I have Poser 3. (1) I made a posable tube, as 32 segments, all with the `curve' property in its .PHI file. Its ends are open with loose polygon edges. This is intended as a way of creating and posing tubes as parts of models, e.g. as a part of a spaceman's breathing apparatus. On posing, I found that the root segment was strangely deformed: it was pushed half inside itself like a sock which has been turned half inside out. (2) I found that, if I bend a "tail" of curved segments too sharply, it gets flattened and its rings of component vertexes run diagonally across it and not straight. Bending so sharply is not needed in animals' tails, but was a thorough nuisance when posing a tube to be part of a spaceman's breathing apparatus. (Likely the same would arise when posing a coiled snake.)

Wouldn't the flattening effect have more to do with the joint parameters than the Curve command? I have to admit that I haven't made many models using the Curve statement, but I do know of a custom model that it seems to work for. Take a look at Scott's "PoseRunner" figure and see what you think; the neck uses the curve. -JH.

On my poserunner. I did not use the curve statement on the base mesh(where the neck meets the body). That eliminated the warping problem that you are having. Scott Ayers iamsba@aol.com

heya; the curve parameter sometimes causes parts to twist like this at certain angles. when working with my swan's neck and horse reins, i found that the twists often worked themselves out when the parts were positioned. if not, select the segment, and turn its curve dial to zero. you can also experiment with different settings for this dial. as for the sharp bending problem... um.. dont do that ;) mess with the curve dial, and also, make sure if you want to bend segments a lot, they have a lot of vertices for poser to work with.

I had this with a flamethrower and a blowtorch where a large rigid object was child of a multi-segment hose with the curve property. With the flamethrower I parented the nozzle to the last but one segment of the hose, rather a disreputable hack. With the blowtorch I interposed a very short non-rigid non-curve segment.

heya; on the swan, the head was non-bendable, attatched to the curved neck segments. the head didnt seem to screw up the neck, although at some angles, it split at the seam between the head and last neck piece. to 'fix' this, i created some head morphs to extend and curve the back of the head to patch it somewhat. (i expect the hose pieces you're using are thinner than my neck, so the problem there is more aggravated.) also, changing the head's joint parameter center can help this somewhat, too. bend the head and neck/hose, then try moving the head's center around.