I want to know how can i change an existing character into a new one like changing it's body parts.

An Expert, you all know Arduino has done that kind of work , like creating p4 woman into P4WWG where he edited the hip area of P4 woman. I want to know that techniqe.

I will thank you guys forever if you guide me which tools i need to change the body parts of a chracter.

If Arduino happens to read my post i beg him to just give me just some basic hints.

Message edited on: 03/12/2006 12:17

That's tricky. First you absolutely NEED a modeling application. There's too many to count, from free (Blender, Wings3D) to extremely expensive (3D Studio Max, Maya, Houdini). The modeling application must be able to read and write Wavefront .OBJ files. Unless you also want to do your UVmapping and texturing yourself, it's best to keep the changed figure "UV compatible." For example, P5 Judy is a completely different model than Victoria 1/2, but she can wear Victoria 1/2 texture maps, and vice versa. The trouble starts when you start changing the total amount of vertices. Most applications then will reorder the vertices, which will play havoc with the UV mapping. Fixing up the UV mapping can be done, but it's definitely not easy! Third: when the vertex count and order changes, any morphs for that body part are lost. You'd have to recreate them. In short, it requires an expert indeed. Kudos to Arduino for a difficult job well done! There is an easier way. Let's say you want to make a catwoman with an integrated tail. Here's what you can do: - make the tail as a separate mesh; - make a "morph" of your womans hip and buttocks so that the base of the tail and the hip/buttocks meet perfectly; - make a good UV mapping of the tail; - export both the human figure mesh and the tail mesh as .OBJ, in ONE file; - load this obj into Poser, switch to the Setup room and apply the original human figure from your figure library. This will set up the majority of the bones and joint parameters you need. - Add bones for the tail; - Tweak joint parameters until the tail behaves nicely; - And save your new figure to the figure library. "Unneeded" polygons of the changed bodypart can be given another material, which can be set to fully transparent in Poser. A third possibility is copying the body part you want to change, change it (probably with some extra body parts), map it, and make it a conforming figure. Morphs can be easily transferred using The Tailor. Again, I recommend the book "Secrets of figure creation with Poser 5" by B.L. Render. It won't teach you modeling skills, but it will teach you what steps you have to take to turn a model into a figure, a prop, a morph and so on.

svdl, that is very lucid. In your second option, is there anything to know about how the groups should be named? I have read in RTFMing something about groups being named after bones. I would not mind attaching the M3 genitals to M3RR. It seems that what you describe would work, maybe even still permitting morphs of the original hip. I also have to see if the process you describe would permit making clothed figures from a figure and its conforming clothes. My attempt making clothing body parts into props and then using "replace body part with prop" on the figure did not work... the joins were bad. Anway, thanks for the cool info :)