Why is it that nowhere can I find any discussion of the matter of posing human figures, a matter with artistic, technical, and psychological aspects. In the latter case I have seen by experience if you can make the  the poses and other geometric components of the scene true enough the viewer cant help participating psychologically in the scene. I've done it a few times but it requires painstaking work, yet our 3d aps do next yo nothing to make it easier. It often looks like the ap developers have never made and posed a simple scene.

More simply:

How to turn a prop into a hand held smart prop and save it all in the library. Where is this process documented?

We don't use our hands one finger at a time so why de our posing programs have to work that way.

Wouldn't be useful to take a basic pose and add body language just as we add emotions to face expressions. Stage actors know that the body language can be the more important of the two

By ignoring this essential topic we allow our applications to avoid the hard work of making posing natural and intuitive and dump the tasks on artists thus getting in the way of artistic creativity.

So, you don't want to do any of the artistic/creative work yourself? Is that where we're at now? I've heard there's something called AI if you want to remove yourself from the process entirely. Just make sure you count the fingers in the final image before claiming it as your own work.

mazzam posted at 7:25 PM Sat, 20 December 2025 - #2997109

Why is it that nowhere can I find any discussion of the matter of posing human figures, a matter with artistic, technical, and psychological aspects.

Acting and animation books/classes is where you'll find the "discussion of the matter of posing human figures". There are tons of figure/anatomy books that will cover and break down form, dynamics, and posing as well.

Some of Burne Hogarth's books might be a good place to start, as well as the Animator's Survival Kit [Richard Williams].

mazzam posted at 7:25 PM Sat, 20 December 2025 - #2997109

In the latter case I have seen by experience if you can make the  the poses and other geometric components of the scene true enough the viewer cant help participating psychologically in the scene. I've done it a few times but it requires painstaking work, yet our 3d aps do next yo nothing to make it easier. It often looks like the ap developers have never made and posed a simple scene. . . .

. . .Wouldn't be useful to take a basic pose and add body language just as we add emotions to face expressions. Stage actors know that the body language can be the more important of the two

You state that stage actors know the importance of body language, doesn't that mean its a learned and finely honed artistic skill? An important part of the artistic/creative process? I'm not sure how that is "standing in the way of artistic creativity" when it IS the artistic, creative process.

Aren't there "pose packs" you can buy that will take a lot of that process off your plate if you're not interested in doing it yourself?

mazzam posted at 7:25 PM Sat, 20 December 2025 - #2997109

How to turn a prop into a hand held smart prop and save it all in the library. Where is this process documented?

This seems like it might cover turning a prop into a smart prop? It was the first result in a google search anyway - Smart prop in Poser / Smart Prop in DAZ

He's got a youtube with video of the process as well, if that's more your speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfd7fIWUsOE

mazzam posted at 7:25 PM Sat, 20 December 2025 - #2997109

We don't use our hands one finger at a time so why de our posing programs have to work that way.

I can certainly think of at least a few cases where our hands are used one finger at a time. When a rig needs to be all things to everyone the way it does with Poser/DAZ, you have to leave it open ended. What solution would you propose? Making a pose/slider for each and every hand shape? Pointing. Clenched fist. Open palm. Peace sign. Counting to three. Counting to three, but more German. Holding a coffee mug. Holding a tea cup, with pinky extended. And so on? Its not a practical scale of work.

mazzam posted at 7:25 PM Sat, 20 December 2025 - #2997109

By ignoring this essential topic we allow our applications to avoid the hard work of making posing natural and intuitive and dump the tasks on artists thus getting in the way of artistic creativity.

I don't know what software you're working with, I'm going to assume Poser/DAZ, the nature of those apps is that they can't have complex rigs. Its a trade off between ease of use that a complex rig MIGHT provide in some case, versus the flexibility that the entire user base requires colelctively. They need to have a basic nuts and bolts rig that can work with the widest possible variety of models/morphs, the greatest amount of different clothes on those models, the most different end-user use-cases, etc.

The more flexible something is, ie the more options it offers, the more time consuming it is likely going to be to work with. A highly tailored, complex rig that handles a bunch of the minutiae for you would need to be rebuilt or at the very least heavily reworked for each and every character/clothing change [*and scene/use-case*]. If you want more complex rigs, you'll need to move to software that supports that kind of thing, and learn to build your own rigs.

*For production purposes, its pretty common for 3D character models to have more than a couple rigs [and models] depending on the requirements of the project. You usually have a "hero model" that's full-boat, everything and the kitchen sink type of model, but its going to be slower and more cumbersome to work with because of all the added bits and bobs and the more complex rig, as such, its used rather selectively. Then you'll likely have one or more other simplified models/rigs depending on the requirements of individual scenes/shots using that character/model.

For example you don't need a full IK rig for the legs, in a model/rig that's only going to be used for close ups from the waist up. Likewise you wouldn't need a full speech rig with all the phonemes/mouth shapes and morphs for the face in a model/rig that's only going to be seen running at a distance.*

Maybe you'll get a "make pose" AI feature somewhere down the road in those programs, but I don't see the kind of rig you're asking for being feasible, even if the software supported it, unless you'd be willing to pay $1k per character/figure.

I am talking about posing a character in a scene context where the pose reflects the characters role in the scene and attitude with to other characters in the scene who are in turn posed in response to the response to the character being posed. So in posing a character you are taking on the role of a skilled stage actor as well as the stage director who blocked the stage action in the first place. These are all long recognized professional skills. And doing them well in a 3D world is bound to have the effect it has in the real world. Our 3D aps have not yet addressed the matter of posing from a body centric perspective. We do not rotate our joints we actuate muscles and leave much up to gravity and body elasticity. Nothing here is rocket science. Putting some of this knowledge  into our posing tools. Natural, easier and fun. If I can do it, my character can do it too.

But this is relevant if you want to move from image to scene realism where you wish to represent the personalities and motives of characters in scenes to tell stories about them like pages from a graphic novel.

mazzam posted at 10:21 AM Mon, 22 December 2025 - #4502477

I am talking about posing a character in a scene context where the pose reflects the characters role in the scene and attitude with to other characters in the scene who are in turn posed in response to the response to the character being posed. So in posing a character you are taking on the role of a skilled stage actor as well as the stage director who blocked the stage action in the first place. These are all long recognized professional skills. And doing them well in a 3D world is bound to have the effect it has in the real world.

Again, I'll ask, how do you propose that would work? Would you start posing one character in a scene and the others start updating/changing accordingly? How does the software you're using know how it should change them / how those other characters should be responding?

Its the difference between a beginner and a veteran. Its a learned skill, an important part of the of the artistic and creative process. Its fundamental to being an artist that works with scenes and characters. There's no short cut to doing it well.

It IS the art. If you're not participating in that process, what ARE you doing?

mazzam posted at 10:21 AM Mon, 22 December 2025 - #4502477

Our 3D aps have not yet addressed the matter of posing from a body centric perspective. We do not rotate our joints we actuate muscles and leave much up to gravity and body elasticity. Nothing here is rocket science. Putting some of this knowledge  into our posing tools. Natural, easier and fun. If I can do it, my character can do it too.

In some ways, they have with tools like IK. I've worked with rigs that have multiple IK chains. They're great for a very narrow limited set of actions. They're tedious as all get out for most of the rest. Even with IK-FK blend options they can still be tedious. 

Again tho, the you're not going to have complex rigs like that in entry level software, it just isn't practical. Some of what you're asking for, you're not even going to have in the highest level packages with the most advanced rigs. In some cases its not practical from a software, or even computational level. Calculating "gravity and body elasticity? You want that in real-time? Good luck.

No, its not rocket science, but it is rocket art. Rigs with accurate, or even semi-accurate muscle deformations, that are automated, are extremely complex, time intensive rigs. Its an incredibly subtle nuanced art that takes a high level of skill and understanding of kinematics and physiology. You might have multiple artists working on a rig like that. That's just not gonna happen for Poser/DAZ.

mazzam posted at 10:21 AM Mon, 22 December 2025 - #4502477

But this is relevant if you want to move from image to scene realism where you wish to represent the personalities and motives of characters in scenes to tell stories about them like pages from a graphic novel.

This is a great direction to look that would be good for learning this stuff. There are some instructional books for comic book/graphic novel layout that cover blocking and staging as well as conveying interactions between characters. I don't have any on my shelf but I've run across them, I'll take a look later If you're interested.