I'm trying to figure out a better way to stick two figures together in a CR2 file. Here's what I'm trying. I've made two characters. A then I took the parts from #1 that I want and added the part definitions, the linking, the parenting and the welding sections. To #2, it mostly works. -BUT- When I open the resulting figure the parts from #1 have no parameter dials and can't be moved. I added the pieces from #1 to #2 in a manor similar to the eyes in the head. as I don't want my #1 to effect the #2 figure. Any Ideas out there.

A cr2 can only have one figure. Everything that is not ultimately linked back to the body is not part of the figure. I'm confused here and think maybe you need to use the pz3 to cr2 workaround.

I'm trying to work around the PZ3 to CR2 workaround. I'm really close to REALLY combining two figures. None of this edited PZ3 BS. I want people to be able to save this figure back to the library with out blowing it up. I can get it to load all the parts and put them in the right places. Just the blasted parameter dials are all disabled. I can TASTE victory just one little glitch. ARRGH! The two figures I'm trying to combime are the P4 female and a 50 link chain (it's not what you think) I don't want to do the joint setup on that! Here maby if I give Y'all a peek I can stir up some Intrest. The chain is giving me FITS!

Wait, Wait YESSSS I've done it! It is ALIVE! Two Figures glued together as if they'd always been one! The hold up getsa a DOH slap. The #1 file had a ":2" behind all the part names. The #1 file didn't. I wacked all the ":2" and it works. Now if I can just figure out what I did, I'll make a tutorial.

In that 50-link chain, is each link a separate Poser part? If so, I wouldn't want to have to find disk space for it with all the space-wasting rhubarb of umpteen CR2 "channels" at each joint, or to have to face a python-wrestling exercise every time I pose it. My flamethrower model's fuel hose and gun has 9 parts, and posing that is enough for me. It would be useful if a long thin object could be ONE part, and could follow a route calculated by fitting cubic splines to a list of positions (and attitudes at those positions) specified by the user.

Anthony, Actually it is 50 (really 49) links. And it is tough to pose, but once you get the hang of it it works pretty well. But the CR2 is 1.7 MB. I tried the doing it with 5 segments but the chain looked distorted. The trick to posing this python is don't bend any one link too much. Give about 5deg of "favor" to the area you want to bend then turn on the IK and give it a big bend. I'm with you on the spline thing. I'd like to see meta do something where the charactors were based on NURBS meshes or some similar technique. That would eliminate things like Joint Crinkeling and make posing curved item much easier. While were at it how about "Gravituy" Nerd

Nerd, There is a way to prevent bending it too much from the creator's side. Use of limits in the .cr2. You can turn on limits for anything in the .cr2 and not have it dependent on whether or not the user has limits enabled. Even with 50 joints, its a fairly easy task. I did it with 65 joints and it works without a hitch. You need a text editor like EditPad to do it (because of its ability to open LARGE text files, which is what a .cr2 is). If you want more info on it, contact me via email or ICQ. -Rob

Also the addChild sequence is very important. Make sure you place any new parts AFTER the original body parts. Keept he orginal body part order the same. DO NOT insert new parts in between. Conforming clothes require this to have them work right. The :2 thing is an annoyance but that's how Poser knows the dif between figure 1 and 2 and so on in a pz3 file. I usually change all the : to 1 when combining figs. I'm addinga feature to Morph Manager 4 to set this and to also auto fix the storageOffset bug. This method is how I made bikini girl and the chain mail girl and the Wonder Woman figure. I'm working on a tutorial which should be done fairly soon.