actually changed my approach. since all i needed to do was replace a poser head with one modeled in max i just imported the head into poser and did the ol' "exchange body part" bit . of course at some point i'll need to reconcile the scale differences, but for now i can get this current project moving in a positive direction. i am relieved and pleased that ya'll are so helpful and i hope to share some of my aquired knowledge when/if needed. also,it's seems that most of the folks here are using poser as it's name suggests .... to pose figures for still images. i am planning on using poser for motion animation . is there a "poser movie showcase" or some such anywhere on the net ? i'd love to see some . again,thanks for all the help jones

thanks everyone for the suggestions. still no luck. the habware plugs will not load . anyway there should be no need for plugins, as poser imports and exports "3ds" re:the scale/percent @ 100 ...... no luck . 103% is about the closest ....103.6, 103.4, 102.9 and etc have been tried. again, i made no scale changes in MAX, so 100% should work, but it doesn't. there must be some other consideration that i'm overlooking . thanks again .... i'm not giving up .... DANG IT TO HADES jones

a bazillion thanks to you Phil . imma gonna try. extra credit for the screen cap ... d-lux thanks again, jones b