Hi-- I hope someone can help. I've been playing with Poser for ages but still haven't really come to grips with it. I'm working on this character using Victoria 2 in Poser 5: I've stuck those little gubbins in her mouth. They're just props, not conforming figures. How can I make it so that when she closes her mouth, the props move with her jaw? Can I do this? I've tried parenting them to 'head' and ticking the 'inherit bends of parent' box, alas, to no avail. Thanks for reading!

The easiest imperfect solution is as follows:

1. Parent the teeth to the head.

2. Show the green cross-thingie for the Origin of the teeth.  
   (Either hit Alt-W.J on the menu, or check the "Display Origin"
   on the parameter box)

3. Pull the green cross back to the approximate location of
   the jaw joint.  (More or less shown in the picture here!)

4. The hard part: Use the LipsOpen morph to open the jaw
   to various angles, and fiddle with the Yoffset and Zoffset
   until the teeth seem to follow the lower jaw closely enough.

5. Resave the figure with the prop attached.

6. Optional: If you want to make the action automatic, you
   could try using ERC to move the teeth along with the
   OpenLips morph.

Hmm-- you're right, that doesn't sound easy at all. I'll give it a try though! Thanks very much!

The ERC paragraph would look something like this.  You'd locate the
xRotate section in the Teeth smartprop PP2, and add the lines within
the red brackets here.  The number after DeltaAddDelta will be about
right for a 'typical' figure, but you'd want to fiddle some until it's just right.

(This would be an -ideal- application for the new Keyframed ERC in 
Poser 7, by the way, but you said you're using 5.)

Oh no! Do I have to edit text files? (runs away screaming, hides behind the dog) I don't even know what ERC is, to be honest...

ERC (also known as JCM and many other initials) is simply a way to
link the movements of one joint or morph to another.  It's used in 
most of the major figures, often to control breast morphs from collar
or shoulder movements....

When a paragraph like the one I've shown is added to a parameter,
it will move whenever its 'master' moves.  The master figure is the 
second line (usually Figure 1 will do, but you could also put the figure's
proper name if it has one).  The master body part (here the head) is 
the third line, and the master parameter (here OpenLips)
is the fourth.  

The last line gives the 'control ratio'.  I picked 8 by observing that the 
widest usable opening on this figure was about OpenLips = 1.8,
and the teeth seemed to match when their xRotate was about 14.

Slave move / Master move = Control ratio.

so 14 / 1.8 = 8

or do something that requires even more work: morph the existing teeth to the desired shapes.

Quote - ERC (also known as JCM and many other initials) is simply a way to
link the movements of one joint or morph to another.  It's used in 
most of the major figures, often to control breast morphs from collar
or shoulder movements....

When a paragraph like the one I've shown is added to a parameter,
it will move whenever its 'master' moves.  The master figure is the 
second line (usually Figure 1 will do, but you could also put the figure's
proper name if it has one).  The master body part (here the head) is 
the third line, and the master parameter (here OpenLips)
is the fourth.  

The last line gives the 'control ratio'.  I picked 8 by observing that the 
widest usable opening on this figure was about OpenLips = 1.8,
and the teeth seemed to match when their xRotate was about 14.

Slave move / Master move = Control ratio.

so 14 / 1.8 = 8

Ah-- so only the 'open lips' morph would move the teeth, and not, say, 'yell' or 'open mouth'? If so that would be less than ideal... I wonder if it wouldn't just be easier for me to move them by hand... I'm not doing animations or anything, just simple renders. I dread getting into the technical gubbins... I'm sure I'll break something. ;)

Quote - or do something that requires even more work: morph the existing teeth to the desired shapes.

Ha ha-- yeah, that's a possibility!

Sure, if you're not doing animation, you can simply adjust them by hand!

But putting the offset at the jaw joint will help in either case.

Haha! After a great deal of trial and error, I managed to save the tusks as a smart prop for the Millennium Teeth that didn't screw up how the teeth work. For such a toothy character, they work better anyway, I think: "WHERE'S MY SODDING TEXTURE MAP ALREADY???" she says... Thanks for all your help. I'm keeping reference to this thread for future use!