I'm Using Poser Pro 2010, I'm on a Mac, and I'm trying to save a Cm2 Type Camera Set... Not the pose dots type camera save.

I tried the standard method of Clicking the plus symbol (Choose appropriate camera folder- Click "+" symbol to add to library, In dialog box- name camera set, click "select subset" and check the appropriate boxes for the cameras I wish to save to the set,Click Ok- next dialog box choose single frame, since this is not for animation and ok... Poser saves the set with an icon).... only when I go to load the cameras in a new scene (or at all) they don't work or show up... the screen jumps to a new view, just below the horizon about a scale foot or two below X/Z plane... But still nothing, the cameras do not show up in the camera list even...

Is there some trick to this? like with saving light sets where you have delete the default lights to be able to have a working saved set?

I read the manual, checked through two Poser books I own and Googled and Binged the hell out of this question, but apparently nobody has ever written JACK on how to save camera sets or I am the only person to ever ask this question...

Am I missing something? Could this be a Mac related bug (I'm a Mac user by the way)?

I had the same thing happen in Poser 7, but did not really care too much back then... This is vexing the hell out of me mainly because I can't find one reference to saving camera sets anywhere... probably some stupid twist of terminology, but nothing is available...

Please understand, I'm not being lazy and I'm only partly stupid... But I must be missing something... Thank you in advance for any help and advice you may be able to shed on this dilemma!

I'm not sure that what you're expecting is what this does.

Saving one or more cameras does not create new cameras you can load - it saves the parameter values of the cameras you have selected to save in the subset, or all the cameras if you do not select a subset, and it remembers and restores which camera is the currently active camera.

Upon clicking one of the saved files, you restore the position, orientation, focal length, etc. of whatever cameras you told it to save. (by default it's all of them)

I have used it to save positions many times and it always worked this way, and PP2012 SR3 (what I have now) still works this way.

Example:

I explicitly selected Main, Aux, and Dolly cameras. The active camera was dolly.

This is the file.

{

version  {  number 9  }

camera MAIN_CAMERA  {  channels   {   focal focal    {    keys     {     k  0  40     }    }   focusDistance focusDistance    {    keys     {     k  0  2     }    }   fStop fStop    {    keys     {     k  0  8     }    }   shutterOpen shutterOpen    {    keys     {     k  0  0     }    }   shutterClose shutterClose    {    keys     {     k  0  0.5     }    }   hither hither    {    keys     {     k  0  0     }    }   yon yon    {    keys     {     k  0  484.496     }    }   translateZ dollyZ    {    keys     {     k  0  -0.627495     }    trackingScaleMult 1.000000    }   translateY dollyY    {    keys     {     k  0  0.505129     }    trackingScaleMult 1.000000    }   translateX dollyX    {    keys     {     k  0  0.0364986     }    trackingScaleMult 1    }   scaleZ zScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scaleY yScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scaleX xScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scale scale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   rotateZ roll    {    keys     {     k  0  4.35457     }    }   rotateX pitch    {    keys     {     k  0  -19.5755     }    }   rotateY yaw    {    keys     {     k  0  45.8172     }    }   }  cameraModel poser  userCreated 0  rememberUndo 1  }

camera AUX_CAMERA  {  channels   {   focal focal    {    keys     {     k  0  25.4     }    }   focusDistance focusDistance    {    keys     {     k  0  2     }    }   fStop fStop    {    keys     {     k  0  2.8     }    }   shutterOpen shutterOpen    {    keys     {     k  0  0     }    }   shutterClose shutterClose    {    keys     {     k  0  0.5     }    }   hither hither    {    keys     {     k  0  0.048     }    }   yon yon    {    keys     {     k  0  100     }    }   translateZ dollyZ    {    keys     {     k  0  -0.594999     }    trackingScaleMult 1.000000    }   translateY dollyY    {    keys     {     k  0  0.475136     }    trackingScaleMult 1.000000    }   translateX dollyX    {    keys     {     k  0  0.0104635     }    trackingScaleMult 1    }   scaleZ zScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scaleY yScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scaleX xScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scale scale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   rotateZ roll    {    keys     {     k  0  0     }    }   rotateX pitch    {    keys     {     k  0  -25     }    }   rotateY yaw    {    keys     {     k  0  -23     }    }   }  cameraModel poser  userCreated 0  rememberUndo 1  }

camera STD_CAMERA  {  channels   {   focal focal    {    keys     {     k  0  35     }    }   focusDistance focusDistance    {    keys     {     k  0  2     }    }   fStop fStop    {    keys     {     k  0  2.8     }    }   shutterOpen shutterOpen    {    keys     {     k  0  0     }    }   shutterClose shutterClose    {    keys     {     k  0  0.5     }    }   hither hither    {    keys     {     k  0  0.048     }    }   yon yon    {    keys     {     k  0  100     }    }   scaleZ zScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scaleY yScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scaleX xScale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   scale scale    {    keys     {     k  0  1     }    }   rotateZ roll    {    keys     {     k  0  0.0219884     }    }   rotateX pitch    {    keys     {     k  0  -4.52649     }    }   rotateY yaw    {    keys     {     k  0  -0.556923     }    }   translateZ dollyZ    {    keys     {     k  0  0.258989     }    trackingScaleMult 1.000000    }   translateY dollyY    {    keys     {     k  0  0.55715     }    trackingScaleMult 1.000000    }   translateX dollyX    {    keys     {     k  0  -0.00202465     }    trackingScaleMult 1    }   }  cameraModel real  userCreated 0  rememberUndo 1  }

doc  {  useCamera STD_CAMERA  } }

As stated before and above, adding to the a set to the library saves the parameters of one or more camera.

If you have created or renamed any cameras, the CM2 will not create them in a new scene.  You have to have a camera of the same name for it to work

So I can NOT rename a camera... I think this is the problem. Either a tutorial or one of my books suggested naming the cameras to avoid confusion... But wherever it was that I found that info they were NOT saving the cameras as Cm2s, just a PZ3... I never thought this would matter... and actually believed it would help avoid confusing Poser itself with conflicting camera names...

Basically, I'm just looking to save the cameras as focal points for people using my free models... these are pretty big sets and I thought it might be helpful for people so they don't have to spend so much time exploring the model and getting the cameras to points of interest...

Thank you both your generous help! 

Thank you both also for understanding what I was looking to do... and for actually reading and trying to understand what I was trying to do... 

One last question... Am I correct in understand then that Poser will not save new cameras (or extra cameras... beyond the default number) ? For example if I create 3 or 4 extra dolly cameras they and their settings will be lost... correct?

I will experiment now and see what results I can get... Thanks!

Yes you can rename cameras, but not within Poser. First you need to understand that a camera - like any other Poser item - has two names, an internal name and a display name. The display name is what appears in the menus, it is just for show, and is not relevant to anything else. The internal name is the "real" name, the one that matters, and what Poser uses for all operations on the item.

You can change the display name in the Poser interface (or via a pose file), but the interface provides no way to change the internal (real) name. You have to edit the internal name outside of Poser in a text editor or cr2 editor.

Getting back to Camera (cm2) files, these use the internal name to identify the camera, so changing the display name means nothing to the cm2 file.

Quote - One last question... Am I correct in understand then that Poser will not save new cameras (or extra cameras... beyond the default number) ? For example if I create 3 or 4 extra dolly cameras they and their settings will be lost... correct?

No that's not correct. Extra cameras will save and load with a pz3 or (if parented to a figure) a cr2 file. The only constraint is that if a camera is loaded, and a camera that uses the same internal name already exists  in the scene, it will replace that camera, but if it has a unique internal name it will be added to the scene.

Quote - Basically, I'm just looking to save the cameras as focal points for people using my free models... these are pretty big sets and I thought it might be helpful for people so they don't have to spend so much time exploring the model and getting the cameras to points of interest...

You can create new cameras from the Poser Object menu. If your model is a figure, you can parent the cameras to the figure before saving it to the Figures library palette. The cameras will save and load with the figure. Bare in mind what I said in my last post. Loading a camera with the same internal name as one already existing in the scene will replace it, instead of adding a new camera. This is why, when you include cameras with a figure, you should edit the cr2 to give them unique internal names.

Say you have two rooms that load as separate items, "Front Room", and "Back Room". You load the front room first. If both rooms contain a camera named "RoomCamera-01", then loading the Back Room will overwrite the camera in the front room. If on the other hand, one camera is named "FrontRoomCamera-01" and the other camera is named "BackRoomCamera-01", then loading a second room will not overwrite the camera for the first room.

As I said, cameras will save with a figure if they are parented to it. They will not save with a prop (pp2). You can however, hack a camera into a pp2. This is a slightly advanced operation, but not difficult for anyone used to editing Poser files. I don't have the energy to give a step by step tutorial, but the basics of one way to do it, go like this. In Poser, load the prop, create your new cameras, set them up as desired and Memorize them, if you want the cameras to be parented to the prop, parent them now. If the prop has not been saved as a pp2, do that now. Save the scene. In a two pane cr2 editor (eg CR2Editor, or CR2Builder) load the pp2 in one pane and the pz3 into the other. Drag and drop the parts of the camera from the pz3 file into the pp2 file. There will be three parts to the camera, one in the declaration (first) section of the file, one in the definition (second) section of the file, and  one in the 'doc' section near the end of the file. Edit the internal and display names of the cameras to something unique. Save the pp2. You would of course run into the overwriting problem, if you wew to load two instances of the same room into the scene.