An Introduction and the Basic Steps to Workflow

A brief history of Poser

Poser initially was not designed as a 3D application. It used 3D models, but its purpose was to create proportion, foreshortening, and lighting studies for drawing and painting (real or digital). The human models were barely more than mannequins. In Poser 2, they took on more features, such as actual faces with eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, hands with fingers, and some musculature. Poser 3 is where things started really happening.

With Poser 3 came the addition of animal and robot figures. Poser wasnt just for humans any more! Also at that time, the Advanced Techniques PDF document was released. This arcane scroll outlined how to create your own custom Poser figures.

This capability, plus the new and improved human figures by Zygote, allowed Poser to evolve into a real 3D application. Subsequent versions added various features to help with building custom figures, but the procedure is basically the same.

The basic steps

At its heart, Poser figure creation is a simple process. The workflow follows these steps:

• Creating the mesh
• Splitting the mesh into body part groups
• Defining the hierarchy
• Setting joint parameters
• Creating morphs
• UVMapping and texturing

Creating the mesh

Poser uses polygonal meshes, in the Wavefront OBJ format. It is not in and of itself a modeling program, so you will need another application to create your models. It does not matter what program you use, as long as you can end up with an OBJ model at the end of the day. If your program does not import/export OBJ files, there are file conversion utilities that will translate between most 3D formats.

It is beyond the scope of this book to teach actual mesh modeling, but in Chapter 4 you will find basic design principles you should follow in creating your figure.

Slicing or splitting the mesh

This is a misnomer; there is no need to actually cut or slice the mesh. What this means is the OBJ file needs to have group information for each body part. In some applications (such as Ray Dream or Carrara) this may entail physically dividing parts of the mesh from the rest. In other programs (such as Lightwave) assigning polygons to groups does not change the structure of the mesh.

If you have Poser 4 or above, you can assign groups to polygons with the Grouping tool. This is not an optimal solution, but it can be done if you are very patient. You could also download the free UVMapper, which will allow you to assign groups and materials to OBJ meshes.

Chapter 4 will cover group-naming conventions for Poser.

Defining the hierarchy

The body parts are arranged in a hierarchy that defines their relationship. The hip is usually the base body part. Wherever the hip goes, the rest of the body goes with it. Then from the hip, the torso and legs branch off. Thighs are children of the hip, shins are children of the thighs, and so on down to the feet and toes. Whenever you bend the thigh, the shins, feet, and toes go with it they are all connected. Thus the entire figure can be defined in a tree-like structure of the body parts. Building a hierarchy is discussed in Chapter 4.

In Poser 3, this step is done outside of Poser, but in version 4 and above, the hierarchy can be constructed within the program.

Setting joint parameters

The joint parameters are controls that define how the body parts move: the point at which they bend, how much of the joint stretches and deforms as the limb moves, how much it twists, etc. Adjusting these controls is important in getting the figure to move in a natural manner. These are covered in Chapter 2.

All joint parameter editing is done inside Poser.

Creating morphs

Morphs change the shape of the mesh in a prescribed manner, without affecting how the figure poses and moves. Examples of common morphs are the smiling and blinking morphs for the human figure heads. Morphs are defined by changes in location for various vertices on the model.

Poser 4 and above have Magnet and Wave deformers, which allow you to create morphs within the program. However, there are some types of morphs that are best done in another 3D application. Morphs are explained in detail in Chapter 1.

UVMapping and texturing

UVMapping defines texture regions for your model in 2D space, so that skins can be painted for it. This can actually occur at any stage of the process. You can create a UV map for your model as you build it, or create mapping for it after everything else is done. If your modeler does not have UVMapping capabilities, you can use a UVMapping tool. The Grouping tool in Poser 4 and up will do some UVMapping, but it is limited in its control.

Details on UVMapping styles and procedures are located on the CD. Painting textures themselves is a two-dimensional art, and beyond the scope of this work.

Putting it all together

Each step of this process is interdependent on other steps. How the mesh is built will have a direct impact on how well the morphs will work: if you want your eye to blink, you will have to build an eyelid. How you split the mesh will also impact morphs: if you split your leg in the center of the knee, and want to create a knobby knees morph, you will end up having to do the morph across two body parts, which is awkward.

The mesh construction and splitting also affect the joint parameters. As you bend the figure, you may find you do not have enough polygons to stretch and create a smooth bend, or you may find the body parts too close together where they crash into each other as they try to bend. Splitting the mesh and building the hierarchy are also closely linked. The hierarchy has a rule that a body part can only touch one parent and its own children. If there is an area where several limbs or body parts come together, with no common parent, this could be a problem.

How can you know in the early stages how the joints and morphs are going to work in the later stages? After you have been up and down the workflow, going back and forth with a figure, you start to see the process as a whole, and you can begin designing the mesh with these future steps in mind. But, hopefully, reading this book will give you a head start and you wont have to struggle through several projects to get going. Because the latter figure creation steps have impact on previous steps, I have decided to go through the processes backwards in this book which is actually a natural learning progression; you get into figure dabbling by creating morphs for existing figures, then work up to messing with the joints and CR2, and finally create your own figure.

haracter creation vs figure creation

A character is built from a pre-existing figure, using one or more of the following: textures, morphs, scaling, and various accessories such as hair, clothing, and other props. If the figure you want to create is a human, there is no need to start modeling one from scratch. You can use an existing human figure. For example, Jon Malis of PoserGamers has several historic and fantasy characters built upon the Poser humans, such as Roman gladiators and dwarven warriors. My Antelope Expansion Pack is a set of characters for the DAZ buck, consisting of new mapping, textures, props, and morphs. You may create your own textures, morphs, and props, or use existing ones. Either way, this is considered character creation.

Figure creation involves building a new model for Poserizing. Then there is a gray area in between, where part of a model is newly built, and part uses an existing figure, such as the various mermaids and the DAZ hippocampus. There is also the art of recombining existing meshes, such as Lemurteks Second Nature series, where he has merged animal heads and legs with the human figures. In these cases, figure creation and character creation are used interchangeably.

If you are interested only in character creation, the Morphing and Library File chapters will have the information most relevant to you. You can also work with tweaking joint parameters, and check out the information on UVMapping.

Pitfalls to avoid

You may have already tried some forays into figure creation, trying to Poserize existing meshes, or perhaps throwing together a simple figure to try your hand at setting joint parameters. If you ended up with a weird figure with a warped head, torn seams, broken legs, and pieces bulging out or collapsing everywhere, you are not alone. And, its not your fault.

Let me tell you a story about Stumpy. I put Stumpy together in Ray Dream; he had a sphere for a body, two cylinders for thighs and two for shins, and an extruded star shape for his head. All I wanted to do was test this new, arcane (at the time) figure creation process. I built the mesh, got the body parts and the hierarchy, but it all went wrong at the joint parameters. The thighs squashed the sphere torso into the most awful shapes, the shins were hopeless, they sheared this way and that, and the knee would not bend smoothly. And the head . . . that thing expanded and contracted from side to side, distorting the torso even worse than the thighs; it twisted all out of shape. The whole project was hopeless! (See Figure I.1.) If you play with Stumpy II on the CD, you will see what I mean.

But the reason was not that joint parameters were beyond me; it was the mesh. The legs could not possibly work, because the lengths were undivided polygons from top to bottom. Poser needs polygons to stretch and contract with joint movement, and they did not exist. The body distortion problems could have been addressed by using spherical falloff zones on the joints, and the head could have had its bend turned off.

Stumpy II has even more problems. See if you can find him after hitting (Edit: Restore: Figure). Try scaling the BODY to 2000%, and hit to drop to floor. You can now see why a hastily built test figure can scare anybody away from even attempting to create Poser figures. By the way, Stumpy IIs sphere is named body, which is why you can tear off his limbs (try it!) and why he turns upside down when you drop to the floor. Dropping to the floor moves the root body part (usually the hip), not the BODY (the whole figure). Since Stumpy IIs hip is his body, Poser is confused as to whether that is a body part or the whole BODY. And the moral of that story is, never name any part of your figure body!

Using pre-built static meshes has its own dangers. Static meshes are usually built in a posed position, with limbs bent, which makes the default joint parameter angles do weird things with them (especially the twist). The mesh may not be dense enough to bend smoothly, and if you also do not know where and how to use the spherical falloff zones, things could get messy very quickly. There is a reason that Poser figures are built with straight limbs. If you want to practice on pre-built figures, try out the BBN figure that is included on the CD. The BBN is available in several stages, so you can practice slicing up the undivided mesh, or doing joint parameters on the unedited CR2, or doing morphs on the final figure.

Building a well-designed mesh, organizing a proper hierarchy, and setting joint parameters is not rocket science. Anyone can learn these skills with the proper guidance, and thats what this book is here for.

How to use this book

This book covers figure creation for Poser version 3, 4, Pro Pack, and 5. There are three different ways to Poserize your figure: the P3 PHI file method, the P4 Hierarchy Window method, and the Pro Pack/P5 Setup Room method. All three methods will be covered in this book, and each version of Poser supports previous methods, so you can choose which method suits you best. Other than the figure Poserizing, everything works the same no matter which version you have joint parameters, morphs, etc. Some of the tools and features are not available in all versions of Poser.

Each chapter has main sections on theory and practice. Theory sections will go through the technical explanations of why things work the way they do, while Practice will show you how to put the theories to actual use. Then the Trouble-shooting chapter will address every bug, every problem, and every weird Poser occurrence I have come across so far. If something goes wrong, chances are the answer is here. If you dont find your problem addressed in the area you expect it, try the other Trouble-shooting sections. A morph problem may actually be a CR2 problem, a joint parameter problem might be a figure problem so explore whats there.

If you are new to Poser figure creation, you can follow through the chapters and exercises of this book, in order. If you are intermediate, you can jump to any section where you want more in-depth information, or use your own figures for the exercises. Advanced users can use this book as a handy reference tool. Perhaps you need the lines for slave code, or a procedure for Geometry Swapping. Or have you got a figure design that you are not sure how to joint? Its all here at your fingertips.

If you would like to go from start to finish on a test figure, use the BBN0.OBJ on the CD. You should start in the Figure Creation: Theory section in Chapter 4 to learn how to split the mesh, then go to Figure Creation: Practice on the CD to Poserize it. Also on the CD, you can then work through the Joint Parameters section that deals with the Norn, and the Morphing section.

The CR2 chapter (Chapter 3) contains advanced techniques such as Geometry Swapping, remote control, grafting things together, meddling with the joints, and all sorts of good stuff. Be forewarned that you were never meant to tinker with the Poser library files, and doing so may cause disastrous results. Meddle at your own risk!

Lastly, check out the appendices for more helpful information. There is a list of Poser utilities to help you in your work, online resources where you can get more help (and download the utilities), GetStringRes lookup tables, and a glossary, in case some of the terms I use, like smooxing and abNormals, sound like gibberish to you.

P3 vs P4 vs PPP vs P5

Some instructions, tricks, and code do not apply to all versions of Poser. Where there are vast differences in procedure, I have tried to clarify which version does what. If you have P3 or P4 and you cannot find a control, the chances are it doesnt exist in your version.

For more details about this title including a full table of contents and order information visit: www.focalpress.com

Also available from Focal Press, Animation in the Home Digital Studio by Steve Subotnick. Read an excerpt now!