Steve Shanks
November 1, 2000
This tutorial will be in 2 parts, in this the first section we'll create a pose-able mechanical figure and in part 2 an organic type figure. We'll need two free programs to do this and the links to these are at the bottom of the tutorial. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Steve Cox and Roy Riggs for doing these great programs and making Poser life so much easier. So lets get started by downloading the file we will be posing. Click on the image below to download the OBJ file complete with texture and bump map by Renapd. Then extract these to a new folder.
Now the first thing to look at is the grouping so open UVmapper and open the doorset, then go Edit/ Select by Group and you'll see this:
Now go Edit/ Select by Material and you'll see this:
Now as you can see we have multiple materials spread across multiple objects but we just want 2 moving parts (door and handle) and one base (the floor with walls). We could have built it so that we only had 3 parts on export from our 3d application but, that would have meant only having 3 material groups as most programs won't support more than one material on one object when exporting OBJ. So instead we will group our objects in UVmapper to end up with a much more professional model. So let's create the door first by going back to select by group and selecting both parts starting with door group (Ctrl click on them). Then click OK. You'll now see them highlighted on the map so go Edit/ Assign to Group and when the small window appears type in door.
At this point you'll get a warning that this group doesn't exist but that's fine as we want to create a new one so click OK. Now go back to select by group and choose the floor and wall groups and assign those to a group called floorwall. We now have door, floorwall and handle. We didn't need to assign the handle as it is an object all on its own. Next save this in this folder , Poser 4\ Runtime\Geometries\Props (or any folder in Geometries). Now open PHI builder and hit the OBJ button to load our model.
The next stage is to create our hierarchy to tell Poser how the various parts will react to each other. We want the door to swing on the wall and the handle on the door so drag the door onto the floorwall then drag the handle onto the door to get this result.
Then hit the save button and save it as door in the same folder as your OBJ. Then open Poser and go File/ convert Heir file then choose the PHI file we just saved, this window will pop up after the file is built so rename it doorset and hit OK.
Your Library named Figures/ New figures should open automatically and show a blank thumbnail labeled doorset, double click on it. The next step is to switch off bend for all 3 parts so double click on each in turn and uncheck the bend box. Now the fun part, setting up the joint parameters. Go to top view and outline mode (Ctrl 2) and move the camera till you have a good close view of the door then open the Joint editor (window/ joint editor). With the joint editor open it should say center in the top box and you'll see a yellow cross in the working window, drag the yellow cross until it is lined up with the front corner of the door (where the hinges would be).
Then turn your Y rotate dial to test it, if when you turn the dial the wall moves too you forgot to turn off bend so go back and check, if everything is OK choose the handle and line up the yellow cross with the point at which it enters the door then go into front view and line it up there too, the dial for this will be Z rotate. Now before you do anything else save it back into the library. Now start a new scene and add your doorset and test that it saved OK. If it did double click on the handle and door dials and rename them to open and turn.
Now just apply the textures and save into the figure library of your choice and you now have a fully poseable door figure. Here is a sample of the door as an animated Gif.
Steve Cox's UVmapper
Roy Riggs's Phi Builder
Copyright 2000, Steve Shanks, All Rights Reserved
