Creating Figures for Poser

Figures do not have to be anthropomorphic (human-shaped). A figure’s mere appearance has no effect on how it functions within Poser. In reality, there are two things that determine how you can move and animate a figure:

• The figure’s underlying skeleton (called a bone structure), which determines the hierarchy and location of joints.
• The manner in which the figure’s polygons (the rough equivalent of skin and muscles) are grouped or attached to the bones.

Prior to the release of the Pro Pack add-in for Poser 4, figure creators pre-grouped OBJ models into specifically-named body parts, and then used a text-based method to convert them into poseable figures. While Poser still supports this method of figure creation, the graphical Setup room can eliminate 90% of your figure creation time. This room allows you to create/modify Poser figures in a completely graphical environment.

There are three ways to make figures for Poser:

• Using hierarchy files combined with an external model

Figure creators wishing to create Poser figures using the text-based method should refer to the Creating and Converting Hierarchy Files, which covers the text-based figure creation method in detail.

• Using the hierarchy palette (discussed in The Hierarchy Editor) to combine props together to form a figure.
• Importing a geometry and using the Setup room as discussed in this chapter.