This may be somewhat difficult to explain, please bear with me. I made a mesh of a mechanoid character, which I am attempting to make poseable. I had trouble with a PHI file, and am now trying to use the grouping tool and hierarchy editor. I imported my OBJ, selected the grouping tool, and clicked Add All to select all polygons in the model. I then clicked Spawn Props, resulting in a new Poser prop for each group in the original OBJ. I then deleted the original mesh, leaving only the newly created props in the scene. I arranged my figures hierarchy in the Hierarchy Editor. Then I clicked Create New Figure in the Hierarchy window to add my new figure to the library. I close out my work, create a new (blank) document, and instantiate my new character from the library. So far so good. Here is the problem: there is only one Mandroid figure in the image above. What looks like a second mandroid skewed 45 degrees to the right is a glitch. This has happened repeatedly. The bottom-most element in my figure's hierarchy gets not only its own geometry, but a complete copy of the geometry of the entire figure. The bottom-most element in the hierarchy happens to be one of the manipulator claws. I generated this image by bending that claw to 45 degrees, which slewed the extra geometry it is carrying as well. If I look at the CR2 in a text editor, by golly that claw has an enormous geomCustom field (compared to the other claws which have only a few hundred polys). It definately included a complete copy of the figure geometry in that node. Has anyone seen anything like this? More importantly, has anyone fixed anything like this?

Hmmm, not one I've seen before but, from your description of the geomCustom entry for that claw, I suspect that you are right and that there is a complete copy of the Mandroid in there. Have you tried comparing that geomCustom entry with the others? It might be as simple (and as long-winded) as simply deleting everything in the geomCustom entry except what's needed for the claw. Paul

This is just a thought, try doing the spwan props part without using the add all command. I ran through your checklist and I did get the same thing, i.e. an extra copy of the object in the CR2. When I've used spawn props, I've never used the add all button, I think it's adding a second copy of the groups.

heya; yeah, i had this... but only because i forgot to delete the original obj after spawning the props... i think. when you do the grouping tool thing, select the grouper (?? ;) ), and see if there is already a list of groups in it. if so, you don't need to do anything else. you only need to define new groups if they aren't there. ya know?

After I import the obj, I hit the gouping tool, usually one part turns red, I click on "NEW GROUP" and type anything (it's not important what name you give it, I usually put an "x"), now the entire obj turns black, then I click the spawn props button, after the props are spawned, I close out the grouping tool and select the original obj and delete it. I think the part about you "selecting all" is creating hte problem. Now that you'll overcome that problem, be sure to give the correct rotation order to the parts before you create a new figure. Davo

Thanks everyone, adding all polygons before spawning props was the problem. I'm not even sure why I thought I had to do that. The mandroid is coming along nicely now, setting joint parameters and so forth.

heyas; davo: what you are doing is this: when you select the grouping tool, the first group turns red (its name should also appear in the group name slot). when you click on create new group, you start a new group, to which you are supposed to add polygons. since you don't add any, i think this is an extra step you don't need. instead of that step, click on the name of the group, to see the drop down list of all current group names. or, better yet, tell it to display all non-grouped faces, so you can see if anything is not in a group. cool, geek!