Unit Making Tutorial by utahjazz7 (May 9, 2005)

Okay, how do you make primitives in Poser?

its in the prop section

Another question. (I know I'm getting kind of annoying, but hey, it's my first unit). Okay, like an idiot, I didn't really follow the tutorial for the animations. That's cool, though, because I did all the animations to my liking, just I didn't do them in the civ 3 template. But, I imported the files into the template, and the animations work fine, as does the lighting and stuff, with two exceptions:

1. The unit casts no shadows.
2. When rendered, the unit is really small.

Are these an effect of importing the files into the template? If so, how do I remedy these?

2. How small is it in comparison with a normal civ3 unit?

1) Press CTRL-J to call up the "Make Movie" screen. Click the "Render Settings" tab at the top. Tick "Cast shadows".

2) Is the whole image too small? In that case, go to the "Make Movie" screen as above, and change the image size under "Resolution". Most infantry-type units are 100x100 pixels. Or is the image the right size but the unit itself too small within it? In that case your camera isn't right. Check that you're rendering from the Main Camera view (CTRL-M in the main screen). Check that the Main Camera has the settings that it does in the default "New Unit" file.

How do you unit-making veterans make two-handed attacks? Would it involve parenting both hands to the weapon prop? I'm using the naginata prop to make a Joseon Halberdier, so there's going to be a lot of two-handed animation going on. The right hand controls the movement of the weapon, but the left hand should be forward and acts as a support hand.

Also, is there a way to manually move a prop without warping it or making it go through the pdm figure in animations? That keeps happening when I use Kinboat's kensai robe. I make some parts of the body invisible, but that only solves the problem with it going through the PDM.

The unit itself is too small. I will try the camera settings...

I tried everything you said, Plotinus, but "casts shadows" is already checked. And the camera settings are exactly the same, and it's 100x100, but the unit is too small...

[Ogedei the Mad] As far as I know, parenting both hands to the weapon isn't possible. CamJH gave me a tip from Kinboat: parent the weapon to one hand, as usual, and then put a small sphere on the weapon where you want the other hand to go. Design your animation, trying to keep the other hand on the weapon where the sphere is. Then remove the sphere or make it invisible when rendering. Quite a hassle to do, but it does work - this is how I made my Ethiopian Pikeman. As for the kensei robe, I'm not entirely sure what the problem is - it ought to be conformed to the PDM, so that it moves with him. Select the robe, then click on "Conform to..." in the Figure menu, and conform it to the PDM. Then go to the Windows menu and open the Joint Editor, and click "Zero figure". All should be well. One problem with the kensei robe is that although it extends below the knees, the entire leg section conforms to the thighs. In other words, it doesn't bend at the knee. That's just a flaw with the figure as Kinboat made it. It means that you have to be very careful with the Run animation and any other animation where you want him to bend his knees - this is why my oriental magic-users have a slightly odd walk. The alternative is to load the robe into the Setup Room and give it a new skeleton with shins, which might actually be not too hard to do, but is rather complex.

[odintheking] Is the PDM itself scaled to 100%? If it is, then are you quite sure the unit is too small? It might just look small compared to how it looks while you're working on it. I'm always horrified at how tiny units look when I render the first images - all those nice little details, lost - but Civ III units just are small. Post an image and let's have a look.

EDIT: I realized that the size was funky because I did some stuff in the beginning of the process. I increased size to 112% and it looks normal. Now about the shadows...

Probably a dumb question, but could the sphere in question be parented to the polearm prop and the left hand parented to the sphere?

What I'm thinking of doing is manually positioning the hand in every frame. More work, but I want to keep things more fluid. One problem I have, though, is that sometimes when I try to move one body part manually (as in select the limb and drag it with a mouse cursor), the whole body moves with it!

That's why you go to the actual window with all the numbers, and use the twist, bend and etc values. The animations and poses will look more natural that way, and more precise, .

I did what Plot did, namely manually positioning the off hand, only without using the sphere. That's how I kept the hands on the gun during the various animations, and how I did the two-hand sword attacks for the Alexandrian Holy Knight and Shinra SOLDIER

OK. I'll try it out once I get to the attack animation part. I'm still only on the "Default" animation in the tutorial (yeah, I'm THAT slow when it comes to Poser ).

Don't try to be too ambitious, though. I found it hard to make a unit with a two-handed weapon, and that was after a fair bit of practice with single-handed ones. Don't forget that, no matter how hard you try, your first couple of units will not be as good as your later ones. That's inevitable given the complexity of the process, and you can check it yourself by looking at the libraries of some of the other creators and seeing how they have come on. I would recommend treating your first one or two units as "practice" ones - make them quite simple, perhaps variations on Utahjazz's spearman, to get the hang of it. Then start on the complex ones that you really want, in the knowledge that they will be better because you've had more practice.

That's just what I'd do, though. You might be quicker to get the hang of it than I was!

Now that you mention it, it probably would have been better if I simply tried making a wizard unit as a first unit; that way, I wouldn't need to have weapons props and I could attribute quirky animations to "magic" effects.

I have a lot of patience these days though (mostly as a result of having to put up with hyperactive middle school kids everyday ) , so I'll stick with working on my halberdier unit regardless of how much of a hassle it's going to be.

Ogedei_the_Mad said:

How do you unit-making veterans make two-handed attacks?

Click to expand...

It is possible to make two-handed attacks in Poser without manually adjusting one hand in every frame. You said that the weapon is parented to the right hand, and the right hand controls the movement of the weapon. Now you need to find a way to parent the left hand to the weapon, right?

If I understood correctly and can remember correctly, this is entirely possible. I have actually done it before, at least one time for my Elf Spearman. Here's what I would do, if I were you.


1. Go to the frame where the unit first places both hands on the weapon. I would imagine this is somewhere in the fortify animation.

2. Position the left hand where you want it to be on the weapon.

3. Open the key frame editor, and make all frames, up to and including that frame, key frames. It's probably best if you make all the body parts key frames, especially the left hand, shoulder, and forearm.

4. Close the key frame editor.

5. Turn on the I-K Chain for the left arm.

6. Parent the left hand to the weapon.

7. The left arm (hand, forearm, and shoulder) will move with the weapon.


I just opened Poser for the first time in months, and this did work. You'll still have to do some editing of the left shoulder and forearm though. They won't move naturally as the left hand moves with the weapon. You'll probably need to do at least some bending and rotating. Good luck.

A big thanks, utah. I'll try it out once I have the opportunity.

That's very interesting, utahjazz. I didn't know that was possible.

EDIT: I'm so stupid! I got the shadows to work. I just went to Display, and then Ground Shadows. I was trying to apply them in the render window when I didn't have the in the actual file, .

EDIT 2: Ok, this is really ticking me off... I get shadows to work in the file, but no render shadows! HAs this happened to anyone else?