How R8XFT makes leaderheads and pcxs

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Sometimes the conforming of clothes has this effect, though not that often in my experience. You need to go into each part of the clothes (eg, hip, chest etc) and make sure that everything is set up correctly - i.e. scale=scale of the figure you're conforming to, xscale/yscale/zscale are all at 100% and everything else should be set to 0.

If there's still an overlap, you can either amend the xscale, yscale or zscale - sometimes that works, or alternatively, you could hide the part of the figure underneath so that it doesn't show through.

 

[Plotinus]

Bear in mind, also, that sometimes it looks a mess in the preview but is fine when rendered. This is because Poser has difficulty showing things that are very close to each other (such as bodies and clothes) in the normal posing screen. Try a test render of the frame you're on and it might look fine.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

I tried the render thing and it didn't really help that much at all. All of the settings were the same on both figures but I still got the chopped up mess of a look. Could it perhaps be that I had the Body selected and I tried to put on a suit coat which is probably for the "chest" or so? I did try that once but that didn't help either. The only thing that seemed to work is to make the suit bigger than the actual figure. I.E. making the scale at 126% or more.

I am EXTREMELY frustrated because I can't even get past step 2 of your tutorial and am really starting to hate this program. Nothing I do when following steps turns out like it's supposed to. I tried to use the Face room to make my character's face. I made the face and in the face room it looked great. But as soon as I click "apply to figure" 1 of 2 things happend... It either doesn't show (and has the eyeballs popped out to the foreground) or it makes a big ugly mask that goes over micheals face and has a big chop line on the neck while looking absolutely nothing like the face I just made in the face room.

What am I doing wrong? Can you please help me figure Poser out so I can get past this and make some leaderheads?

 

[Plotinus]

The Face Room only works with the character that comes with Poser (Ben). It doesn't work with Michael. If you're using Michael then you need to mould his face using his facial morphs (sold separately). That's the process that R8XFT describes in the tutorial.

With the clothes, are you conforming them properly? If you're trying to put (say) a jacket on him, select the whole jacket, and then choose "Conform Figure to..." from the appropriate menu. Conform it to Michael. Having done that, you may need to open the Joints Editor and zero the jacket. If Michael is not the standard (100&#37 size then you may need to scale the jacket to fit. And you may need to click on each part of the jacket in turn as R8XFT said in his last post. Of course, if this is a LH, then much of it won't be visible anyway and won't really matter.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

Thanks Plotinus! I think that was the problem. That I'm trying to fit standard Clothes/hair/ faces onto the Micheal figure. I scoured the internet and I found a few clothes that might work and conform to him better. I can make the suit work but I have to toggle with the properties, as it seems I have to do with most clothing to make them look OK for the up close leaderhead camera. Most still don't look any good in the far out total view but that doesn't matter as all i'm doing are the Civ leaderheads.

Now I have a few more questions from a total rookie newbie.
-How do I open the Joint Editor?
-If I try out some clothing, hair, or props and deside I don't like them, how do I delete them with out having to reload/revert?
-How do I do Dyamic Clothing? (I found a cape but don't know how to fold it down)

Any tutorials to poser for newbies would be greatly appreciated. I havn't got much of a clue.

But I really want to ask most of all.... Does anyone know where I can find a roman (or even greek style) toga alot like the one the Ceasar leaderhead wheres in the game? Or like the Ronald Reagan custom leaderhead?

I'm hoping to create a Constantine leaderhead for the community.

 

[Plotinus]

You open the Joint Editor from the Windows menu.

You can delete something just by clicking on it and then pressing the delete button. Save the whole thing first to be on the safe side.

Dynamic clothing is a real arse to do, but it looks great when it works. You need to use the Cloth Room, which is very frustrating, but can be made to work if you persevere. Have a close look at the chapter in the manual on this, and I believe there are tutorials online for the Cloth Room which will take you through it in more detail (such as this one or this one). If you still need help then ask here again (maybe open a new thread about it in the main C&C forum rather than take up too much space in this one!). The basic idea is that the Cloth Room allows you to "drape" something over your figure just like a real cloak.

This is also the best way to create a toga-like garment, I think.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

Thanks so much Plotinus! You've been a HUGE help!

 

[Plotinus]

No problem...

Here's another idea I've just found. There's an another human figure called Apollo Maximus. The figure is high quality and free to download. The interesting thing here is that it comes complete with a very comprehensive set of body and face morphs, so you can alter his features as much you like straight out of the box, as it were. Moreover, there's an optional add-on to make him compatible with the Poser Face Room. So it looks like this might be a good alternative figure to use for LHs.

 

[embryodead]

I saw pics of Apollo Maximus before but had no idea he was available for free. That's a great find even if you have M3 because he looks very different!

 

[flamescreen]

Yeah I have that and can tell you it's a huge pack.
specifically the free version is apollo Maximus 2007, incompatible with earlier versions I'm told. Has clothing packs, textures and tutorials too.

I think the poser face room module is for P7 only.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

Hmm, I tried to download that free Apollo Maximus but when I try to extract the file it asks for a password. I checked the readme's but there's nothing about a password. And since I don't know the password or how to extract it, I had to delete it.

 

[Plotinus]

The password is actually written on the web page itself, just above the download links. Makes you wonder why they have one at all!

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

I'm back to work!

Move to frame 61. Set all the above head morphs to 0. Change the yrotate for the body to 0, then (using the rotate and twist tools), move the head to be looking straight at you. Set the frame as a key frame, then set all the frames from 2 - 60 as key frames.

This I don't understand. What is the point of setting a key frame if you then try to set every frame between it and the previous keyframe into a keyframe? What then is the purpose of a keyframe? More so, is there a way to set all these to keyframes at once so I don't have to take 3 hours sliding to each next frame to set it as a key frame?

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

I'm back to work!
This I don't understand. What is the point of setting a key frame if you then try to set every frame between it and the previous keyframe into a keyframe? What then is the purpose of a keyframe? More so, is there a way to set all these to keyframes at once so I don't have to take 3 hours sliding to each next frame to set it as a key frame?

You simply select all the frames at the top, i.e. just select a frame, then keep your finger on the left mouse button to elongate the selection area.

Key frames = can't be affected by alterations to other frames
Not a key frame = will be affected by alterations to other frames

When you're sorting out the blinks, if you don't key frame all your frames, you'll have to amend every single one otherwise poser will make the eyelids fidget.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

You simply select all the frames at the top, i.e. just select a frame, then keep your finger on the left mouse button to elongate the selection area.

I'm not sure I follow. I have to push the + button to add the key frame but if I hold down the mouse button, it does not allow me to advance frames. And if hold down the mouse button in the window just above the slider (the frame number), it won't allow any frames to advance there either, plus I don't have a way of commanding it to make those frames into keyframes beings I would have to slide the mouse icon over to the + sign.

I think I'm missing what you are saying there.

Plotinus, I was able to make the clothing Prop work after all! (Still having trouble with the crown though.)

 

[Plotinus]

Actually what you need to do is click on one square, hold down shift, and then click on a square somewhere else, while still holding down shift. All the squares in between will be selected, and then you can click on + to make them all key frames.

Glad you got the clothing prop to work at least!

 

[polyphemus]

so for leaderheads, the pure white color is the in-game transparency?

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

so for leaderheads, the pure white color is the in-game transparency?

Yes it is; it's basically the last place on the pallette for animationshop pro. Other programs may differ; I can only tell you about the ones I use.

 

[polyphemus]

So for my palette, I would include white as the last color instead of magenta? That's odd...

 

[polyphemus]

Are the bandages and hearts and black eyes cut and pastes or are some props?