Smart Props
By BlueBeard
http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.ez?Who=BlueBeard

This will take the user through importing 3DS and OBJ files and scaling them
to fit a poser figure, then smart propping that object to the
figure.

Importing 3DS file

The first step is to open Poser and delete the default guy. We are going to
use Vicki, but you can use any figure you want. With a blank window you will
need to "IMPORT" our prop. I use 3DS format to transfer to Poser, so we will
click on file, go down to import and scroll down to 3D Studio, as illustrated.

Selecting 3DS

Go to the Tutorial folder, and you will find 2 objects. The first is just the
Coffee Mug, but we want the 2nd, it is titled mugofcoffee. (there is a material
inside the mug to simulate the coffee) double click on this and open it.

Poser asks about the file

Next Poser will ask you about importing your prop. The only thing we really
need to change is the Percent of standard figure size. I hardly ever use this,
and in this example, we will want it unchecked. Everything else is fine. (Note:
the first box is check which says Centered, we will see this a bit later.)

Bottom of Mug

After you do this, you will get your mug imported. However, you are looking
at the bottom of the mug. This is no problem, its just a difference in
definition of the primary axis between the other program and Poser, we will take
care of that.

Rotate Cup

If you rotate the object about the X axis.

Whoops, what is the
X-axis?

Sorry! When you first start Poser, the X-axis runs left to right.
The Y-axis is up and down, and the Z-Axis is in and out. And it remains that
way. But if you rotate the camera, you are rotating the axis also, so it may
change from your perspective.

So if we rotate the coffee mug about the
axis running left to right, X, we can rotate the mug up to us, like
so:

Black Coffee

Note: the cup and the coffee have both the same look, we want BLACK Coffee,
so we go up to the Menu Render and down to materials to change the "look" of the
coffee.

Black?

But the coffee has just material and material1 in it, it doesn't say which is
which. Well that is the fault of my modeling program, it doesn't send that
information in the translation. We will address that in a later lesson, but for
now, all we want to know is which is which. Well, the way to do that is trial
and error, change the color of one of the materials and see what happens. Let's
try black, either we will have a black mug or black coffee.

What do
you know we tried material1 and got black coffee. Now if you don't like your
coffee this strong, you could select a little lighter color, or set the
transparency level to 10 to 20%, so that you could see a little ways into the
coffee, but for now I am going to leave it.

If you will note halfway up
the handle there is a horizontal line. That line is a shadow, specifically the
ground shadow. Remember we had it centered when we imported it. That means that
its X, Y, Z position is 0,0,0 It is in the center of the poser world, and that
means that half of it is above the ground, and half below. We will fix that in
Part II, which is on the next page.

Add a figure

Now add a figure to smart prop the coffee cup to and raise it up to around
the waist.

Large Coffee?

Wait, the coffee is a big large. Well sometimes the size will be different in
different 3D programs, the proportions are the same. So one may have to adjust
the scale to "fit" right. Fortunately I know that between my modeler and Poser
that if I reduced the overall scale to 40% it is just about right. You may want
to make your mug a little smaller or larger to suit your
taste.

Right hand?

That looks better, now we need to rotate it, because in my mind Vicki is
Right handed.

So we start rotating the Y-axis. Wait a minute!
That didn't do what we wanted, everything is messed up. Well the Y-axis for
Poser world is up, but here we are talking about the difference between Poser
world and the Coffee Mug axis. Remember that the bottom of the mug faced you
when you first imported it into Poser. So now that you had rotated the cup so it
was up, the y-axis of the mug is facing you or us. The x is still left and
right, so that must mean the z-axis is up and down. Try it! But how does one
keep that straight? Well you don't have to, there is a neat little trick that
will reset everything back to how you are thinking of the mug. AND it is used
for lesson 2, so not everything is lost!

Export OBJ 1

First put the mug back upright, with rotations as shown in the picture above.
Now we are going to export the mug into a Wavefront OBJ file. When we do this we
export the information as it is right now, not the original or the translations,
but as you see it. So go up to file, and choose export, and choose Wavefront
OBJ.

Export obj 2

In all of the lessons here we are talking about a single frame, so if you get
this, just click okay for single frame.

What to
export?

Then it asks you what you want to export, well we only want the mug, not
everything else, so just click on universe at the top and everything else will
go unchecked and then click on mugofcoffee. (Note: I clicked on the minus sign
next to figure 1 and 2, just to shrink everything down to see just the figure)

Okay?

So, when you have it look like this, click okay.

yes

They ask you for different options, the default is fine, so click on ok. and
when it prompts you for a name, give it something that you will remember.

import OBJ

Now delete the mug in your scene. Then import the Wavefront OBJ that you just
made. Be sure that the 100% of figure height box is unchecked as shown in page 1
of this tutorial!!

on floor

Now it comes in centered on the floor, note that the scale is 100%, no more
40% and it is the right size, and its rotation is 0, 0, 0, so this means this
will be an upright mug of coffee.

Back to waist
height

Now bring it to in front of your Poser figure at about waist height.

Bring arm in

Now to set up the pose. It is important that your figure is somewhat posed,
i.e. either sitting or standing, as you wish.

furthermost
joint

Start with the furthermost most joint, i.e. the shoulder. In order to make
things look right, get a coffee mug, and hold it in front of a mirror. Or watch
others as they hold a mug. We have positioned the mug in about the right place,
and we have the mug level, so that you don't spill it. We bring the shoulder
down into position.

And we need to bend the forearm, and twist
the shoulder so that the hand is near the handle. Do most of the work of putting
the hand near the handle with the arm. When you have it close, then you can move
the hand a little to come to the handle.

hand grasp

When the hand is close, and with the hand selected you can use the "cheats"
for the hand, find the grasp while and turn it so the hand grasps the handle,
and then do the same with thumb grasp wheel

Different
view

While some like to use multiple cameras, it can bog down a slower system, or
it can cause confusion. I prefer to keep my posing at the center point of the
Poser universe and quickly wheel around, by using the camera ball, to a
different view to see how we are lined up. When we do that, we can see that the
hand is a little out of line, twisted. So we need to either twist the forearm or
the hand. Which one depends upon how much twist you have in each, if you get to
much twist, it won't look right. In mine, I didn't have any twist in the hand,
so I can put a little there to accommodate this little bit of twist.

little finger

The other thing you will note is that the little finger needed to be
straighten a bit, this is because it is shorter and I didn't have the hand
tipped up as much to compensate. The other thing I did was to spread the fingers
because the tended to cross. I did this by selecting the hand and finding the
wheel that said to spread fingers.

Front View

Rotating back to a front view and we check our pose, and it looks okay. So
the next step is to Make this a smart prop, and save it, and then to save the
poses.

Hierarchy Editor

There are a couple of ways to set it up to move with the hand as you pose.
One way is to double-click on the object and a dialogue box will appear and you
can click on SET PARENT. Another way is to have the mug selected and go up to
the Object Menu and scroll down to properties, that will bring up the same
dialogue box so that you can click on SET PARENT. And that is probably the
easiest way.

However I often use the Hierarchy Editor. Which does the
same thing, and it allows you to do several things. So go up to Window, scroll
down to Hierarchy Editor, and choose it.

Body
Parts

That shows you all the different body parts of every figure in the scene. The
first thing we need to do is to minimize those parts of the tree that we don't
care about.

Selecting body parts

Such as figure 2, and anything with the legs or left arm, as we are only
interested in the right arm. Now what we do is to select the mugofcoffee, and
keeping the mouse button clicked, drag it up to either the hand or the index
figure, in mine, I am going for Right Index 2, which is the primary to holding
the mug, and release the mouse button. The MugOfCoffee should move in the tree
to under Right Index2, underneath Right Index 3 but at the same level as index3.

Saving Prop

If we would move the hand now, the cup will move with it, however, I want to
save everything before I lose the positions.

Open up the prop menu and I
will use the default prop types, so I don't add another folder to your system.
And click on the plus sign, to add the prop to the library. (MAKE SURE THAT THE
MUG OF COFFEE IS SELECTED BEFORE DOING THIS!)

Yes to
Smart

Now you should see a menu asking you if you want to save this as a smart
prop, click yes!

Save Hand

Next I am going to save the hand position, so that I have the hand in the
correct position for the mug. Open up the hand menu and click on plus. Then
click on Right Hand, because that is the hand that is holding the mug.

Naming Hand

Give it a name that makes sense to you, but keep it fairly short otherwise
you may not see all of it in your menu, and some systems don't like longer
names.

Partial Pose

Next, I am going to save the arm pose as a partial pose. Go to the Pose menu,
again, I am using one of the default menus so I don't add more to your crowded
Pose folder. And click the Plus sign. However, NOW we want to select a subset,
so click that button.

Saving Partial Pose

We want everything in the right arm only, so click the universe at the top of
the tree and everything will be unchecked. Then scroll down to the right arm and
click every part of the right arm, but not the mug. After you click ok, it will
go back to the previous menu where you clicked select subset. This time just
click ok.

AND you are done!

For the 3DS objects, and the full
prop files, you can go to my home page and download them from the files menu
near the bottom of the page at
"http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.ez?Who=BlueBeard"

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