After seeing the 'hide PMB dials' freebie in the free stuff, I was wondering - what does PBM mean and exactly what are these dials for? I know I'm probably going to feel a real dummy when I find out... it's just a case of 'oops, my ignorance is showing'. Jack

PBM means "partial body morph" Essentially it is a dial that is controlled by another dial. For example on the thigh there might be a dial called "pbm_thigh-wide". It could be controlled by a dial on the hip called "thigh-wide", along with other "thigh-wide" PBM versions on the other thigh, buttocks, abodomen, shins etc. The reason to hide these PBM dials is you are only supposed to turn the control dial itself, wherever it is located. Hope this is clear enough B) Mark

Ahhhhh... and there was me tweaking away all this time in happy ignorance. Thanks Mark. Jack

Silly question I know But why do we end up with PMB dials in the 1st place and will this be solved in Poser5 ???

We have to have pbm's becouse poser figures are not one single mesh but a collection of meshes and for every full body morph you have to have a series of individual morphs one on each body part mesh that is affected. the full body morph just controls all the pbm's grouped under it. the pbm dials can be hidden but not removed, I personaly find pbm dials handy at times when i want to modify a full body morph slightly.

lemur01's question was a good one ... this wasn't an intuitively solved problem, and unfortunately DAZ provides scant (if any) documentation to help. Someone once told me that PBM stood for "pubic mound." LOL ... very wrong, but funny.

Morph channels cannot be hidden by default. Even if the cr2 has hidden = 1 as it comes from the library, Poser makes the channels visible when the file is opened. DAZ would have hidden the individual pbm- channels if it were possible. The prefix was the best that could be done. It means = Do Not Use Me - I am a piece of a greater whole, changing me alone will mess up how I fit with the group on either side. V1 did not have the warning and Faery (and the others) was set all over the place. It was apparent that the ERC morphs were being used incorrectly. DAZ is just using standard Poser 4 functions. The P4 figures come with FBM with component morphs in some or most groups. They are best controlled only from BODY. The crappy result from using the isolated morphs is the same. DAZ just tried to warn you, rather than "you just have to know" - which most do not seem to know, given the number of characters with badly set morphs. In attempting to be helpful, they are taking a hit for not explaining, what is after all, a Poser function, not something they have done. They are just attempting to see that their body shaping morphs are used correctly. You may hide the dials for morph channels using pose files, but it only works while the file is open and the will not be apparent on the dials of the group selected when you use the pose. You must refresh the group = click another group and then come back.

heyas; actually, it was discovered how to hide morph dials; you have to put the hidden 1 line AFTER the delta list. then it works just fine.

Thanks for the info. It works and it can be reversed with a pose file. It would be interesting to know the story behind the discovery that misplacing the line has a beneficial effect - rather than poisoning the file or doing nothing.

If the Character is saved from Poser with the hidden 1 line after the deltas, would Poser then "correct" the miss placed line?

heyas; i have no idea. i didn't discover this, it was some guy passing through the poser tech forum. ed, i think his name was..... i believe he said it is possible to leave the original hidden 1/0 in there, and add another hidden 0 at the end of the deltas. his theory is that the deltas do something to the internal poser code that forces the dial to be shown.... anyway, i haven't experimented with it, and i don't know as anybody has tried saving a hidden-morph character back from poser. good idea to try it, though.

I left both in and made the one at the bottom = 1 The morph came in not showing - hidden. I hit it with a pose file to change the second hidden = 0 It brought the dial back in - after refreshing. So it works the way we wish. I do not know if it saves back to the library. Wait - I will try it.... OK, what happens: the file is saved with the first hidden = 1 and the one after the deltas not saved. It is a one way solution. It sort of seems to me that this is for morphs you really want to hide and the hidden 0 pose file would be for special cases, when you need to get at it for an immediate adjustment. For morphs that you want to see sometimes and to go away others, the effect of a pose file on the first hidden entry is probably the better choice. Poser 5 has its own version of show/hide - the default is for morphs together, movement and scale channels together (and hands with a third for grasp etc). These groups can be collapsed. You can get morphs out of the way for movement dial access - no more scrolling needed. I am thinking that there is hacking potential there and pose file effects to make special purpose categories, but I bet the changes will not save.

Poser 5 - The grouping of channels can be customized, but wrong bet, the changes are retained. I used a pose file to make subcategories of morphs and saved the file. The subcategories were still there on open. The movement channels are called - transform It means that huge blocks of morphs like head morphs in V2 can be grouped into sections (eye) (nose) and each collapsed into a single line. This unclutters things a great deal.

heyas; does poser trash the second hidden line, after the deltas, if you take the first hidden line out, completely?