Well I hope this isn't old news, but... I've alwasy wanted to have more named cameras to pick from, and finally figured out how to get them. Usually when I'm about half way through a scene I've used up the Main, Aux and Pose cameras for specific viewpoints, all the UI dots have something going on, and I have about 23 different saved camera settings - all of which I can never remember which is which so cringe every time I click on some camera-related thing :) So stared messing with pz3 files and realized you could add extra named cameras to them. Seems to work well if you "Open" a pz3 with the extra cameras defined, but I can't for the life of me get it to work properly for importing a pz3 - or as a Pose/pz2, cm2, or any of the other possible places. In those cases you end up with only the Focal and Hither channels but nothing else. If you start your scene by loading the extra cameras through a pz3 they seem to work fine though. They save to the cameras folder fine, and seem to work with animations, and you can select the different new ones without them stepping on each other. Then I tried adding them to the preferredState.pz3 so every 'new' scene would start out with the extra cameras, and that seems to be working fine. Only played with it a bit so far and just copied the parms from the Main camera, but I'm sure it would work for adding orthographic or dolly cameras as well. The only hitch (so far) seems to be that you can't add them after you've started the scene, and they don't show up in the main SelectCamera drop-list. They do show up in the BodyParts->Cameras section at the bottom of the image view though. Hopefully this isn't old news. Did search the forum to check first and didn't see any mention so... :) I posted a sample pz3 with three new/extra cameras up on my web site if anyone wants official proof :) It's on the download page in the Hi-Res section, so just follow the links from the attached url.

Attached Link: http://www.meshtools3d.com/

Oops! I was so busy eye-balling for spelling mistakes In forgot to check if the url made it :)

Cool, I like all these Poser hacks. Regards- Lemurtek

Sounds pretty interesting. 'In those cases you end up with only the Focal and Hither channels but nothing else.' Have you tried checking the cr2 to see if the other dials are there? Maybe there in there, but hidden, and you could unhide them. I'll try out the sample. Thanks. mac

It's a pz3 - been meaning to try it in a cr2, but forgot until you mentioned it just now :) They are there in the pz3, and come in properly if you start a new scene with it. Only if you import it so as to modify the existing scene that you get the problem. Did try immediately saving it back out again and checked the results hoping they were just hidden as you mention, but it only had the two. Course, that was about the 43rd time I'd tried 'some' idea, so don't quote me on that :)

What I want, is for a camera parented to John's chest to stay thus and not to transfer its parentage to Peter's chest when I select Peter.

Well by adding extra cameras that works a little bit. ...sort of... It handles the default "Main" type of cameras nicely, but when you start adding specific camera types that point at things, (ie pose, face, right and left hands,) it starts to get a little schizophrenic. The new pose ones seem the most stable, but the other three behave strangely. For the Pose type, you can add several new ones, and they maintain their respective focuses. When used with multiple character's, some lock to a character, and some jump back and forth depending on the selected character. It seems kind of finicky with some times the first camera locking to one or the other of the character's, and other times it's the 2nd or 3rd camera that locks. Sometimes two cameras lock and other times only one locks and the other two junp. I'm starting to think it's all inter-related by which character was loaded first, which was selected when you brought in the camera, and how many Pose type cameras you have. Feel free to play around with it though :) I was trying to make it work first, and will figure out these nitty-gritty details as I get to them. Just finishing up the mini-tutorial so will post that in the very near future. It has some links to dl working sample files, so everybody can use the extra cameras right away without having to understand the details. Then you can play with just those areas you mention and try to figure out the exact chain of events. :)

The tutorial has now gone up. Follow the same link as back at the beginning of the thread, but now it will take you to the tuturial instead of just dl'ing the pz3. You can dl the latest version from the tutorial page. The main addition/change was finding that these could be placed in cr2's. So now you can load and use the new cameras into existing scenes, which was not possible using the pz3 approach.

But wont be for long :) That referred to a message that I wrote stating an URL, next after message 8 in this thread. I have now deleted that message.

Attached Link: http://www.meshtools3d.com/

Thanks Anthony. I wasn't trying to be hard to get along with, but I really hate broken links. Since I knew I was going to change the url and end up breaking that direct url you posted in the above message, I thought I better at least warn people :) So just to keep the flow going, I'll remove the in-between message as well. The previous link will let you find it, but just to refresh things: Go to the main site and then into the HiRes section. Follow the link to the downloads page, and the tutorial and sample downloads can be found there. I promise I will get the full tutorial section up and running in the very near future.

Thanks for putting up the tute, dke. I only just found it (been distracted by all my free stuff being trashed at 3D Commune by some joker). I'll give it a go as soon as I get time. mac

dke, there no longer seems to be a link to your extra cameras tutorial from the above URL. If the tutorial and zip file still exist, I would very much appreciate a link.

Well they are still there, but I guess maybe I better make it a little easier to find :) So from the MeshTools3D site go into the Hi-Res section, and then on to the Downloads page. There is a link to the mini-tutorial (which I will be moving to the tutorial's page very soon,) and about half way down there is a link to dl the zips of the completed cameras. Aparently not that easy to find, so I guess you're sort of forced to read the whole lot to locate it :) Sorry about that. The link is a couple paragraphs above where the pics start though.

Thaanks dke.

I must be going blind, it's not that hard to find realy. I think I must have been looking in the "D-Mesh section without realisilg there was a seperate site structure under "Hi-Res" link.

Ahhh! Glad you found it. The site definately needs some reworking :) At least it's all in the works.