I spent 3 hours last night trying to 'stretch' the bangs and hair at the nape of the neck on the Vicky Gel hair model. I used Travelers tuts, setting the base and the target zone, etc. I turned off the transparency on the hair so I could 'pull' (lengthen) bigger chunks (tried with trans on first). It set up perfectly, but nothing happened. I used the Y-Trans to pull down - I tried every dial after that in frustration. I played around with the magnets in November when I was totally new to Poser and had no trouble pulling out nipples and plumping up breasts. Can someone tell me what i'm doing or not doing right? I'd be incredibly grateful.

When you created the magnet did you have the hair prop selected? If at some point the magnet became un-parented to the hair object, or if was never parented to the hair object, that might be the cause of the problem.

When you use Y-Trans did you have the magnet itself (as opposed to the Mag-zone or Mag-base) selected?

Sounds like you know what you are doing, so most likely you overlooked one of the basics...that's what I do anyway.

Thanks for replying! Yes, I selected the hair prop first - but I could have lost it (I did this over and over). I did choose the Mag 1 after it was all setup. Could my base and zone be off? I placed the base 'face up' or towards the ceiling towards the end of one the front bangs. The zone was oval to catch the entire 'chunk' starting 4/5ths down the strand. The magnet was 'connected' from below at the base. I didn't want to pull the hair outward, just lengthen it an inch or two. I tried placing the base facing outward with the magnet almost covering it and moved Mag 1, but nothing happened there either. I also tried getting the base under the bang (cause they come up and over the forehead) with the magnet over it, but that didn't work. Could the base or oval be to far out giving me the illusion that it's right up on the hair? Hell, I'd pay for a tutorial on how to do this. I went to Wyrmmasters Vicky page to see if there was any info on the procedure, but there isn't. I've overlooked something too obvious to miss.

An interesting problem, cause there are plenty of times when i want to magnetize the hair to do something sensible, like respond to gravity. When i was messing with Michael's chin recently, i realized that the base placement and the zone are what's really important to adjust, not the magnet itself. It certainly does take a lot of tweaking, i'll grant you that. i have the gel hair, too, so if i'm allowed some free time tonight, i'll poke at it, too. Maybe if enough of us do that, it will yield. :^)

Correct me if I'm wrong here, and it's very possible I'm wrong, but wouldn't you want to keep the base the way it starts for this? Isn't the point of the base to re-angle your magnet without causing any deformations? If you want to move your magnet straight down I think you would want to keep your base positioned as it is at the time it is created.

Uh... I'm only posting my opinion because you said you were desperate. My success with magnets have been a bit mixed. Basically, Set the BASE up in the position and facing the direction in which you want to pull. Set the zone up so that it covers the whole area to be morphed. Now tran the MAGNET. If it moves away from the base, but nothing happens, check the selection and the zone. Try selecting individual polygons with the grouping tool. Try typing in values instead of pulling. However, for what you are trying to do, (if I understand you right) I would rather make the morph in a modeler, scaling a selection of polys in one dimention. Berge

heyas; no, the base defines 'where the deformation starts.' so if you wanted the bangs to lengthen downward, the magnet base should be placed at the top of the bangs. actually, it doesn't matter so much on using the translations, but it makes a big difference when using scale and rotation. now... it doesn't matter which way the base is facing, up or down. it only matters which way you move the magnet. remember the magnet isn't a magnet, it is a concrete representation of the vertices you want to move. (ie: you want to move the vertices down, you move the magnet down.) it doesnt matter if the 'magnetic' end of the magnet is facing them or not. :) the mag zone's center should be over the part you want most affected (the tip of the bangs, in this case). make sure the x-scale is very wide to grab the whole width of them. and lastly... make sure all other hair morphs are turned off before you position anything. if the bangs are morphed into their current position and you put the mag zone on them, it won't grab them. it has to be positioned on the ORIGINAL location of the vertices. (where they are when all morphs are zeroed.) oh, one more thing... this might not apply to hair, unless it is conforming... make sure bend is turned on. when body parts don't respond to magnets, this is usually the culprit.

Attached Link: http://www.cooltuna.com/downloads/index.html

OK, i got this to work fine, but i had to create a group from the front strands and point the magnet zone at that group. Unfortunately, when i try to export this via Morph Manager, it crashes the program! Then i tried just exporting the morph from poser, and re-importing it. It had no effect. So i guess the group & the morph gotta go together. If i were capable with Rhino or such, this might not be so frustrating. i've posted the magnet, which is specific for the MW gel hair, on my site. It's just too esoteric for Free Stuff.

Thanks for the magnet, Nan! Off to get it now. I've had success with magnets for facial morphs, so tried to morph Syyd's Adam hair and discovered that you can't use a magnet on a morph. Adam's long hair is a beautiful morph on Michael's wedge cut, but it intersects the shoulder - easily be fixed in Photoshop for a still, but not for an animation. I'd really like to pull it back at the nape of his neck; it would be gorgeous on a native American figure I've done, but of course that also won't work. I think the only solution to morphing a morph is to export the item (with the morph turned on) to a modeler and moving polygons - or am I missing something? And yes, the transparency mapping, terrific as it is, really makes it hard to see what you're doing. Hair is the hardest! That's why I tend to buy hair models faster than anything else. If only there was a wider choice of high-quality hair WITH morphs, so you could give them those little tweaks that your characters always need.

I posted a Big Thank you yesterday, but i see it didn't take. Thaks for all the explanations - and bloodsong, you are right on about the bangs being zeroed. I think that is the problem. And nfredman - wow! a real hair magnet preset! I can't thank you all enough. Your replies probably helped a lot more people than me. When I get something recognizable I'll try to post it. maybe. Thanks again

One last P.S.--before pushing & pulling the hair around, make it visible by going to the Materials dialog (CMD-U) and sliding the transparency sliders for hair down to zero,both Max and Min. It will go back to being plastic hair for the duration, until you fix the sliders back. It really helps. i think one would have to take a hair OBJ file into a modeler and actually moosh the mesh around--coming up with a new OBJ and a new hair in the process. See how we're creeping up on doing our own? :^) Nan who still can't figure out Rhino...give it time.

heyas; gryffn: you're having trouble because you're pointing the magnet at where the vertices are mophed TO, not where they originally came FROM. now this may seem weird, but turn the morphs off, put the mag zone around the vertices that you want to move... then turn the morph back on. the vertices morph outsize the mag zone, but they will still be affected as if they were in it, because that's where they came from. then you can build on the morph and make it take new shapes. just remember if you build morphs on top of morphs... when you spawn the morph, it will combine the two morphs. so, say you make a width morph for the ponytail morph to make it wider. when you turn that dial you will get the ponytail morph + the width morph, rather than just the width change. did that make sense?

Right, Nan, you have to keep switching between non-transparent and transparent and doing test renders to see what you're moving and what the effect is. The Adam hair model goes way down his back, but the transparency map doesn't go nearly that far. Actually, think I'll play around and see if I can't improve that lower edge... Bloodsong, thanks for the comments on the vertices affected. Now I remember hearing something like that, before I really began experimenting with magnets. I can take a copy of the texture map and slap some colors on different regions to get an idea of where the ones I want to affect actually come from. Always some new aspect of Poser to explore!