicki, you can use her as a place holder, and the third, fourth, fifth, etc can be anybody... then i can just delete the first two figures. i think its an error that occurs because the null doesn't know what to rename the new figures, unless you use an unmodified vicki.

Thanks Scott! the problem is it's not just the lid... there are 12 poseable parts that this would need to be repeated for =/. Is it possible to use geometry switching to force the whole piano into a different pose, so to speak, with the crank of a dial? or can geom switching only apply to one part. Hey i just had an idea that may fix it. Since the whole piano only has 1 or 2 positions, what if we changed it to a prop file, and used geometry switching to change it between "modes" perhaps that would work.

really appreciate all the help, one more question though. i think i figured out how to remake the pp2, it gave me the option to rename it, i found the obj file it made, the problem is that the new pp2 file (which i named harp2) is nowhere to be found, i even did a search for harp2.pp2 on all my hard drives and its not there. is there a step i am skipping perhaps? thanks!

i think i figured it out, its a lot fancier now but i found the option for external geometry, thanks!

hey Dwilmes thanks for the tip i got the newest version of cr2edit; which is 5.1 unfortunately what you describe has either been changed or removed, ill dig through the instructions, but there seems to be no create library file option in the more tools.

Thanks! i tested his tutorial but there is one problem... creating the external obj resets the model to make it ENORMOUS!! that means i take it that i have to get the scale perfect BEFORE exporting it from my modeler? oh man i hope not cause that is going to suck... im working on a multi prop/figure package that will need a lot of interaction and its going to be very hard to compare all the sizes etc and have everything ready before exporting it from rhino. oh well, it may be that is the only way to do it... just my luck. at least i know how to make the obj external now though, ashame it screwed the size all to hell, now i'll have to re-joint and pose all the poseble parts in the scene because i have to start over from the modeler. if by any chance you know a way around this, that would be awesome, if not thanx anyway at least now i know how it works :)

Thanks! i figured it out. i was actually selecting BODY:1 from the parts list on the null, instead of just picking "body" before that (the no actor message had me thinking it wouldn't work... but it turns out that's the point) i added 4 figures to the scene and it worked great

hey thanks for the help guys, and Dark, using the null first seems to work fine, so its not all that difficult

oooh. so by deleting the thumbnail did i screw it up ? =( this is a completely custom figure

HUGE enormous help, thank you =) the rsr though.. i only see one rsr for any character, it sits right with the cr2 file, like you said; but if i delete it, i get the shrugging man... so the thumbnail and that file seem to be one and the same

he's right, open the smoothing menu, then hit CTRL-D you can export as WHATEVER you want... WOOOHOOOO!

COOL! and does this work the same for hr2 and pp2 files with morphs?

this will sound idiot but... how you do find the groups? i have never used any of them

hehe i guess its very arbitrary, because the same limits always result in different intervals... annoying