Boots modeled in Max, imported as .obj in Poser. I used PHI builder to create the hierarchy. All parts have exact body part names as my figure.

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I then switched to the Setup room and replaced the boots' bones with the bones of the model I want to conform the boots to. In this case ApolloMaximus.

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I returned to the Pose room and loaded my model (ApolloMaximus). Positioned the boots where I wanted them and went to conform and nothing happened. If I move the model's foot, the boots don't move along with him.

Is there some step or steps I'm missing?

Knowledgeable help appreciated.

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Hiya Band,

I must admit when I'm doing conforming clothing I tend to cheat, I don't use the PHI process because it's too easy to miss something and run into problems like the one you describe.  Generally when I'm doing conforming clothing here's how I do it:

Step 1:  Load the default figure the clothing is for in Poser in it's default pose.  It's usually best to use the default model that is "bare", meaning the one that doesn't have any morphs or anything with it.  It's not essential mind you, but it will speed up the process somewhat as it takes longer to load them.  Just be sure not to move or change the position of the default figure the clothing is for in anyway, leave it in exactly the position it was in when it was loaded.  The reason for this, you'll be using this as a reference to line up your clothing, and when you go to add bones to your cloths you'll be doing so by loading this exact same figure in the setup room, which has the effect of pulling in the bones from that figure in the exact same place they are in your current reference model.

Step 2.  Import the prop for the clothing item (in this case your boots) and then position them so they fit properly on the model in it's default Pose.

Step 3:  With the prop for the clothing selected, enter the setup room - then in the figures tab in your library click on the same base model (ie V3, V4, M3, etc) you used to load the default figure the clothing is for, this will recreate the exact bone structure of the default figure inside your current object file.

Step 4: Return to the Pose room, and save a copy of your newly created figure.  You'll probably need to change some names under properties so your figure won't show up as "Figure 1" and should it be necessary you'll might have to redo the auto grouping on the mesh slightly  for more realistic bends, but usually it does a pretty good job of this on it's own overall.

Hope that helps.

Actors in Poser have two names, the internal name - used by Poser for conforming and uniquely identifying objects, and the external name - the one you see in the menus. For conforming clothes, the internal names must exactly (including capitalization) match the internal names of the figure it should conform to. The external names don't matter at all.

The fact that your figure does not conform at all makes me think you've matched the external names, not the internal ones.

Example: the body part "Right Hand" has the internal name rHand. You can change the name "Right Hand" in your conforming item to "Right Gauntlet" or "Right Claw", but you MUST keep the internal name rHand.

The object groups should have the internal names for group names.

There's another flaw in your workflow: you should position the boots exactly around Apollo's feet with Apollo in zero pose - all rotations, translations and morphs set to 0 - BEFORE you add the bones.
One of the easiest ways to add the bones is loading the boots, switch to the Setup room and then apply the Apollo figure to the boots. Then you can strip out the bones you don't need (everything above the abdomen), remove all the morphs (save your figure to the library and use MorphManager to do that), remove unused materials (text editor or CR2Builder).

Now the boots should conform just about perfectly. You will have to adjust joint parameters on the boots to fix pokethru when Apollo bends his ankles, but the joint positions are exactly what they should be.

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Important: there is a difference between default pose and zero pose. The default pose is the one the figure has when it is loaded from the library. For human figures, the default pose is often different from zero pose: the knees and ankles have been slightly bent. That'll give the inverse kinematics system hints as to how it should bend the knees and ankles when doing IK calculations.

The unboned clothing should exactly fit the figure in zero pose, not the figure in default pose. So when you load Apollo, first turn off inverse kinematics, then choose Window->Joint Editor and click the Zero FIgure button, then check the Body and Hip and set all translations and rotations to zero.
Now Apollo is guaranteed to be in zero pose.

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I don't know if it really affects the model but you made a typo with the "rToes" . 
I've never made clothes for Apollomaximus, and I never used Phi builder, does this program makes bodypartgroups for the object? You can check that with the group editor in poser.

Best regards,

Bopper.

Edited: I see some others have given some valuable tips, I had some tips for fitting shoes for Victoria 4 in a thread some weeks ago. Steven is right about  the internal names, I had forgotten about that, the object groups have to be same to make it work.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

Quote - Important: there is a difference between default pose and zero pose. The default pose is the one the figure has when it is loaded from the library. For human figures, the default pose is often different from zero pose: the knees and ankles have been slightly bent. That'll give the inverse kinematics system hints as to how it should bend the knees and ankles when doing IK calculations.

The unboned clothing should exactly fit the figure in zero pose, not the figure in default pose. So when you load Apollo, first turn off inverse kinematics, then choose Window->Joint Editor and click the Zero FIgure button, then check the Body and Hip and set all translations and rotations to zero.
Now Apollo is guaranteed to be in zero pose.

Man you just saved me a ton of work. Thanks for this one.

Is there a way, once in the Setup room to eliminate several bones at once? I've been trying to delete the bones but there are so many of them.

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Another way to get the Apollo model in exact zero pose: don't load him from the library, but import Apollos geometry file from Runtime:Geometries (it's a Wavefront .OBJ file). The boots should fit exactly around this geometry.

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**@ Digger1967****

Step 1: Complete
Step 2: Complete
Step 3: Done. I stripped the unnecessary bones as svdl suggested, but when I try to leave the setup room I get an error message saying that some groups are not assigned to bones.

The fact that your figure does not conform at all makes me think you've matched the exteral names, not the internal ones.

What svdl said here concerns me. How to I get at the internal names of my prop?
**

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A polygon group only has one name, the internal name.
The polygon group that should match the Right Foot body part should get the internal name of Apollo's right foot bone: it is probably called "rFoot".

You can check out what the internal names are in the Setup Room: load Apollo, switch to the Setup room and confirm the dialog box that warns you that Apollo contains morphs.
Once in the Setup room, open the parameter dial palette (Object -> Properties) and switch to the second tab.
Now select a body part using the dropdown menu. Both the internal name and the external name appear in the parameter dial palette.
Best to write them down for future reference. Be exact, internal names are case sensitive!

When your list is complete you can leave the Setup room.

Now load your boots prop, go into the Group Editor palette, and check the names. You'll find some mismatches. For example, you may have called a group Right Foot while it should be rFoot according to your list.
Make a new group in the Group Editor, name it rFoot. Then click the button "Add Group" and select the group "Right Foot" from the dropdown list.
Your new "rFoot" group will now contain the same polygons that the old "Right Foot" group does.
You no longer need the group "Right Foot", so select it from the topmost dropdown in the Group Editor and click the "Delete Group" button.
Rinse and repeat until all group names exactly match the internal names on your list.

In this case, there's no need for extra body parts. So the list of groups in the grouping tool should only contain names that match Apollo internal body part names. Any other group should be deleted.
When you've done that, click the button "Show ungrouped polygons". There should be none, if there are, assign them to the correct group.

I prefer the Wireframe and Hidden Line views when working with the grouping tool.

Once this operation is finished, I advise you to save the boots as a prop. I've set up a separate runtime for this kind of intermediary objects; the finished objects (figures or props) go to another runtime.

One of the disadvantages of the Setup room is the limited Undo capability. When you make a mistake, there's often no other recourse than starting over. So - save early, save often!

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Quote - @ Digger1967**

Step 1: Complete
Step 2: Complete
Step 3: Done. I stripped the unnecessary bones as svdl suggested, but when I try to leave the setup room I get an error message saying that some groups are not assigned to bones.

The fact that your figure does not conform at all makes me think you've matched the exteral names, not the internal ones.

What svdl said here concerns me. How to I get at the internal names of my prop?
**

Actually my guess is there are no groups setup at all then, just open the group editor inside the setup room, select each bone in turn that should have mesh from your clothing figure that moves with it and press "auto group" to create mesh groups for each individual bone, that should do the trick.  The group editor is the icon that looks like a dashed square with a dot in the middle.

The internal names should be auto created when you pull in the bone structure, you probably just need to assign various portions of the mesh to each of those names using the autogroup feature.. my apologies for leaving this out on the original run through, been a while since I converted anything to a conforming figure for Poser :)

@svdl *Now load your boots prop, go into the Group Editor palette, and check the names. You'll find some mismatches. For example, you may have called a group Right Foot while it should be rFoot according to your list.*

There were no mismatches. I made the list as you suggested and all names matched exactly including cases & spaces.

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@svdl "Show ungrouped polygons". There should be none, if there are, assign them to the correct group.

In my version (Poser 7) it is "Show non grouped faces". I'm assuming its  the same.

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You still has the typo "rhtoes" instead of "rtoes", that gives you the error message when you leave the setuproom.

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

@bopperthijs

You're right. You know, you get so close to a thing you don't even notice it. Good catch. Thanks.

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Yep, it's the same.
Switch to wireframe view to better find the non grouped faces (if there are any). The "Hide other objects" button is also quite useful.

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*"Is there a way to delete several bones at once..."
*Alas, not that I know of. It may be possible using Python, I'd have to experiment with that.

Something that works for me is preparing a cloting development rig. Useful when you plan to make more clothing objects.

Here's how to do that:

• begin a new empty scene;
• load your figure (Apollo in this case);
• zero the figure (inverse kinematics off, see the drill in one of my previous posts)
• switch to the Setup room;
• delete the bones you'll never use in clothing, e.g. the eyes, the penis bones.
• switch back to the Pose room and ignore the warning about polygons not belonging to a bone;
• delete the prop that now has appeared in your scene. It's probably called Apollo_SETUP or something similar.
• save the figure to your library as "Apollo Clothing Base"

You can make an "Apollo Shirt Base" the same way (start out with "Apollo Clothing Base" to save some time).

For these clothing bases, you're completely uninterested in the geometry and /or materials. To save you some disk space you can do the following:

• load a box primitive prop from the Props library;
• fire up the grouping tool, create a new group called hip and delete the group box_1;
• export the prop as Wavefront .OBJ, name it "dummy.obj", place it in the same folder as the Apollo geometry;
• Now fire up CR2Builder by kim99 (free download from 3MinutesPoser) and load your Apollo Clothing Base CR2;
• Double-click the line that starts with "figureResFile" in the treeview, and use the Select button to brows for your "dummy.obj" file;
• Do the same for the second line that starts with "figureResFile";
• Scroll down to the "figure" line (the last line in the treeview) and expand this node;
• expand the "materials" node and delete all materials;
• save your work;

Fire up MorphManager (it's here in freestuff), load the CR2 you just saved from CR2Builder, and delete all the morphs.

Back in Poser, load up the Apollo Clothing Base figure. You'll see nothing like Apollo, just the box you used for the dummy geometry. No problem.

• Switch to the Setup room, and you'll see that all Apollo bones are still there. Now delete all bones above the abdomen (leave the abdomen and hip in place), switch back to the Pose room and save the figure as "Apollo Pants Base"
• Delete this figure and reload Apollo Clothing Base.
• Switch to the Setup room and delete all bones below the hip. Leave the hip, and the bones directly attached to the hip (either rThigh/lThigh or rButtock/lButtock) in place;
• Switch back to the Pose room and save as "Apollo Shirt Base"

A lot of work, but it'll save you lots of time in the end if you're planning on making more clothing items.

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That's some really great advice svdl. Thanks for that.

Here's my problem now. I finally got the bones to work. Here is an image of the Boots properly positioned before going into the setup room to attach the Apollo's bone structure.

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I stripped out the unnecessary bones leaving only the shin, foot, footarch, and toes bones and returned to the Pose room.

I zeroed the figure before going into the setup room. But once I return to the Pose room the boots are all out of position.

Is there a step I'm missing?

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You should leave the hip, buttocks and thighs in the rig. The hip is the "root" of the bone hierarchy, if you remove it, Poser will try to make a new "root", messing up the positions in the process.
Another reason to leave the hip and all the rest in: scaling. Apollo uses scaling for smaller/larger characters, you'll want your boots to scale nicely along with Apollo, and for that you'll need all the intermediate bones between the hip and the boots too.

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Wow you really know a lot about ApolloMax. Thanks. I was wondering whether I should delete the hips. I checked out some of Anton's clothing and he leaves all the bones in. For boots he even leaves in the fingers and all.

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Hehe, I don't know all that much about Apollo at all. But I do know quite a bit about rigging conforming clothes, and these tricks apply to all figures.

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Just to make sure I tried one without removing any bones and the boots are in a worse position that my previous attempt when I stripped out all unnecessary bones.

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I think I know what's going on.

After loading the boots prop, did you reposition them to fit Apollo in zero pose, and then immediately switch to the Setup room? That could be the reason.

After repositioning the boots, you should export them as Wavefront.OBJ again (UNcheck "As Morph Target", and CHECK "Include polygon groups". Also CHECK "Weld identical vertices" 
Then delete the boots and reimport the prop you just exported.

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*After loading the boots prop, did you reposition them to fit Apollo in zero pose, and then immediately switch to the Setup room? That could be the reason.

That is what I was doing. So, I tried your way and still the boot reposition themselves.

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I think I've identified the problem. The boots return to Apollo's original pose from the Figure Library. As you see in the pic above I've returned from the Setup room and loaded Apollo from the Figure Library and viola! He slips into his boots perfectly.

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Ah, that's it. Your clothing base figure loads in Apollos default pose, not in zero pose.
Here's how to fix that:

• load the base;
• choose WIndow->Joint Editor->Zero Figure;
• set all rotations and translations in the Body and the Hip to zero;
• choose Edit->Memorize->FIgure;
• and save back to the library.

Now the clothing base figure will work correctly, and if you apply it to the boots in the setup room, they will conform correctly.

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Should I get rid of the default cr2 file after I do this? Because I followed your steps and still the stupid boots change position to the default pose once conformed.

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Hmm.

Getting tricky. Here's what you can do:

• open the clothing base cr2 in a text editor;
• search for the word "initValue". You'll find quite a lot of them, and except for the scaling, they all should be zero (scaling should be 1.000).

Did you use the clothing base cr2 for the boots, or did you use Apollo's regular CR2? If you didn't use the clothing base, the editing won't do much good.

Don't just delete a .cr2, always make a backup copy! I usually rename them to .cr2.bak

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I think I've got it.

The problem may have to do with IK chains. Those SHOULD NOT be present in the clothing, but they will be in Apollo!

Here's what you can do:

• load the boots figure in Poser, don't load anything else;
• fire up the Hierarchy Editor;
• see if there is an IK chains node. There probably is.
• If there is, delete all IK chain items using the Hierarchy editor;
• and save the boots back to the library, after zeroing the figure.

If this is the case, you also should remove the IK chains from your clothing base CR2s in the same way.

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Thanks for all this help. Once they work I'll give you the boots as a gift.

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Typical that every solution creates a new problem. I was able to delete all the IK chains except these last two. Every time I try, Poser just blows away. Disappears as if it was never open. I've never seen a program vanish that quickly. It literally vanishes in a blink of an eye. The first time it happened I didn't even notice because I think I was blinking at the time.

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This is promising and and not promising at the same time. The shin parts don't move which tells me we're on the right track about the IK chains. But my inability to delete the last two is now the problem.

Do you think that if I was able to get rid of the last two IK chains that this wouldn't happen?

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

I'm pretty sure of it.

There's a great free tool for CR2 editing (assuming you're on a PC): CR2Builder by kim99.
That tool will enable you to get rid of those last IK chain parts. It'll also enable you to remove surplus materials from the CR2, to create ERC slaving, and lots more.

You can download it from http://www.geocities.co.jp/Bookend-Ohgai/9483/tool/CR2Builder/index.html

Fire up CR2Builder, load the boots CR2 in the left pane, and scroll down until you see the second instance of the right foot actor.
Expand that node. You'll find three lines (amongst a whole lot of others):

• parent BODY:1
• inkyParent BODY:1
• nonInkyParent rShin:1

Delete the "inkyParent" and "nonInkyParent" and change the "parent" line to "parent rShin:1"

The number will probably be different in your case: make sure you use the same number throughout.

Do the same for the left foot.

Now scroll down to the "figure" node and expand it
You'll find a couple of entries "inkyChain xxx"
Keep them collapsed, select them, and hit DELETE.

Then save.

That'll get rid of the inverse kinematics.

CR2Builder is a great tool, but it lacks one major feature: it's got no Undo! So save early, save often.
The most recent version automatically creates a backup when you save.

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Couldn't find inkyParent BODY:1 or nonInkyParent BODY:1 under the actor rFoot heading.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

I did find them under Figure heading though. So I'll delete these and see what that gives me.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

No unfortunately it gave me the same result as my post where the IK chains in the legs were present.

I'm beginning to suspect my heirarchy now. In Apollo's bone structure the bones for the toes are there. Lots of bones lBigtoe1, lBigtoe2 and so on. I did not include these in my boots because I didn't want the boot ends to be controlled by the individual toes. His last bone before the toes is lToes and rToes. So, I figured this would be  the best place to stop.

But the end of the boots are being distorted. And I'm wondering if its because the boot bone structure is looking for the individual toes.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

In your first CR2Builder screenshot, I see the line "parent BODY:1". Change that to "parent rShin:1" (for the right foot, for the left foot it should be "parent lShin:1"

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About the toe bones: the boot mesh probably has polygons for rToes and lToes.

One of the rules for Poser boning is to always include one bone extra; you should keep rBigToe1, lBigToe1, and probably one of the other toes too (each foot), to prevent the end point of the rToes and lToes bones to snap to the origins of rBigToe1 and lBigToe1.

These toe bones will NOT have geometry assigned to them!

Another option would be to assign the toe polygons to the foot. Then you can leave the children of the lToes and rToes bones out.
The endpoints of lToes and rToes will probably end up in the wrong place - one of the peculiarities of the Setup room.

Another option, maybe even better: strip the bones you don't want using CR2Builder. Just keep the nodes collapsed, and delete all entries you don't need.
After you've done that, expand the figure node and delete all weld statements for bones that do not have geometry.
Also delete all addChild statements for the bones you have removed.
The advantage of this method is that CR2Builder will keep the endpoints of the bones in place, unlike Poser.

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*Another option, maybe even better: strip the bones you don't want using CR2Builder. Just keep the nodes collapsed, and delete all entries you don't need.
After you've done that, expand the figure node and delete all weld statements for bones that do not have geometry.
Also delete all addChild statements for the bones you have removed.
The advantage of this method is that CR2Builder will keep the endpoints of the bones in place, unlike Poser.

I'm not sure I follow this. I'm in the process of UV unwrapping the boot now. But I don't want to lose this line of thought.

Should I start from scratch or can I use the existing figure. The bones I don't want have already been stripped.

What you said about "one bone extra" makes sense. Max does the same thing.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

I'll try to make an Apollo clothing base figure for you - I have him, but I've never used him, so far.

 

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Found the problem with the rig. Apollo has some initial translation values set on the feet - which works fine with inverse kinematics.
I stripped those out using CR2Builder, and now I have an Apollo clothing rig.

The following bones have been stripped out:

• eyes and ears;
• line of sight;
• upper and lower teeth;
• all tongue parts;
• all genital parts;
• the  xToe2 bones.

All materials have been stripped out of the CR2, so the only material names that show up on your new figure are the material names that ar present in your .OBJ file.

I haven't stripped out the morph data yet.
Apollo has an impressive amount of morphs. I don't know if you plan to incorporate morphs in the boots; if so, I can help you set them up in such a way that they automatically adjust themselves to the settings in Apollo himself (the so-called ERC slaving).
If you want to know a little bit more about ERC slaving, look up the thread "Compendium of .pz2 techniques" started by lesbentley, in this forum. A wealth of information there.

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*Apollo has an impressive amount of morphs. I don't know if you plan to incorporate morphs in the boots; if so, I can help you set them up in such a way that they automatically adjust themselves to the settings in Apollo himself (the so-called ERC slaving).

Holy crap!!! I'd love that.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

I've sent you a sitemail concerning the boots. I want to keep this as public as possible. I believe others can benefit from this knowledge, but I've sent you a private message.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

OK, svdl. I've d/l your clothing base figure. I placed my boots on Apollo's 0ed figure then went to the setup room.

I loaded you clothing base and returned to the Pose room. Saved the boots to the library and started a new document.

I load Apollo and then the boots. But the boots are invisible. They appear in the list of objects in the scene but the boots themselves are invisible.

Any ideas?

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

If I don't save the boots as a new figure, you system works great. The boots conform wonderfully. I would really like to know what you did to get rid of my twisting toes problem.

The second time I created a new figure it worked. So, disregard my previous post.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

The twisting toe problems had to do with initial values for rotations, and especially translations, on the feet. I fixed those using CR2Builder, and also stripped out the inverse kinematics.

You should be able to save the boots as a new figure. I don't know why that doesn't work.

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It did work, my 1st post was nonsense. My error.

Now, I would like to slave Apollo's morphs to the boots. So that when Apollo's legs are muscled up, the boots will follow. That thread you mentioned in an earlier post will show me how to do this?

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

OK, here we go.

First, you'll have to create the morphs themselves. I assume you've already made matching boot morphs in your modeling program.

Export a morph as Wavefront.OBJ, make sure the vertex ordering is the same as in the unmorphed boots. If you use the HABWare exporter for 3DS Max, you're - well, hosed. I have to check the newer gwObj exporter, it might be better.
Make sure the mesh is split the right way before exporting.

Then load the boots, make sure they're selected, and run this Python script: www.svdlinden.nl/webposerstuff/downloads/morphfromobjP6.zip It'll load the morph in the boots.

Next, conform the boots to Apollo, and save the boots to the library.

Open the resulting .cr2 in a text editor with search/replace capability. Replace all occurrences of : with :1. Thats and <number 1>.
Save the .cr2 file.

Ran into a little glitch: the latest version of CR2Builder (02m) doesn't seem to have the ERC utility anymore.
Version 02k has it though, and is still available from the same site.

It's easiest (but quite repetitive and boring) to build the ERC code using CR2Builder 02k.

Here are the steps:

1. Load the boots CR2 in the LEFT pane;
2. On the RIGHT pane, click the tab "RightTV" and load ApolloMaximus.CR2;
3. Now click the tab "ERC" on the right pane
4. On the tab "List" in the center of your screen, choose "RightTV" as the source for your ERC code;
5. Include all "targetGeom" parameters and "Scale" parameters;
6. and click "Update". The right treeview now gets filled with a subset of Apollo's CR2.

That was the preparation
Now click the tab "Add" in the center of your screen.

7. In the center of your screen, you see a dropdown with the text "Figure 1" Edit that text and change it to "Figure"
8. In the "valueOp" pane, make sure the radiobutton is set to "valueOpDeltaAdd";
9. In the lower text area of the middle pane, make sure the text is set to "deltaAddDelta 1.00000"

Now expand the lShin actor on your boots in the left pane, and the Shin actor on Apollo in the right pane.

10. Select the text "targetGeom pDevShin" in the RIGHT pane, and click the RIGHTMOST "<-" button.
    The text in the middle text area changes to
    lShin:1
    
    pDevShin

Remove the ":1" after lShin.

Now expand the lShin actor on your boots in the LEFT treeview pane (the SECOND instance of the lShin actor), expand the channels node and select the "targetGeom pDevShin" channel - I assume you've named the morphs in the boots exactly the same as the morphs in Apollo.

Now click the LEFTMOST "<-" button. This will add the ERC slaving code to your boots. 

Go back to step 10), and select the next targetGeom in Apollo
Select the corresponding targetGeom in the boots.
Click the RIGHTMOST '<-" button, and remove the ":1" again;
and click the LEFTMOST "<-" button again.

Rinse and repeat for all targetGeom and xScale, yScale and zScale channels, rinse and repeat for all actors in the boots.

Tedious work, I agree. And all it does is add five lines to each channel in each actor:

    valueOpDeltaAdd
    Figure
   
   
    deltaAddDelta 1.00000

This is the actual ERC slaving code.
Actually, I think I'd better write a Python script to do this kind of work. Fully automated and all, no chance for errors like forgetting to select the correct channel in the correct actor...

The fact that the figure numbers and body part numbers are left out of the ERC slaving code has a very nice advantage: if you load the boots while a morphed Apollo figure is selected in the scene, the boots will immediately copy the morph settings to themselves! Fully automatic.

Sorry for the long winded post...

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Decided to write a little utility that can add the ERC slaving code automatically.

You can download it here: www.svdlinden.nl/webposerstuff/downloads/ercaddersetup.zip

The zip file contains an .msi setup file which will install the program ERC Adder. Written in C# 2005, so you'll need .NET 2.0

Usage is extremely simple. Load your clothing figure (e.g. the boots) in the "Clothing Figure" textbox, using the Browse button (haven't implemented functionality for directly typing in the textbox yet).
The "target figure" is the figure the clothing should conform to, e.g. Apollo Maximus. You should load his .cr2 too.

The program then analyzes the list of targetGeoms in the target figure.
Next, it opens the clothing figure .CR2, reads it line by line and writes the lines to a new file.
As soon as the block of five ERC lines should be written - when it is in the process of writing a targetGeom channel that also exists in the target figure - it'll do so.
Finally, it renames the original clothing figure to .cr2.bak, and the new file will be renamed to .cr2.

No exception handling implemented, it's a quick and dirty solution (took me all of 30 minutes to write...).

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I assume you've already made matching boot morphs in your modeling program.

Uh, oh. Nope.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

Hmm.
Making morphs can be quite time consuming - and tedious.
There are several tools that can help you create morphs. The quality of the resulting morphs varies.
There's The Tailor at DAZ (not free), which I do not recommend for non-subtle morphs - and bulking up Apollo is NOT a subtle morph! An advantage of The Tailor is that it will work on any figure - even a horse, if you would want to add the horse morphs to a saddle, for example
In general, the morph quality that The Tailor generates is unacceptable.
I have considered writing a sort of The Tailor myself, with better algorithms, but that would take an enormous amount of time.
.
Netherworks has magnet-based clothing deformer kits.  One kit per figure, and while the kits themselves are reasonably priced, the total amount of money involved gets bigger as you buy clothkits for more figures.
The quality of the morphs is generally a lot better than those of The Tailor, and you have the option to tweak every little bit, using extra magnets, before letting the software create the morph.
I use the Netherworks kits for my morphs.
I don't know if Netherworks has made a magnet kit for Apollo, though.

Then there's Wardrobe Wizard. .I don't have any experience with Wardrobe Wizard myself, but from what I've read here in the forums it is a very good product, and customer support is excellent.

Morphing by hand, using magnets - they're akin to 3DS Max FFD modifiers, except that the volume is always an ellipsoid, and that it uses an S-curve (editable) for falloff. A lot of work, especially if you're not used to magnets and their peculiarities yet.

And of course you can model the morphs yourself in 3DS Max. This method will give you the most control by far.
It's useful to have a morphed Apollo as a mannequin to model (morph) around. Means quite a lot of morphing and exporting Apollo (at least, exporting his legs, you don't need the rest).

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*And of course you can model the morphs yourself in 3DS Max. This method will give you the most control by far.
It's useful to have a morphed Apollo as a mannequin to model (morph) around. Means quite a lot of morphing and exporting Apollo (at least, exporting his legs, you don't need the rest).

This is the method I thought I'd have to use. Isn't a morph kind of like an animation. You create point A and the end result point B. These would be your key frames. A would be equivalent to a 0 on a Poser dial and B would be equivalent to a 1.000. You could create keyframes for point C (2.00), D (3.00) and so one. All the in betweens are handled by the software.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

That's correct. A morph in Poser is exactly the same as a morph in Max. Including the linear interpolation between setting 0 (0% in Max) and 1 (100% in Max). Including their behaviour outside the 0 to 1 range - still simply linear.

A "morphing mamequin" can be very helpful - you might even make use of the Cloth modifier to have Max generate the matching morphs itself.
Here's how to make a morphing mannequin:

1. Load Apollo, turn off inverse kinematics, and zero the figure. Make sure the body and hip rotations are also zero. Zero all morphs.
2. Go to frame 2, and set the first of Apollo's body morphs to value 1.
3. Go to frame 3, and set the first of Apollo's body morphs back to zero, and set the second morph to 1.
   Rinse and repeat until you have a Poser animation with all of Apollo's morphs set to 1 one at a time.

Now export as Wavefront .OBJ Export the entire animation. Check the options "As Morph Target" and "Weld Identical Vertices". Select only the body parts you need (for example, you;ll never need the eyes for a cloth modeling mannequin. Neither will you need body parts that don't have geometry at all, like Bicep or FootArch).

Poser will export a series of numbered .OBJ files.

I've used this technique for creating a morphable Victoria 3 in Max - I loaded the first, zeroed figure as the base, and all subsequent .OBJs were loaded, designated as a morph target for the zeroed figure, and then hidden from view. Gave me a good base scene to model around AND morph around.

A Cloth modifier could help you create the morphed boot shapes. Constrain every boot vertex to the Apollo morphing mesh, and you should get boot morphs that are better in quality than what The Tailor produces.
Could save you lots of time. And, you only have to create that morphing mannequin scene once. If you're planning on making more clothes for Apollo, that scene will come in quite handy!

Another tip: just like bones, morphs have internal names and external names. As with bones, it is best to use the INTERNAL names for the morph names. The utility I wrote only looks at the internal names.

Aw, what the heck am I talking about. You're probably at least ten times as skilled in Max as I am...

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A wealth of information here. Thank you. You've confirmed my work flow.

Aw, what the heck am I talking about. You're probably at least ten times as skilled in Max as I am...

Actually, I'm probably not. I'm just a hobbyist. I've been tooling round with Max for 3 or 4 years now. I've never been in a production environment so I'm not even sure the techniques I use are at all any good.

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Hi svdl, Always thank you for recommendation.
ERC Page of CR2Builder02m.exe
[LeftPage]-[Window]-[ERC] / [RightPage]-[Window]-[ERC]  of the MainMenu.

New Version of CR2Builder is 2.14.2.1  and some video tutorials.
http://cid-0d55c94a389bb0e3.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/3MP/tool/CR2Builder?uc=1
A file name is displayed by a caption .

CR2Builder02m.exe include all functions of CR2Builder02k.exe.

The relationshop of the forms(windows) is displayed.
[Window]-[Manager] on the Main Menu.
Push "Update" Button.
When you click any tree node, linked page or form is active (focused).

02m is compiled by Delphi2005.
Ver 2.14 is compiled by Delphi2009.
Delphi2005 make AnsiString application.
Delphi2009 make unicode application.

Phew! I have finally unwrapped the boot. Now comes textures. Its Photoshop time!

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Yeah, UV mapping is a royal pain.
I've learned a couple of tricks along the way about UV mapping. First of al: map early, and fix up often! If you postpone mapping until the object is ready in all its fine detail, UV mapping is extremely difficult.

In the case of these boots, I'd separate the different parts along logical seams. For example, the sole of the boot doesn't seamlessly connect to the leather on top - an UV seam there would be natural.

At this time, I'm building a set of fantasy/fetish stuff for V4, and I use the same approach: each cloth/leather/metal panel is mapped separately. The bodice part of the outfit consist of a front panel, left and right side panel and a back panel, and each of those is mapped separately, as are the straps, buckles, studs and whatever.

Oh, and a little tip for when you start morphihg: the HABware .OBJ exporter severely messes up vertex orders. I haven't tested gw:Obj yet, but preliminary other tests seem to indicate that it's a better importer/exporter. At least, it doesn't automatically crash Max 64 bit...

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First of al: map early, and fix up often! If you postpone mapping until the object is ready in all its fine detail, UV mapping is extremely difficult.

I had never thought of that workflow. Thanks for the tip. I've always thought you pretty much had to wait until the model was completely finished before you could start mapping.

At any rate, unwrapping this was a royal pain. My original document refused to allow me to select any faces for unwrapping. Some sort of bug. I had to save the model as on obj are reimport into a new Max document.

In the case of these boots, I'd separate the different parts along logical seams. For example, the sole of the boot doesn't seamlessly connect to the leather on top - an UV seam there would be natural.

I've tried to do this. This is my first time unwrapping such a complex object. The sole of the boot you see by itself is really only the very bottom. The sides of the sole will have the same material applied to it. I've tested it out and the material works fine.

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

@svdl
Alright I've made the morph in Max. I'm now trying to follow your instructions on how to make a morph. You wrote:

Then load the boots, make sure they're selected, and run this Python script:

Ok, which boots are you referring to. The original unmorphed boots or the altered morphed boots?

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

make sure the vertex ordering is the same as in the unmorphed boots.

How do I ensure this?

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<p><em>Caution: just a hobbyist</em></p>

Well, in Max, you just can't. The base rule for morphing is to never delete or insert a vertex, edge or polygon - but you already know that.

Ensuring the correct vertex order: again, UVMapper is the best option. The following usually works best:

• in Poser, load the boots, and export its body parts as .OBJ, one by one. Leave all export options unchecked.
• in Max, export the morphed boot parts as .OBJ, one by one. Scale using the exporter or using a scaling tool (Objaction Scaler or ObjectScaler both do the job).
• in UVMapper (the free UVMapper Classic will do it), load the morphed body part, e.g. the right foot, choose Tools -> Vertices -> Reorder, and use the Poser exported right foot .OBJ as the source for the vertex ordering.
• Save the morphed boot part in UVMapper.
• Rinse and repeat for all boot body parts that have geometry.

I'm sorry, I don't know of any scriptable environment to do this. Would have been easier to run a script over an entire directory of morphs/body parts, but alas, it'll be tedious manual work.

Back in Poser, you can load the morph targets from the .OBJ files. Here's how it goes:

• load the boots figure;

• pick a body part;

• choose Object ->Load Morph Target;

• load the corresponding morphed body part;

• important: the name you can enter here should be the INTERNAL name of the morph! Usually something like FBMMuscular or PBMCalfBulge. Changing the external (visible) name later is easy, changing the internal name is a lot of work.

• once all body parts for this particular morph have been loaded, set all the morph values for this morph to 1.0.

• Then choose Figure ->Create full body morph, and again, name it for the INTERNAL name of the matching Apollo morph.

• Set the body part morphs back to zero (my ZeroMorphs script may be useful here. You can download it at www.svdlinden.nl/webposerstuff/downloads/zeromorphs.zip.

• Rinse and repeat for all morphs you've made.

Again, an automated workflow would be great. I've got some ideas on how to do that in Python, but right now I just don't have the time to work it out.

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Loading a set of morph targets that span bodyparts on a figure, and creating dials on the Body actor, is one of the things that Dimension3D's Poser File Editor is very good for.  It saves a huge amount of labor!

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Incidentally, all this sweating about vertex order can be unnecessary depending on how you actually handle the CR2 during rigging - the big problem is that Poser writes a new OBJ file when you create a CR2 and cuts up the geometry into separate non-contiguous spans of polygons for each body part, but I have never understood WHY this is done.  I throw away the Poser-generated OBJ and manually edit the CR2 to point back to the OBJ written out by the modeler (scaled to Poser size of course) which has no breaks at body part borders, and so vertex order is not affected.  For the rigged clothing that I've done, it has worked out very well.

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Hi there,

Just seeing this now. I haven't read evenything here, but I wanted to try and give some useful info.

Apollo's foot wear musn't have all the toe information. FOr this reason, you are free to use any of my shoe cr2's for your shoes. In those the toe boones are removed but they will conform as you would expect. There is also some basic info on show conformers on Apollo's readme page as well as the included readme.

If using one of my cr2's(including the clothing seed in the resource folder), just edit the obj path to point to your OBJ.

These look really nice. I hope the info helps and I am sorry I didn't respond earlier.

Thanks and cheers,
Anton :)

-Anton, creator of Apollo Maximus
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Thanks for the info. Its nice to get input from the source. I've kind of shelved the project due to my inability to create morphs. Its a very complicated procedure that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around.

Max seems to change the vertex order on export which is going to force me to use a 3rd party app to export properly.

Otherwise the footwear is done as long as you don't use any of Apollo's morphs which kind of makes it useless.

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Most of Apollo's morphs purposely taper off at the foot so people don't have to do lots of morphs.

If you use my cr2's the scaling dials will work automatically. As far as Apollo's morphs, you should be fine with some simple tapering, widening morphs just on the shins of the boots, which you can make with magnets. Really you only need about six morphs.

-Anton, creator of Apollo Maximus
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the face of truth is concealment."

Over 100,000 Downloads....

Max seems to change the vertex order on export which is going to force me to use a 3rd party app to export properly.

Yep,  high end apps read vertex positions to the tenth decimal place whereas Poser only reads to the eighth.

Question,  in Max are your morphs relative or absolute?

Awesome model BTW!

Question,  in Max are your morphs relative or absolute?

For fear of sounding ignorant I'm not sure I know the difference. I imported Apollo with leg morphs set to whole numbers and basically scaled the boots to fit each morph.

So, I don't know if that is relative or absolute.

<strong>bandolin</strong><br />
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So, I don't know if that is relative or absolute

If you have the option,  set the morphs to relative.  Rule of thumb in modeling,  relative for organic and absolute for inorganic.

Now,  relative and absolute are a side issue.  The main problem is Max's conversion to obj format.  Try importing your obj (the original boots) into uvmapper,  group it in uvmapper,  save out,  then import into Poser.

Yeah, you're the nth person whose told me to use uvmapper. What is it with 3ds Max a $3500 program can't do what a free program can.

I've had uvmapper on my machine since 2005 but I've yet to launch it.

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Yeah, you're the nth person whose told me to use uvmapper. What is it with 3ds Max a $3500 program can't do what a free program can.

LOL!   The conversion problem is as old as P3.  Don't fret about Max,  it's the king.  The obj format just can't handle Max's awesome power.