Let's take this one step further. How to cut-up a geometry so it will work in a Poser figure.

Before we even start there are some rules about the body parts in figures that you have to follow. This is probably the most fiddly part of making a figure.

#1 The only parts that can share a common border are parents and children.

#2 Sibling body parts (left collar and right collar) can not share a border.

#3 Grand parents can't share a border with grand children.

#4 A polygon can not be in multiple groups.

#5 Every polygon must be in a group.

#6 Polygon group must be contiguous. (no islands)

#7 Save at every step of the way. A lot of these steps can't be un-done.

This poor donkey came through support recently and I though it was a good example of how to make a Poser rig. The imported figure basically falls apart when posed. If you look at the groups it becomes obvious.

This particular import managed to break pretty much every rule. The "chest" borders 4 of it's grand parents. That 4-corners connection in the middle of the neck. That's 4 segments of the neck so that's never going to work.

OK so how should it be?

In some case you can fix the groups by adding and removing a few polygons in the setup room. Not this case it's just too scrambled up. So we'll need a group it manually.

Import the OBJ for the figure.

Open the group tool.

Delete all the groups.

Now click [New Group] and type the name of the first group. "hip" this will become the name of the body part.

Might as well learn Poser's weird body part naming conventions. There are several body parts with weird internal names. You can see this by looking at the internal names of any figure. And yes the "Shldr" and "foreArm" are really spelled that way.

Switch to wireframe view and use one of the side view cameras to select the hip polygons. Use the wire frame view because that allows you to select hidden and back facing polygons.

Be careful to completely surround any body parts what will be a child of the hip (legs and tail)

Now switch to a solid view so your polygon selections will not select the back facing polygons.

Now create the next group, This will be the first appendage. It can only border the hip, it's parent body part.

You're probably thinking you have to super careful so the first tail and hip parts don't over lap. Nope. Select way more for the first group of the tail than you  need

Now on the group tool check the "Show multigrouped faces". The over lap is really obvious now.

But you can't edit the faces in this view. No matter there's a super easy fix. Turn off "Show Multigrouped faces"

Click Remove > Group > hip

now the tail group is perfectly matched to the hip. If you choose "Show Multigrouped faces" now there should be nothing.

Now let's raise the complexity a notch. Let's introduce symmetry. The figure's limb groups should be symmetrical. Here's how to make left and right sides match.

Create a group for "thighs" this group will be temporary.

Add too much so the thighs group over laps the hip then Remove > Group > hip just like the tail.

Now you have both thighs in a group.

Create a new group for each thigh "lThigh" and "rThigh".

On the Group tool select Add > Group > thighs.

Switch to wire frame again and position the camera so you can clearly see the two legs.

Remove the polygons in the opposite leg. ([Ctrl] + Left Mouse will subtract polygons)

Repeat for the opposite leg.

Delete the temp group "Thighs"

Now work your way down each leg creating the appropriate groups, lShin/rShin and lFoot/rFoot.

Periodically you should check Show multigrouped faces to make sure you haven't accidentally double grouped facets.

When you get to the feet we can try an easier way to make symmetry.

Create the groups for both feet. In the left foot add the appropriate polygons.

Select the right foot.

Add > Group > lFoot

Modify > Mirror > +X to -X

Remove > Group > lFoot

Now you have two identical feet.

Use these techniques to group the rest of the figure.

When you think you're done look at both "Show multigrouped faces" and "Show non-grouped faces" Both of these should be completely empty.

If they're not go back and fix the groups so every face is in exactly one group.

Once you have all the body parts grouped, on the group tool choose [Spawn props]

Delete (or hide) the original geometry.

I colored the props so you can clearly see how I grouped this figure.

Now use the Hierarchy editor to sort the spawned props in the order they should be, Just like with the simple prop figure. There's just more parts.

Then [Create New Figure] just like the prop figure.The new figure will be in the Figures > New figures category of the library.

This time you will definitely need to adjust joint centers and weight maps.

Hopefully this will help somebody.

Stupid Poser trick #999878: When using the grouping tool to set groups you can select hidden and back facing props by setting the display to wire frame.

So, if you can see the polygon you can select it. In any solid view you can't select polygons you can't see.

Once you get to a clothing mesh in that can be imported. The next challenge will be defining the body part groups. There are tool in Poser that will attempt to do that for you. None produce truly acceptable results. There's an extremely important rule that the automatic stuff doesn't necessarily stick to. The polygon groups can only touch parent to child. Sibling parts can't touch, grand parents can't touch. I'm working up a tutorial on that right now.

There's also a kind of "My first Poser figure" step-by-step here: https://www.renderosity.com/forums/comments/4489210/permalink

Your best bet is to reinstall Poser or restore a backup. There's a bunch of stuff in the Python folder that has to be there.

There are a lot of ways to get from a bunch of loose objects to a figure. Some require tools outside poser. This method is one of several all-Poser techniques. You can do this using the Hierarchy Editor. This technique doesn't create a conforming figure. That's quite a bit more involved.

First you'll want to create props with appropriate internal names in their geometry. This isn't strictly necessary but it is good habit to start with the right names.

1. Load an position the props where you want them in the scene.

2. Open the group tool and select the first prop.

3. Create a new polygon group for the prop give it the name that will be your prop's body part name (LeftEarring1).

4. Add all the polygons to the new group.

5. [Create Prop] (NOT Spawn Props)

6. Delete the original prop.

Save your scene. Now repeat steps 2-6 for all the props you want to make into the figure. Now you need to set the hierarchy of the figure.

7. Open the Hierarchy Editor

8. Drag and drop the parts so they are parented in the order your new figure will need.

9. (Optional) Check [ x ] Show Parameters on the Hierarchy Editor.

10. (Optional) drag and drop the rotation dials to set the bending order for each body part the top one in the list will become a twist dial.

Save your scene. Now it's time to create the figure

11. Select the "root" of your figure, the top object in the figure shown in Hierarchy.

12. [Create New Figure] on Hierarchy.

13. Give it a name and [OK]

14. Start a new scene.

15. In the library go to the figures category > New figures then load your new figure.

16. (Optional) Use the Joint Editor to adjust the center of rotation for each body part.

17. (Optional) Use the Joint Editor to setup weights maps.

18. (Optional) If you don't need bending like with a mechanical figure. Select the body of the figure and un-check "Bend" on the Properties tab.

19. Re-save the new figure to an appropriate folder in the Poser Library. (Resave the figure even if you didn't change anything.)

20. If Poser prompts for a location to store the .OBJ file choose "Geometries folder".

You're correct that lens focal length does affect the depth of field. You'll also find there's no infinity focus distance. There's no distance where everything behind the focal point is in focus. You have to keep focus all the way to the end of space.

@dt00swc the issue you're talking about, I presume is the problem with strand hair messing up the preview and making it super slow.

It turns out that it's a problem in the dynamic hair library we use. We're waiting on a the developer of that library to fix it. It's not going to be in the next service release. I wish I could say it was fixed.

There are other Mac-only issues in that library and we may end up having to migrate to a different dynamic hair library as we did with the Talk Designer. (Which is an open source library now)

Again sorry for not having a solution yet.

Yes, Daz allowing their content to be used in Poser would be a win for every one. It's even technically possible. If you've been following the Poserverse since Poser 4 you know Daz used to support Poser. They decided to burn that bridge. They've been invited to build back a relationship multiple times. They aren't interested.

3dkaya, check your Direct Messages regarding Poser 11 downloads.

The old activation system was run by Nalperion and we dropped it because it was expensive and getting more expensive every year. Yes it had cool features but I don't want Poser users paying more for features they really don't want. There's also the trust issue with 3rd parties having access to user data. The current system is simpler yes but it's also entirely in-house.

It does have a grace period but it's limited and it's also silent. We can probably add a warning that it's running out of time to refresh the activation.

Yeah, that's the spot and it looks like the earring is un-checked. That's normally the way this is done. Maybe it was hacked to un-include-bends but the weight maps are still on the pop.

Rather than de-bugging this the easiest fix is probably to use the group tool to spawn a new prop.

Zero the figure

Select the earring.

Open the grouping tool.

Create a [New Group]

[Add] > all on the new group (Should turn the whole thing red)

[Create Prop]

Give it a sensible name.

Close the group tool

Delete the original prop

Reparent the new prop to the figure's head. (Obviously don't include bends.)

Save the un-bendified prop to your library. Choose yes when asked about saving the parenting. That makes it a "Smart" prop

Look in the dependency editor in head or neck of the the figure. Select the head of the figure and then any of the bend channels. Then click the [Affected actors] button. Un-check the earring props.

FYI Parented props CAN have weight maps on their inherited bends.

"Its kind of sad that legitimate users are the ones that have to deal with it."

Me too. I wish I didn't have to carry a house key or keep my car locked sadly that's the world we live in.

And, yeah. Locks are for honest people.

First rule of Poser morphing.  Never, ever start from an exported geometry. It will end in disaster.

Work from the original OBJ for the figure, LF2 in this case. Import the base OBJ into blender. Don't delete anything. If you can't see what your doing hide vertex groups (like the head). When you export the morphed OBJ be sure to preserve the groups. Someone who's more of a blender guru can help with the import export settings.

I can't produce the run away thread scenario. After an image sequence Poser idles down to less than 0.1% cpu usage. And, the UI remains responsive as normal. However there's a known issue with dynamic hair getting all ... explodey ... and that absolutely does drag the UI down to it's knees. That's a known issue and has proven to be more elusive than expected and only seems to affect Mac. Do your scenes have dynamic hair?

And, the make movie options default behavior is setup to match the P<13 behavior. They were originally defaulted off but then we got crucified because "Poser 13 couldn't make movies" Apparently the Auto Make option needed a flashing light or we needed to default it on.

If you're used to rendering image sequences and encoding in something like Davinci it's annoying. If you're used to Poser doing it it's perfect. Can't please every body.

One huge new benefit is that P13 allows you to encode existing sequences.In most cases it's one click but it can work for any properly numbered image sequence.

1) Click the [Change] button

2) choose the first file in the sequence and remove the underscore and frame numbers (filename.png)

3) OK

4} Poser will warn that you might be overwriting images (That's new in 13 too)

5) Click [Encode Existing Images]

Done

And if you're still in the scene that you just rendered the sequence just click the encode button and you're rescued. Literally one click to get back in your groove.

Once you change the setting they are saved with the scene.