You know (I hope), that MATs can ONLY be applied to props when they're parented to a figure in poser. Well, I've found a way to improve on that situation. It's not exactly revolutionary, but it can solve a lot of problems. You still need a figure open in poser, but it can be ANY figure at all. It doesn't need to be the one you originally parented the prop to. I parented a hat to posette, then opened the hat with a cr2 door and the MAT works just fine. The thing is, most people parent props to specific body parts. A hat to the head, armor to the chest, etc. If you don't have a human figure in the scene, you're boogered. The trick is to parent the prop to the BODY, not a body part. To take an example, let's say you have a sword and MATs for it. You parented the sword to vicki 2's hand and made texture MATs for it. You want the sword in another scene, held by a dragon but the MATs won't work, because the dragon doesn't have a hand. If you parent it to vicki's BODY, the MATs will work with any figure. Or you made a staircase, parented it to the wall of a house figure, but you want to use it with just vicki in the scene climbing the stairs. Parent it to the BODY and the MATs will work, with posette, mike, a dragon, whatever. Here's a very simple MAT that uses the poser box prop and any cr2 figure. Copy it, paste it into notepad and save it with the extension .pz2 or .cm2 and put it in Poses or Cameras. Now what you have to do is, open any figure you like, open the box prop and make sure it's selected. Go to properties/select parent. Click on BODY in the list. Apply the MAT file. The box will become black in color, with 50% transparency, an Xscale of 300% and a Ytrans of 0.500. (This is just to demonstrate the changes). If you save the box as a smart-prop and open any other figure, and add the box, the MAT will still work perfectly. If I had parented it to the figure's right foot, then opened a hair figure, the MAT would no longer work. The point is, every figure has a BODY, so it'll always work. ----------------------------------------------------------- copy below this line { version { number 4.01 } actor BODY:1 { } prop box_1 { on channels { propagatingScaleX xScale { keys { k 0 3 } } translateY ytran { keys { k 0 0.5 } } } material Preview { KdColor 0 0 0 1 tMax 0.5 } } } ----------------------------------------------------- end copy here How to do it? Easy. Just paste in these 3 lines between the version and the prop name. ----------------------------------------- actor BODY:1 { } ----------------------------------------- This is how a prop MAT normally starts. ----------------------------------------- { version { number 4.01 } prop box_1 { material Preview { KdColor 1 1 1 1 >>>>>>>>>> etc ----------------------------------------- This is how it needs to be ----------------------------------------- { version { number 4.01 } actor BODY:1 >>>>>>>>>> pasteme { >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> pasteme } >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> pasteme prop box_1 { material Preview { KdColor 1 1 1 1 >>>>>>>>>> etc ----------------------------------------- What does it all mean? Well, for a start, I don't often use MATs to add textures. I use them to move things around. So, you can make MATs to assemble props without necessarily having the original parent figure in the scene. Example? A set of table and chair props with different morphs, positions and textures. What do you parent them to? Well, any damned thing you like. As long as they're parented to the BODY, they'll work in any scene, with any figure. This is most helpful, IMO. If everyone parents their props to the BODY and makes their MATs with the extra 3 lines, prop MATs will work with ANY figure at all. I just figured this out today and I'm 95% sure it works every time. If anyone wants to do some experiments, I'd appreciate the feedback. It's common sense really, but if anyone else already knew how to do this..... why didn't you tell ME???? mac PS I have no idea how to do this in MatPoseEdit, since I never use it.

Hey thanks maclean,this is great,just what I have been looking for.

Very handy info! Thanks maclean :o). Laurie

The one problem here is that when first imported the hat will not follow the head when posed. Of course you can always drop back, parent the hat to the body so the textures will apply, but after import you have to change it to the proper body part so it follows it.