Hi,

I'm doing an animation where the character turns around. What's the best method to do it?
Do I turn the character by the hip or by the body? Also is there a way to specify the pivot point?

Thanks!

Rotate the body on Y.  Let the hip take care of the other two axes (bend = x rotate, and
side-side = z rotate.)

You can move the pivot point.  Open the Joint Editor (Alt-W-J) and move the
green cross to where you want.  But remember, this is a "static" parameter,
and can't be changed during the animation.  If you want to pivot around the
chest for some dancing moves, then pivot around the hip for turning, you
have to use separate PZ3 files for those different types of moves.

Quote - Rotate the body on Y.  Let the hip take care of the other two axes (bend = x rotate, and
side-side = z rotate.)

But I belive this can only work if your character is in its initial position - try moving character away on x/z tran HIP and then try turning him around using yRot BODY - you 'll see what I mean

edit:
if the Pivot Point (PP) was animated this could be compensated by moving BODY PP.

I will focus only on the hip. I will let the body to be all zero just in case I want to recycle the animation in a different scene so that I can simply use the body to place the figure anywhere I want without any interference.

The way I do it is to use yRot in the BODY and the other rotations in the hip, like ockham said. For translations I use yTran in the hip, and all other translations in the BODY. This system is particularly good when you want to save, and reuse poses in different scenes. If you use any other translation than Y in the hip, the character will jump to different locations when different poses are applied.

Quote - "If you want to pivot around the chest for some dancing moves, then pivot around the hip for turning, you have to use separate PZ3 files for those different types of moves.

There is an alternative. What I would do in that circumstance is to start of with the figure in  zeroed state in the centre of the Poser universe. Then load a box prop, from its properties display its origin, then position the origin where you want the first pivot to be. Now parent the figure to the box.  Next load a second box, and position its origin where you want the second pivot to be. Parent the second box the the first box, then hide the boxes. You can now do the pivoting by rotating the boxes, but you have to remember to only translate the figure by translating the second box. I find this works well for two or three pivots, but ockam's way is probably better if you need a lot of different pivot points.