I'm about to start my first practical rigging project. (A lovely mermaid tail for Yuki)

Do I have to worry about those inner/outer mat spheres?
Or can I accept what ever defaults the setup room will generate?  If it generates.

thanks.

Cheers,
Lara

Don't worry about them, because that will get you nowhere - but you may have to adjust them, yes. :) See how the tail performs and we'll take it from there. 

If you don't use them (i.e. leave them turned off), you don't have to worry about their position. If you do turn them on, though, you'll have to adjust them, because Poser's default is to drop them to the floor.

For a tail I don't imagine you'll need them. Inclusion/exclusion angles should be enough.

here's an animation clip of the Mertail so far.  This is with whatever defaults were set with drawing the bones.

http://www.realmsandgalaxies.com/wings3d/Movie.wmv  (420k)

Creating the bones was pretty straight forward.  I found it easier to initially draw the bones next to the figure and then dragging into the center of the model.

So, next is the inclusion/exclusion thingees?
And I should rename the parameter dials to twist, bend, etc.

attached is the model so far in Wings3d, if anyone wants to play with it.

Cheers,Lara

oops, renderosity says the .wings file has an invalid extension.

Attached Link: mertail wings wip

renaming the dials is a convenience issue for the user. It just makes it clearer which way the thing will move . You may also want to set the limits for each dial.   You could also consider , after its finished , to add some erc dials for movement of the entire tail.
  

another neat trick is to get it to conform to TY's hip.

When I do the 'conform to' command the tail is rotating in the z plane. 
at least when I zero pose the tail, it straightens.

comform aligns the joints of the two figures . YOu would want to be really careful with the joint positioning and rotation order .

do you mean the hip bones have to line up exactly?

You need another "helper" bone that doesn't have any geometry assigned: abdomen or waist (I dont know the name of the first bone above the hip in TY's case). It should have exactly the same joint parameters as the abdomen/waist bone of TY, just as the hip does.

Actually, the easiest way to rig the tail is to use TY's rigging as a donor. Remove all bones above the abdomen, add your own tail bones to the hip, then delete the right and left leg bones. Result: a perfectly conforming tail.

cool. 

I didn't know I could have bones without geometry. 
Come to think of it, that's probably where those free floating bone handles come from.

Thanks!  This should keep me busy over the weekend.