Poser 7: Using Objects as Figures, Using Material Poses and Injection Poses
(version September 16, 2007)
These is a short article covering some aspects of Poser 7. In Poser you work with Figures and Poses. There are also other kinds of objects: Cameras, Lights, Props, Materials, Expressions, Hair, Hands and Scripts. Some of these categories are used in ways that may catch a new user off guard. The discussion here is to help you stay on track.
Poser 7: Using Figures, Using Material Poses
Poser 7 is one of the products we have in the 3D Animation Lab at Texas Tech University Libraries. This short article deals with Poser 7 in two areas, specifically figures that are objects and how poses can be materials. We’ll talk about MAT Poses, morphs, and INJ poses (injections). MAT Poses and INJ poses are not covered in the Poser manual or in the Poser help file.
Disclaimers and Compatibility Issues: In case you are not able to come in for a visit to the lab, you have two alternative choices for working with Poser figures. A downloadable free, trial version of Poser 6 good for 30 days is available from http://downloads.e-frontier.com/us/user/poser_6_english_demo_product_12045 that has limited functionality. Another alternative is DAZ|Studio (DAZ Productions), which is a free, non-expiring tool that will allow you to load Poser figures. You will be able to see many of the same features discussed here when using DAZ|Studio. See the link http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/studio/-/download? in order to download DAZ|Studio. (Take note that DAZ|Studio has a user manual available from this same page. The link http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/studio/-/download? points to tutorials for DAZ|Studio. In many cases your Poser work can be imported into DAZ|Studio. Notice the term “import”: this is important. “Load” is not the function you want when you bring Poser *.pz3 files into DAZ|Studio, use import. Going from DAZ|Studio to Poser is somewhat limited, and you will not be able to preserve all the geometry, such as how joints move and interact.)
In summary: DAZ|Studio and Poser 7 are not replacements for each other. Each has specific capabilities and these do not necessarily transfer fully when going from one product to the other. For example, DAZ|Studio cannot export in native Poser *.pz3 format. This limits what you get when you take a DAZ|Studio figure and move it into Poser. Nonetheless, you can learn a great deal by working with both products. In the world of 3D not everything has a counterpart in another program. For full compatibility, always do all your work in Poser 7. This will avoid any conversion issues.
Additional information about DAZ|Studio can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAZ_Studio.
If you are new to 3D and modeling, you might find it helpful to take the time to skim this article first, then read in detail the second time. It contains a number of ideas that are important when working in Poser.
Poser is designed around the idea of working with figures and characters. The history of the product can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poser which shows a steady progression of new features, many of which are related to figure creation and manipulation.
But Poser works well with objects or props, too. Some of the objects are installed in Poser as Figures. An example will help to elucidate the topic here. We are going to load a Figure from the Library in Poser (see left picture below to view the Poser control for this step). On the right is the scene of the “Figure” loaded into Poser from DAZ Productions called “Trinity Atrium”. It looks like the inside of an old courtyard. If you were asked, “Is it an Object or a Figure?”, you would probably say Object. But in the world of Poser this is a Figure, which means that it can do certain things.
Now take a look at the image directly below. “Figure 1” refers to the Trinity Atrium. The pulldown next to Figure 1 contains the following: Body Parts, Body, Props, Cameras, Lights. The term “Body” is used to refer to the entire figure of the Trinity Atrium and “Body Parts” is used to reference the various individual components. (According to the Poser 7 manual, Props are three-dimensional objects which can interact with your figures.)
What is of interest here is that we are not working with a person, but we use terminology which suggests that we are doing just that. Various wall sections, parts of the roof, and even the staircase can be selected individually. Poser uses the language of “Body” and “Body Parts” even when we are not talking about a person. The same is true for other kinds of figures, such as animals.
What is a good reason for this? Poser, as the name suggests, can be used for posing figures. By allowing an object to be treated as a figure, we can apply many of the same operations to the object that we use for working with the figure. We can apply “Poses” to the object, just as we do for figures. (In a few minutes we will see that the term “Pose” can have a wide range of meanings. It is not just how a figure is positioned, but it may also refer to how a particular texture or material is applied to the object.) We also inherit an understanding or hierarchy of the components in an object. Just a “Body” refers to the entire figure when talking about a person, “Body Parts” refers to components which are related to the entire object. When I apply an operation on the “Body”, I change all the “Body Parts” at once. This is exactly what happens when you work with Trinity Atrium. Using the term Body gives us the notion of a hierarchy, so that we understand that operations applied to the Body happen to all the Body Parts at the same time. Undoing an operation on the Body does the undo to all of the Body Parts at the same time.
Take a look at the parameter dial (below) for “Figure 1”, the Trinity Atrium. It contains dials to scale the Object, to Rotate the object, or to Translate (Move) the object in the x-direction, y-direction or z-direction (left/right, up/down, forward/back directions). These dials apply to the entire Trinity Atrium. Each “Body Part” in the Trinity Atrium also has similar dials to do the same operation, but only on that part.
For the next segment of the discussion we’ll choose a different example.
Material Poses (MAT Poses)
Let's take a look at the Armchair L-XV from DAZ Productions, located under Figures as Furniture. Here is what the base model looks like when loaded into Poser 7 without any changes.
We'll switch over to the Pose section now and take a look at MAT Furniture under this library category. We observe the following choices. These MAT Poses for Furniture allow us to simply click on the icon and have the chair change. The image to the right and below is the result of applying the Armchair L-XV 1 pose by double-clicking on it. Notice how the fabric has changed on the chair.
Saying it once again, MAT Poses allow you to make a quick change in the materials applied to an object. Following Poser rules you can create your own MAT Poses for use in scenes. The red and gold fabric above replaces the original green fabric. This particular chair is part of a furniture set marketed by DAZ Productions. It comes with a number of pieces and the MAT Poses which allow it to be used easily in your own scene. When you look through the catalog for any of the online stores you should find listed for every item sold what is included. MAT Poses should be listed if in fact they are included.
Injection Poses (INJ Poses)
To conclude this section we will cover briefly the topic of INJ Poses (injection poses). Injection Poses are a way for third-party manufacturers to extend the capabilities of the Poser product. INJ Poses add morph dials to various controls so that you can make changes to the figure. Let's consider the following example using Michael 3, a model from DAZ Productions. Look at the image below. We'll add some INJ Poses for the eyes so that they can wince. By the way, Michael 3 is wearing an odd hat in case you did not notice.
Lets take a look at the parameter dials in Poser for Michael's head. This is what we see (left), the default dials. The image to the right shows the INJ Poses for Michael's expressions. The last two are Eye Wince 1 L and Eye Wince 1 R.
If we double-click on each one of the last two INJ Poses, we see that the parameter dial for the Head has now changed and has two additional controls.
We can use these dials to make the eyes wince, and the result is shown in the image below.
This concludes our discussion of injection poses.
We have just really skimmed the surface of the topics here, but we have hit the most important parts. These ideas will help you to get the most out of your work in Poser.
Topics for further exploration and reading on your own
1. Hierarchy helps organize the parts of a computer model. Write down a hierarchy for a computer model of the human body. What is connected to what? Think of how this hierarchy concept can be used to work with a computer model of a building. In what ways are the two similar?
2. Poser supports writing scripts using the Python scripting language. Take a look at the manual on the machines in the 3D Animation Lab and get acquainted with this topic. Python scripting is used widely with 3D programs to extend features and let users add functionality not in the original product. You will see that the script language is very powerful and can allow you do create interesting customizations in very short programs.
Explore some of the Python scripts which come with Poser.
3. Find a non-person figure supplied with Poser 7. Explore the "Body Parts" to see how that figure is implemented. You can use the copy of Poser on the 3D Animation Lab machines to do your exploration. Figures are also called Characters in Poser.
4. Read about Conforming Props in the Poser manual. These are a special kind of prop that helps often in getting a good fit for clothing or hair.
5. Tell a friend about what you learned in reading this article.
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