Would it be possible to make a cr2 that has more than one figure but only shows as one figure in poser?  It would be similar to a pz3 file without the camera information etc.

Could a pz3 file be edited to make a figure like that?

Yes.  And, yes. :)

A pz3 is not much more than a cr2 with extra information (cameras, lights, document info).  It is already possible to save figures to the figure library if they are conformed (or perhaps parented).  Not sure if multiple figures can be added if they are separate.  If that is the case, save as a pz3 and widdle it down to a cr2 (it may even be possible just to change the file extension and it will load so try that first).

I know that pz3 files can be loaded as cr2s what I meant was for a figure to be made that actually shows up in poser as being one figure, though that might cause problems with editing any of the figures in the cr2.

Are you talking about cloning?  that is, say, putting the head of one figure onto the body of another, or say put a human figure from the waist up onto the body of a horse from the shoulders back, etc?
DPH

Not quite sure what you are trying to do. You can have a cr2 with two figures in it, just use "Set Figure Parent" to parent one to the other, when you save you will be prompted to save as a group or single figure. After the save you can just edit the 'parent' line in the parented figures BODY actor to "UNIVERSE" to un-parent it.

If you want to have two characters share the same BODY actor (and thus be seen as one figure by Poser), I think it can be done, let me know if this is what you want and I will explain how I think it can be done. Though I must admit I have never tried it.

That could be done, but it wouldn't be recommended.  Not something that Poser can do for you - you'd have to edit the CR2 or PZ3 to construct this new figure.

You'd have to basically splice the two figures together at the Figure and BODY sections: meaning that there'd be one Figure section which delineates the body parts for both figures (in the welds and addChilds).  This would mean also verifying that all BODY references are to the one figure and that the figure numbers all agree.

Worse, you will more than likely need to figure out how you are going to get the geometry from both figures into one figure.  Think about this.  Each figure is usually constructed from a single figureResFile reference with the actors referencing the appropriate geometry groups by name.   These names are typically the same between actors (hip, chest, head, lThigh, etc.).  How would you do this with two figures in one - and not cause Poser to have a seizure, that is?

@ kuroyume0161,

I am trying out my idea at the moment on P6 Jessi. I will let you know if it works. This may take a little while :)

I am not talking about making a hybrid figure.

I just mean for a figure to contain more than one cr2 for example m3 with trousers top and boots but to show in poser as one figure.  With my idea they would still all be seperate figures but the pz3 would be edited so that poser would think they are one figure.

For large scenes it would be easier to have only one figure for each character in the scene instead of all the clothing showing up as figures as well.

It can be done, but you'll need to export them as a single object file first.  Then import them back, enter setup[ room, and chose the M3 Cr2, and then exist to pose room and resave the Cr2 as a New Figure.
DPH

The only way I can think of to make poser see it as one figure, is to have everything actually be one figure, and the only way I can think of to do that is to have everything use the same BODY actor, but if it's all one figure then how do you conform parts of it to itself? I don't think that conforming could be done from within one figure to itself (but I could be wrong).

xantor: But, my dear ;), that is a hybrid figure.  A figure is defined by a CR2.  Saying, to have a figure with more than one CR2 doesn't make sense.   It is totally possible to have a CR2 reference other CR2s using readScript but this still constitutes individual figures.

All figures are joined at the BODY actor (Body selection in the Parameter window).  This is the root actor for a figure.  Each figure is comprised of either a single geometry file with groups assigned to the actors, each actor with custom geometry (either stored internally as geomCustom or externally via an objFileGeom reference), or a mixture of these two.

Now, it is actually possible to have multiple apparent 'root' actors - but there is still one BODY actor.  In this case they'd be separated at the 'hip' but all be children of the BODY.  Again, the problem is how to get the multiple geometries into and assigned to the actors/bodyparts and alleviate the most-likely same name issues on the geometry groups.

As suspected, you want to make 'permanently conformed clothes' as it were.   You could go the totally custom geometry route - which would circumvent the problems of same-named groups and how to reference two or more geometry files for a single figure.  That would require either pre-grouping of the same-named groups or having multiple sets of actors with new names to keep them unique (lShldr, lShldr_Coat, e.g.).

What you are attempting to do is not as simple as you think.  Hybrid figures work because body parts are replaced by other geometry - not added to them.  So the group references to these replaced actors are literally replaced with geomCustom calls.  This is why 'conforming' exists - otherwise why didn't they just do the 'multiple figures in one' in the first place?

Quote - The only way I can think of to make poser see it as one figure, is to have everything actually be one figure, and the only way I can think of to do that is to have everything use the same BODY actor, but if it's all one figure then how do you conform parts of it to itself? I don't think that conforming could be done from within one figure to itself (but I could be wrong).

I agree.  Unfortunately, this is almost totally a problem with the geometry than the figure construction itself.  To put several figures into one requires that the geometries be altered for this construction to then take place.  If you go the multiple 'hip' route, the shoulder of the figure will rotate but not that of any of the other actors related to it unless you also do ERC.  This just gets too complex from where I stand - why not just retain the conformers?

actually doesn;t poser dohis for you? If you have multiple figures open in poser (say s figure plus clothing) and you go to save them to the cr2 Poser asks you if you want to save all or the individual figure (sorry I don;t have poser available to check the exact names). If you save it as all poser creates a cr2 with multiple figure (even pointing to multiple object files). When you load that back in from the menu ALL fo the figures load at once.

 or am I totally off base as to what you are looking for?

mike

That's what I thought at first, but this doesn't create a 'single' figure.  This creates a single CR2 with multiple figures.  xantor wants a single figure from multiple figures stored in a CR2.

Even if it did work, you would probably only be able to reposition or edit the first figure in the super cr2, so it would not really be very useful.

Here it is. Two characters with one BODY actor!

Well as you can see from the graphic, I have some slight problems with the feet, also the right forearm and hand, I'm sure it's just a minor glitch, I should have it fixed in no time. Apart from that everything seems to be working well, all the parts of both characters pose ok, it survives a save and reload.

So you can have two characters share the same BODY, two characters in one figure.

I don't think this will help xantor though, because of the conforming problem I mentioned in my last post. For any one who is interested in doing this, I'll try to give a rough guide in a further post.

Now I must admit I started my little project of putting two chaeacters in one figure with one shared BODY before I realised that xantor wanted diffrent geometries in the two characters. Still I'm not convinced that it can't be done.

I'm off to slay a new windmill, two characters with diffrent geometries sharing one BODY. If you don't see me again, tell em I died with my conforming boots on!

Good luck there, Señior Quixote! :D

It would be interesting to see if multiple geometry references in a single actor would work (hint).  I'm not sure if Poser ignores everything but the first or last or uses them all.

It is not two different human figures in one cr2 that I want, it is one human figure and clothing for that figure, just to make that clear.

Well it is not a working proposition. At least not yet!

I have managed to load a cr2 with two characters sharing one BODY actor, Posette and the P4 Biker Shorts, into P4 or P6.

The good news is that everything works well, everything moves and poses ok. There are problems with the materials in the shorts, I had to use 'customMaterial 32', this means that I have to set the materials in each individual actor in the shorts, rather than refferencing materials in the 'figure' block, but that's not such a big deal.

The bad news is that it does not survive a save and reload either to pz3 or cr2. On reload the geometry is messed up, with missing parts and the shorts geometry on Posette's hip.

My main hope at the moment is that using 'geomCustom' statements in the individual actors may fix the porblem. It's worth a try.

What's that you say Luke?

Just a quick note on my method. I start with 2 cr2s with one figire in each "A.cr2" and "B.cr2", both cr2s should have been saved with KI off.

The first problem is that all actors in B need diffrent names to A. This is easy fixed, do a search and repalce of ":1" with "_B:1". Next in CR2Builder I pasted the declarations from B under the definitions from A, then pasted the definitions from B under that. The "BODY_B:1" needs to be deleted from the declarations and definitions. The parent of "hip_B:1" needs to be changed to "BODY:1".

Next the addChild statements from B were pasted under the addChild statements from A, in the figure block of A, but without "root BODY_B:1". The "addChild hip_B:1" was edited so that the parent is "BODY:1". The welds brom B can be pasted directly under the welds in A. Finally the materials in B were converted to "customMaterial 32" and placed in the individual actors.

So what you're saying is that there are two figureResFiles and two sets of actors just that the actor names are rectified and the welds/addChilds of the one figure added to the other Figure section.  But how do the body parts move with respect to each other?  As noted, I think that ERC may be needed to accomplish this (or some clever childing of figure B with figure A).

To qualify 'move with respect' I think that it should be noted that all of the transforms should ERC'd to each other (RotateX to RotateX, TranslateY to TranslateY, Scale to Scale, and so on).  In this way, any transformational change of figure A would be reflected in figure B etc.

Did Luke say something? ;P

Quote - So what you're saying is that there are two figureResFiles and two sets of actors just that the actor names are rectified and the welds/addChilds of the one figure added to the other Figure section.

Yes, that's right.

Quote - But how do the body parts move with respect to each other?  As noted, I think that ERC may be needed to accomplish this (or some clever childing of figure B with figure A).

At the moment the two characters move totally independant except for the BODY. First off, I'm not necessarily expecting this to ever work as a practical means of doing what xantor wants. I'm doing it rather than watch crap TV, and just to find out what can be done, and perhaps learn something new. I haven't even thought of "conforming" yet, except to think that it won't work.

I supose you could use ERC. It depends on what you want to do. As for me, I was just wondering if two characters could be part of the same figure. There is the problem of save and reload to overcome, if that can't be fixed then the rest is academic. Some how I doubt it will ever fly as a usefull way to distribute stuff, I'm just interested to see how far I can push it, sort of "because it's there" like Edmund Hillary said.

I understand.  Challenging oneself is a path to further knowledge and solutions.

Thinking further it would be even worse if the two or so geometries were combined.  The joint parameters for figure A would probably not exactly match figure B/C/etc.  Like conforming, the JPs would need to remain individualized - or otherwise completely edited.  Therefore, I think you're jousting at the correct windmill.

As stated, the concept of combining two or more figures isn't as easy as it sounds at first, is it?  The key here is that a figure is a collection of actors/bodyparts more than anything.  One is trying to combine two collections in a meaningful way where the individual elements conflict and aren't as 'individual as one expects' (grouped together in a single geometry reference).

Perhaps my last post was too pessimistic. I don't want to make extravagant claims before this has been thouroughly tested, but on the face of it I now have a working "Super cr2".

Two (almost) stock characters (for want of a better term) in one figure sharing one BODY actor.

The problem I thought I had with materials was illusory, caused by too much caffeine and too little sleep. The materials in B can refference the figure block without problems.

The save and reload problem was fixed by using 'geomCustom' for the actors in B (the Biker Shorts). Posette still uses a 'figureResFile'. The problem was that whilst Poser seems quite happy to read two diffrent 'figureResFile[s]' from a cr2, when it saves to cr2 or pz3 it only uses the last 'figureResFile' in the figure, stripping out any others.

A kind of psudo conforming was implimented by simply changing the hierachy and parenting in B, so in the 'hip_B:1' actor it is parented to  'hip:1' and so on for the other parts, and in the 'figure' block 'hip_B:1' is added as a childe of 'hip:1' and so no for the other parts each "Part_B:1" being a child of "Part:1". I was worried that doing it this way the actors might not respect the joint paramiters, but as far as I can tell they do.

In the graphic the figure on the left is the "Super cr2", on the right is a normal Posette with Biker Shorts conformed. A stock pose was applied to both, and the amount of pokethrough looks the same. In the "Super cr2" the shorts also follow when the paramiter dials are used to pose Posette.

So there you have it a  "Super cr2", it can be done! Whilst I only used two "characters" in my Super cr2, I can see no reason why more can't be included.

Very good. If the figure combining could be automated using python or some other way then it could actually be quite useful.

If anything is not clear, just ask, and I will try to explain.

To get the geomCustom bits, I inported the base object for the shorts into Poser, in the Grouping Tool I did "Spawn Props", then deleted the original obj from the scene, loaded my MinFig, parented all the parts to it and saved it back to a pallet (you could use a primitive and "Select Subset" if you don't have MinFig). In CR2Builder I did the necessary edits to the Super CR2, deleted the figureResFile lines, in the actor declarations in the part B (biker shorts) I deleted the "storageOffset 0 0 0" and "geomHandlerGeom 13 [groupName]" stuff. Then loaded MinFig in the other window and copied the geomCustom bits over.

'replace bodypart with prop' might also yield some interesitng results

There used to be a lot of these (or at least a number of them) back in the old P4 days. I can't remember who did them but they were fairly popular from a couple of people. I remember a guy in baggy jeans and T-shirt for sure. They basically made the equivalent of the P4 casual man.

I used this back in the poser 4 days to make a centaur. Just posed a horse and a dork and made the relevant bits invisible then saved as a PZ3. Also save a CR2 to get the thumbnail then just rename the PZ3 to CR2 and ut in the CR2 folder. Should just load both figures for you.

pdblake: that is a hybrid figure (as was mentioned).

Lyrra: won't work for figures. :)

The problem is that the OP doesn't want to replace body parts but instead combine them from multiple figures.  In some cases, replacement might work but with clothes this is usually not going to work well.

A prop can replace a body part.  Even if you replace each body part with the relevant body part as prop from the other figure, you may no longer have the proper bends (joint deformations).

To explain more thoroughly: this is a problem that I have with my C4D Figure option for my C4D plugin.  It allows you to take a standard C4D polygon object and 'conform' it to a Poser figure.  But it uses the joint parameters of the Poser figure which usually results in bad bends for the C4D Figure (as the JPs don't always cover the geometry properly).  The only way for me to resolve this is to add a Joint Editor so that the new joints can be changed to work with the new C4D Figure.

@ xantor,

Quote: "If the figure combining could be automated using python or some other way then it could actually be quite useful."

You can do the figure combining as a two step process, using a special cr2 or pp2 to inject the new actors, then a pz2 to inject the welds, material settings, and any other stuff needed in the 'figure' block.

Ok, so how do we inject the actors? We need a special cr2 (or pp2). What makes it special is that it can't contain a 'figure' block, other wise it becomes a normal cr2, and won't inject anything. The other things it needs is to use 'smartparent' in place of 'parent' in the partenting lines, and it needs a 'doc' block listing the actors. The file should not contain the colon actor number (:1).

I have attached the text of such a cr2 above. I had to strip out the geometry from the 'geomCustom' blocks because of copyright considerations. Below is the text of the pz2 to add stuff to the 'figure block, note that the empty declarations are nessary necessary for the welds to work. The files would, if they included geometry, add the P4 Biker Shorts to the P4 Nude Woman (Posette) figure as extra body parts.

{
//INJ_figStuff.pz2
version
        {
        number 3
        }

actor hip_B
        {
        }
actor abdomen_B
        {
        }
actor lThigh_B
        {
        }
actor rThigh_B
        {
        }

figure 
        {
        weld    abdomen_B  
                         hip_B
        weld    lThigh_B  
                         hip_B
        weld    rThigh_B  
                         hip_B

        material shorts
                {
                KdColor 1 1 1 1 
                KaColor 0 0 0 1 
                KsColor 0 0 0 1 
                TextureColor 1 1 1 1 
                NsExponent 30 
                tMin 0 
                tMax 0 
                tExpo 0.6 
                bumpStrength 1 
                ksIgnoreTexture 0 
                reflectThruLights 1 
                reflectThruKd 0 
                textureMap "GetStringRes(1029,7)"
                                0 0 
                bumpMap NO_MAP
                reflectionMap NO_MAP
                transparencyMap NO_MAP
                ReflectionColor 1 1 1 1 
                reflectionStrength 1 
                }
        }
}

At first I wondered what would be the point of having a character with one set of clothing "hard coded" into it, then I started to wonder is it really hard coded? It seems to me that you could have a basic clothing rig included in your figure, then inject diffrent geometry and JPs as needed. The advantage would be slightly quicker and simpler application of clothing, as the conforming step would be cut out. To add a new clothing item you would just select a pose file and apply it.

The disadvantage would seem to be a heavier cr2 file for your figure, as it would have to carry all the actors for the clothing even when nude. Actually you could inject the actors as and when needed, but as actors can only be injected from a cr2 or pp2 file, not from a pz2 file, that would seem to wipe out the advantage of speed and simplicity, you would then have to allpy a cr2 to inject new actors, then apply a pz2 to inject the geometry and JPs. Of course onec you have injected the actors, changing the clothes would become a one step process again.

This is how I remember the old files going. i think there was even a tutorial but I didn't ever do it.

If I remember right you swapped the geometry in the cr2 for the other geometry. So, for shoes, you will take your characters feet obj reference and swap out the shoe reference. At least, that is what I think happened. Thinks like kirts and stuff would be harder if it didn't fully cover. You can also export the figures out as a single mesh and then recut and rebone the figure.

@ Ghostofmacbeth, and others,

I think there is a lot of confusion going on here. This is not about replacing geometry. It's about taking parts from one figure and adding them to another figure as EXTRA parts.

Ahhh .. I was thinking more like the casual people or the business suit people from P4.

Those P4 figures are already one geometry - no conforming/geometry swapping/body-part replacement going on there.  The clothes are part of the overall geometry, like many custom 3D figures you will find elsewhere.

@ lesbentley: How are you getting the other figures' body parts to 'move' with the main figure's if at all?  Are you using ERC or haven't gone that far yet?

Yep .. I know they are already once piece. But people used to make other characters that were similar using different clothes. Like with the dork, the jeans and T-shirt instead by using the different geomtries.

@ kuroyume,

I explained this a few posts back, in my "EUREKA" post, quote:

"A kind of psudo conforming was implimented by simply changing the hierachy and parenting in B, so in the 'hip_B:1' actor it is parented to  'hip:1' and so on for the other parts, and in the 'figure' block 'hip_B:1' is added as a childe of 'hip:1' and so no for the other parts each "Part_B:1" being a child of "Part:1". I was worried that doing it this way the actors might not respect the joint paramiters, but as far as I can tell they do."

If you study the composit screen capture, a post or two down from the EUREKA post, that probably explains it better than my words can. Look at the 'parent' lines in the actors, and the 'addChild' stuff in the 'figure' section.

I must admit I haven't really tested this "pseudo conforming" thoroughly yet, but it seemed to work ok in a quick test.

I thought that you may have mentioned it but didn't go back to check.  I imagine this works for Poser since the joint deformations don't depend on the actual parenting to be applied properly (the foot or hand body parts are parented to BODY when IK is on, for instance).

It would be neater if one could do this 'in situ' with Python instead of doing the construction via CR2s and PZ2s.

Sadly Python is a foreign language to me :sad:, but if anyone wants to try, feel free!

If you could do it with python, and maybe use 5 or 6 figures (for all the clothes for the figure) then it would be very close to my original idea.

@ xantor,

Is this Super CR2 something for distribution, or just for your own use?

It is just for my own use, I was really just wondering if it could be done, I had no plans to distribute it.

@ xantor,

Which charecter figure would you most like to use it on?

There are quite a few figures I could use this with.

The p4 male is one of them.