Please help me. I've made a figure, but since it's based on Michael I guess I can't distribute it as a cr2. Therefore I spawned a Full Body Morph and a face morph that would make the figure (I think) when applied to Michael. But how to I get hold of the morph I made? I've tried with Morph Manager but the new morph isn't there. Is it legal to distribute a cr2 that is based on Mike? And if not how do all the other peeps do it in here anyway? I've never ENcoded things with Mover, so I'm not sure if that's the way to do it. Is Michaels obj embedded in the cr2? Or will you simply have to own Michael in order to get the cr2 to work?

Well you can transfer a full body morph in MM4 if you rename the cr2 file to a pz3 file. The FBM channel appears. An FBM is actually two parts. There is the control in the body that adjusts associated MTs in the body parts with the same named MT. You have to copy both the main control and the sub body parts.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/pages/faq/faq.html

The quickest and easiest way to do it (if you've only used the morphs that come with Mike and not any others) is to save the body info as a .pz2 file and the face morph as a .fc2 file. It's easier to apply with just a couple of clicks. If you've used morphs from other sources you'd have to make sure their derivatives in combinations are allowed to be distributed and then you would spawn a morph for each part, export it, squeeze it so you're not distributing geometry and reapply it to a stripped, or "light" version of the Mike cr2. But in the end, it's best to check with Daz and their preferred methods. They have details in their FAQ on this just scroll down to Millenium figures.

Mason, so pz3 works too, I have been using pz2 to do it. In the example above, copying the dial values from BODY will not make anything that anyone else can use. There is only one file with the code for the new FBM and since the code is embedded in the morphs themselves -it cannot be distributed. Not this way. I will not address using outside morphs, except to say - if you have to ask this to begin with, do not attempt to distribute a character that includes outside morphs. You are jumping too many steps in your education. For a file that you can distribute to others: Method one Open M2. Generate your character using the BODY dials. and head morphs for the face - avoid using expression morphs. Save a face pose with the character name. Save the cr2 with the character name. Copy the text that follows as a new text file and name it: YOURCHARACTERNAME.pz2 { version { number 4.01 } actor BODY:1 { channels { } } } Change the extension of the character cr2 file to pz2/ or pz3. Open the two pz2 files in MM4 and copy over the dials from BODY that have morph names - all of them - zero is as important as a value in case a user has a previous value set. Save This file will now duplicate the body setting for your character. It will not affect the pose. If you go to any actual groups and set real morphs, you will have to make a Pose file with morph channels and then combine the two files = COPY/PASTE the actor BODY section just above actor hip in the pose file. This is legal - anyone who uses it must have M2 themselves. Once a user has this, what should they do? Hit Restore Figure for M2 apply the face pose apply the body pose If you like the character Start with head - Group:Spawn Morph Target and name this the character name upneck -spawn neck- spawn every group - make a combined morph that is this character. Save as a new CR2. Copy these new morphs over to a stripped version of Mike using MM4. Once you have the character defined as a single morph, you do not need the shape morphs that it is made from anymore. The file is much smaller and much kinder to system resources. Second method: Author does the Spawn Morph Target copy the single morphs over to a morph carrier BUT this cannot be distributed like this But, if the carrier is encoded using RTEncoder using M2P4.obj as the seed - only M2 owners can decode it and it is legal. The problem? there is no MAC version of the encoder yet? The first method makes for a much smaller file. My preferred method is to store the character or face morphs as a MORdonor pose, instead of a cr2 - if it is "a sometime thing".

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=242802

OK thanks for the solutions. Just to make sure: I can't just save it as a PZ3, right? Phew, I never realized this would be so difficult... so far all I've made for sharing was some fc2 files, but this IS a full body character, so I have to find some way to distribute it. And no there are no "outside" morphs, only Michael's own morphs in various degrees :o) The face of the character looks like the one at the link above.. Except for the texture which I'll have to remake if I want to distribute those.

A pz3 is a cr2 with the other stuff you need for a complete scene added in = lights, cameras, render settings, designer controls - unparented props. It is just as 'not legal' as a cr2 is and is a PITA to others unless the point is to provide a stage setup. The problem with the body shape = The dials in BODY are not morphs at all just a remote control for real morphs. They are valueParms not targetGeoms Real morphs are targetGeoms (It is Poser's name for them.) Pose library will not save valueParms as morph targets in a pose file Poser 5 is not different in this, BODY is not a group so nothing in BODY is saved as a morph, since only groups can have morphs. Poser will allow pose files to set dials in BODY, you just have to make the pose file to do it by hand. There may be utilities that will do this for you and if you wish to keep a distance between you and Poser library files, you might explore that set of tools. But the only tool you really need is a good text editor - I am happy with EditPad (Classic for most, Lite for monsters like V2. Use one that does not add formatting and lets you use your own extension, and not insist on *.doc or *.txt). But, then I am hardcore. Providing textures is tricky, unless you start from scratch and do your own as layers over the template. Editing someone elses texture has gotten many into an unhappy place. If you did an edit on a DAZ texture and then encoded your texture with RTEncoder with the DAZ texture as a key, it would probably fly, because at worst, only those who purchased the DAZ texture could use yours, and at best, it might generate additional sales for the original texture. Some private vendors might also agree and some might consider their creations sacrosanct. You are really better off only doing original stuff.

Two thoughts. "Pose library will not save valueParms as morph targets in a pose file". valueParms can be converted to targetGeoms, just do a global search and replace, they will still work, but I think the tracking scale only operates in increments of 0.025 for targetGeom, if I remember correctly. "BODY is not a group so nothing in BODY is saved as a morph, since only groups can have morphs." Now that's interesting. What is the defining characteristic of a group? Can we cheat? Can we fool Poser into treating the BODY as a group?

It is my thinking that BODY is the device that is used to control the figure as a whole and it is probably hard coded that way. Fooling Poser about it may not be possible. I never thought to just change the name of valueParm to targetGeom. I would bet on the following if you opened a cr2 in Poser having done this first: When you save a pose, Poser will still not make a slot for channels from BODY i.e. no actor BODY:1 {channels{and thus no keys That when you save the cr2 as a new file, the valueParms go back to being valueParms, so in all likelyhood - when Poser opens the CR2 with the name change and sucks it into RAM, it changes it back then and is probably flipping you the bird. It does when you try to customize the master slot in ERC code from a CR2. Poser 5 does that too. What it might do for you: let MM4 see the valueParms as morphs, and allow batch operations without messing with the actual channels in BODY. The thing about it is - when you are comfortable doing this level of stunting, you are only messing with shortcuts. You understand what you are doing. The feeling I get is that most users view openning a library file in a text editor as something akin to mixing the biniary agents in a VX shell. It still does not help one who asks "I have a character I would like to distribute, how do I do it? By the way, what is a morph?"

I agree, the two rather obscure technical points I made in post #7 are unlikely to be of much practical use to Ernyokal, and I apologise if I have confused things and gone a bit off topic, but I found the opportunity to delve a bit deeper irresistible.

Jagger, you may well win the first part of your bet, but you owe me a pint of Guinness, regarding the second part -/ :)

The BODY is perfectly capable of containing targetGeom's, and I have checked that they DO survive a resave to the pallet.

P.S. If you convert a valueParm in the BODY to a targetGeom, this is not much help because the BODY is still not saved in a pose made in Poser, you could of course move the channel into the hip or some other body part, but you would have to change the references in the slaves to point to the new location.

This is why I was interested in the possibility of fooling Poser into including a BODY actor in a pose file.

There may be shortcut material in the manipulations: Copy the valueParms to a real group and make them targetGeom. Save a pose file with morph channels Cut/paste the target valueParms into a slot for actor BODY:1 in the pose file - or better another one - if Body dials are all that is involved. Change the name back to valueParm. You should now have a pose file that will set the BODY dials and only have the key data, instead of the whole dial script ( if you are compulsive about that sort of thing and cut the extra lines by hand.)