There seems to be a disconnect between what the documentation says about the Create Full Body Morph and what actually happens. According to the documentation (P8):

"You can save multiple body parts and then save the entire pose as a full-figure morph target, also known as a Full-Body Morph (FBM). The new morph target encompasses all of the parameters for that pose, meaning that everything morphs at the same time...

...When you select the figure’s body again, a parameter dial with your new morph target will appear. This morph functions just like any other morph: Numbers greater than 0 apply the morph to the selected element(s), and vice versa. A value of 1 means the morph target is fully applied..."

That's not what happens. If I load up V4 and use some injection pose from a 3rd party character package, e.g., Jessie from FRAD, I get some FBMs and some PBMs set. If I go to Figure > Create Full Body Morph, I get the FBM created just fine, but it's not set to 1.000 as the documentation implies. It's set to zero, and the figure  looks like Jessie. To bring her back to the default V4 I have to set the FBM dial to -1.

But even that doesn't entirely set her back to V4; it only resets the FBM morphs. The PBM morphs remain unchanged, and to make things totally confusing the values of the FBM dials remain set to the values that created Jessie to begin with.

Is this consistent with ahat others have experienced? So how's the Create Full Body Morph feature supposed to work?

Once you have created the full body morph you will need to zero all the dials that you used in creating it.

Then dial the new full body morph dial as required.

What the Create Full Body Morph does is to make a master dial in the Body, incorporating all the dials you currently have dialed in various parts.

So after you make a new FBM, a new dial appears in the Body section.

Now you need to set all the bodypart dials to 0 and you can turn on your new master dial in Body

this new dial is JUST a master controller, if you remove the morphs it calls on then nothing will happen.

Lyrra

Quote - Once you have created the full body morph you will need to zero all the dials that you used in creating it.

:ohmy: Well, that step is nowhere to be found in the documentation. Anyway, if you're starting off with a third party figure, how will you know all the dials that were used to create it? I suppose you can just use the Edit > Restore > Figure command but that has its own peculiar behavior.

In this image I have loaded V4, injected face and body morphs from a third party figure (FRAD's Jessie), cranked up the BodyBuilder FBM to 1.0, and added a toothy smile. At this point I created a full body morph.

[Continued]...

Surely this isn't the way this was intended to work.

Edit > Restore > Figure will reset the figure to whatever state the figure was in when someone originally did Edit > Memorize > Figure and saved it to the library. It is not necessarily the fully zero pose.

When creating morphs one should always be aware of exactly what deformations are present in the figure. Best to work up from a fully zeroed figure not a restored one since that may contain dialed in morphs that you may not be aware of.

Hope that helps.

there's a keyboard combination to zero all the morphs. 
...
brain fart, can't remember what it is

if the character you're injecting has custom morphs,
meaning, it's not just relying on morphs++, the morph will need to be injected before you can see the master dial working.

once you have a character you really like, sometimes it's easier to just save the whole preset figure to the library as a new figure.

Quote - once you have a character you really like, sometimes it's easier to just save the whole preset figure to the library as a new figure.

That's what I'm taking away from all of this. The Figure > Create Full Body Morph has too many idiosyncrasies to be a very useful feature.

It is a very useful feature. Just use zero figure when you have created the FBM and then dial in the FBM. I don't understand the problem

While this subject is being discussed... If I were to create some custom face and body morphs with Zbrush and then mix them with dialed Daz morphs (++, A4, etc.) what would be the standard practice for creating INJ files that would be Daz EULA compliant. haven't yet tried experimenting with this but it's an eventuality. Any heads up?

 It's about the 3rd time I've asked this question here at the forum, BTW. Is this like some kind of vendor "secret knowledge" thing. I would hate to accidently infringe on copyrighted materials.

You can create any INJ files you want using any morphs you want. However, you cannot distribute any of the morphs (except your own) with it. So you can mix DAZ and your own morphs in an INJ file provided that you have not used any 3rd party morphs to in creatiing your own morph (created from a blank figure)

By third party do you mean Daz morphs? Hypothetical... so I create some ZBrush morphs onto a default V4. Load them as morph targets onto a default V4. Dial in Some Daz A4 and M ++ morphs. Create 2 INJ files (INJect "insert character name" Head Pz2... INJect "insert character name" Body Pz2). Put in the product requirements, need Aiko 4 and Morphs ++ by Daz. Attempt to distribute. Have I violated copyright. If so, how does this explain just about every character package you can find in the marketplace?

Quote - By third party do you mean Daz morphs? Hypothetical... so I create some ZBrush morphs onto a default V4. Load them as morph targets onto a default V4. Dial in Some Daz A4 and M ++ morphs. Create 2 INJ files (INJect "insert character name" Head Pz2... INJect "insert character name" Body Pz2). Put in the product requirements, need Aiko 4 and Morphs ++ by Daz. Attempt to distribute. Have I violated copyright. If so, how does this explain just about every character package you can find in the marketplace?

No, no violation. That's the way to do it. You distribute the INJ files plus your own morph - and in the product requirements you mentioned the morphs needed apart from your own.

Oh my god! Thank you SO much for finally clearing this up for me, wimvdb! I had a feeling that it was that simple... But then again I was reading here and there some contradictory instructions. Sorry though, am I understanding correctly in your explaination that I will need to create separate INJ files for my custom morphs and INJ files that will just turn the Daz dials (basically a MOR pose). So I would end up with Potentially 3 or 4 INJ files in the package? I only ever see about 2 in most products.

The INJ files contain instructions to load your morph, load DAZ's morphs and the settings to turn the dials for all of them. So one body and one head INJ file

Most content makers move their own morph files into a Morphs folder in the library in the runtime and in the INJ files they refer to that location for their own morphs. You activate the DAZ morphs by reading the morphs from the DAZ folders. That is the magic which happens in the INJ files.

There are tools which can create the INJ files for you in a proper way

This way you do not distribute any work from someone else.

Again - the most important thing here is that your own morphs have to be made from scratch and may not contain morphs from someone else (that is the 3rd party)

As an aside, just for those who are so used to poser's indiosyncrasies that they don't see the forest for the trees... Poser is by far the most professionally unfriendly application that I've encountered. These kinds of things should be built in rather than having to rely continuously on esoterica, work arounds, and third party plug-ins to achieve things that are par-for-the-course. I suppose that this whole cottage industry wouldn't exist were it not for Poser's obtusiveness, though. Imagine if Photoshop required such hoop jumping?

Quote - As an aside, just for those who are so used to poser's indiosyncrasies that they don't see the forest for the trees... Poser is by far the most professionally unfriendly application that I've encountered. These kinds of things should be built in rather than having to rely continuously on esoterica, work arounds, and third party plug-ins to achieve things that are par-for-the-course. I suppose that this whole cottage industry wouldn't exist were it not for Poser's obtusiveness, though. Imagine if Photoshop required such hoop jumping?

Nice comment from someone who has just been helped.

The poser developers did not create copyright laws. They provide a fully functional way to save morphed figures. It is called Save to Library. If you create your own morphs, you can create a full body morph and distrute the morph by means of a PMD. All extremely easy - but not allowed if you use DAZ or other 3rd party content

Gotcha, Wimvdb. Going to purchase INJection pose builder 1.5 from Daz... I'm on an older Mac and this plug-in will run on my system. hopefully I don't waste $20 on this and it does what I'm looking for. Otherwise I have some python scripts that might work but generally the instuctions are vague or a little too tech. I guess experimentation is in order, but when dealing with copyright infringement... I'd rather not experiment.

If you have any products on the marketplace, Wimvdb, I owe you a purchase.

Ps. the above aside wasn't meant as an insult, I appreciate any help I can get... Believe me. Poser IS pretty full of labyrinthes, though.

Poser is no different from any other 2d or 3d application. It needs to be learned. You mentioned Photoshop. I use it every day and I still have to search the web every time when I want to do something special. It is a complex application which does not get easier if you dive into the more complex features.

For the average user the learning curve is low if you use the quick start guide. For the more special things you have to look for tutorials or other instructions.  I find the material room easy to understand, but I also know that many peope are intimidated by it. To make it more approachable for everyone and still keeping the flexibility is a very difficult task and would require a lot of manpower in developing it. So the development team has to make choices and not everyone will be always happy about the priorities.

So to help 3rd party developers make those specific solutions they opened up an interface to Poser by means of an addon. I expect that there will be plenty of addons which will integrate very nicely with Poser, so the user experience will be the same.

I myself do images., I morph and texture all the time to get things the way I want. Since I modify other peoples work I can't distribute it and have no plans or interest in making it distributable.  But you do learn a lot about the program this way.

Point taken... ( I too still rely on web searches for photoshop tips). I imagine that these topics have been touched on a million times here on the forum, to much contention. I would really like to share some of my morph and texture character creations, but I often think it would be less of a headache to just concentrate on props and sets that are 100% my own content. I suppose a workaround would be to create the morphs without using any third party morphs in the mix... But, Dammit!, I like the morphs ++ and A4 morphs! Also, I have a hard time with custom morphs around V4's eyes (maybe just laziness).

Off to work...

Thanks.

Quote - It is a very useful feature. Just use zero figure when you have created the FBM and then dial in the FBM. I don't understand the problem

Well, that not quite how it works (see Step 3 above), nor is that how the documentation says it works. Furthermore, according to PhilC: "Edit > Restore > Figure will reset the figure to whatever state the figure was in when someone originally did Edit > Memorize > Figure and saved it to the library. It is not necessarily the fully zero pose." If I'm understanding that correctly, if you're working with a 3rd party product you can't be sure what state the figure will be in when you restore her. 

As an ordinary user here is how I would like the Create FBM to work and how I would expect it to work:

After you've got you figure all "morphed up" the way you want her you click on the Create FBM command. That creates the FBM along with a dial on the Body actor, and the dial is set to 1.0. To get back to the default Vickie (or whatever character you're using) you would set the parameter to zero. That resets alll her morphs, rotations, etc. to zero.

Unless I'm missing something, that that seems the most obvious and useful approach.

The FBM dial is inclusive, it contains all the other morphs rolled into one setting.  However, for it to work appropriately, the original dials used to create the new FBM must be reset to zero.  Or you restore your figure and dial up the FBM.  But as PhilC posted, restoration should be to it's original unmorphed state.

Documentation on restore:

Selecting Edit > Restore opens a submenu allowing you to restore scene elements, which are completely restored to their Poser default states, including but not limited to position, scale, morphs, parameters, materials, parent/child relationships, etc. This function is literally for cases when you wish to go back and start all over again.

To me, an ordinary user, that sounds like it takes the figure back to default Vickie in the zero pose. I realize that the Memorize command immediately follows and that makes it clear that Memorize essentially resets the defaults, but I didn't use memorize anywhere and I still didn't get back to Default Vickie.

Still, maybe I'm overanalysing this. I want to take a harder look at this but I think the only thing that didn't get "defaulted" with the restore command was her face. I think 3rd party faces are created differently from the bodies, so maybe that's involved. Even so, there's still a disconnect between the documentation and reality.

@primorge:

Take a look at svdl's P6 Python Spawn Character in Free Stuff here. It might do what you want:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=49770

Quote - Documentation on restore:

Selecting Edit > Restore opens a submenu allowing you to restore scene elements, which are completely restored to their Poser default states, including but not limited to position, scale, morphs, parameters, materials, parent/child relationships, etc. This function is literally for cases when you wish to go back and start all over again.

To me, an ordinary user, that sounds like it takes the figure back to default Vickie in the zero pose. I realize that the Memorize command immediately follows and that makes it clear that Memorize essentially resets the defaults, but I didn't use memorize anywhere and I still didn't get back to Default Vickie.

Still, maybe I'm overanalysing this. I want to take a harder look at this but I think the only thing that didn't get "defaulted" with the restore command was her face. I think 3rd party faces are created differently from the bodies, so maybe that's involved. Even so, there's still a disconnect between the documentation and reality.

Restoring the figure actually takes Vicky back to her default and her default pose, which is not the same as zeroed. You have to choose "Restore figure", not any of the other options.

Laurie

Many figure INJ sets change the memorised setting of the figure. I find it very annoying. Usually the REM file will reset it, but not always

For this reason I have a Zero Pose and Zero All V4 morphs pose that I've made to zap all the possible offenders ( and when I say all I mean all .. every exp morph set I have installed)

"After you've got you figure all "morphed up" the way you want her you click on the Create FBM command. That creates the FBM along with a dial on the Body actor, and the dial is set to 1.0. To get back to the default Vickie (or whatever character you're using) you would set the parameter to zero. That resets alll her morphs, rotations, etc. to zero."

Well the first part of that is right. But, right at this second in time all the morphs are dialed at bodypart level. So those need to be reset, and then you can use the new master control dial.  If you dial the new dial before resetting, then you will double your morphs .. usually to un pleasent result.

note: dials (morphs, scale and rotation) can be hooked up to each other in a lot of differrent ways. This can be added to any dial via hand coding it.  With characters being injected and removed, its very easy to get something crosswired

Lyrra

Exactly, Lyrra. In my quote that you used I was not saying how the Create FBM actually works, I was talking about how I would expect and like it to work.

For the record, I did some more tests on the Edit > Restore > Figure command with some of the 3rd party characters I have. The end results of the command depend entirely on the way in which the vendor built the character. Sometimes the entire character will be restored just as you would expect – entire body and face. Sometimes just the body but not the face, and sometimes nothing at all.

From what I can tell, it all has to do with whether or not the vendor used the DAZ morphs (I’m using nothing but V4 characters here) or built their own. These are the distinctions (I think) that primorge and wimvdb discussed earlier in this thread. I suppose if a character was built using some DAZ morphs and some they created themselves, then the restore would restore only the DAZ morphs and not the others.

Since most ordinary users will not know or care how these beautiful characters were built, the restore command will seem random and unpredictable. From a usability point of view this is not a good thing at all. I realize that the Poser developers have little if any control over how these characters come about, and maybe it’s impossible from a technical point of view to make the restore consistent.  Still, if the documentation could just give the user a caveat about this, it would help.

Alright, this is probably going to be a rather long winded post...

@ MarianneR...  I've had svdl's python script for a while (actually I have most of his scripts), in the readme it states "IMPORTANT NOTICE: The INJ morph files generated by this script MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED if they are generated, in whole or in part, from the copyrighted DAZ morphs!"

I have SnarlyGribbly's SceneFixer script, which also allows you to create INJ files... but does not have any documentation on the legality of said generated files.

I have Shaderworks Advanced INJ Builder... which has documentation out the wazoo... Just need to look a little more closely at it and do some experimenting.

I'm going to purchase Daz's INJection Pose Builder 1.5 (next paycheck) also... I figure with the Shaderworks and Daz utilities I should be able to create some legal files for distribution. If not? Well then, apparently Mac users simply are not ABLE to create INJ files like windows users. Sigh. Unless I learn some serious poser file hacking skills, that is.

You know I've been trying to solve this riddle for a while... there are no concise tutorials on the subject. Believe me, I've read a MILLION tutorials. I've also read
the Poser Reference Manual several times, I've read the Poser Tutorial Manual several times, I've read Secrets of Figure Creation with Poser 5, I've read Poser 7 revealed, Poser 8 revealed, and Practical Poser 7... Stuff by rbtwhiz, lesbently, Ajax, PhilC etc..etc.. Adnauseum.

I can rig a semi decent figure, I can throw together a shader (but that's relative), I can render all kinds of ways, (ok, so I need some practice in the cloth room... Thanks ArtBee!), I'm more skilled at modeling than any of those other things. You know what I can't do? Make a legal INJ file. go figure.

While I appreciate the little bit of help I've gotten on this subject here on the forum, I'm still at Square one. Here's hoping I can finally lay this one to rest.

Thanks.