Poser 4 Tutorial
BodyMorph & BodyShape Poses
-:The Art of Making Poses that Only Changes the Body Shape:-
A BodyMorph is a morph dial that morphs more than one bodypart.
A BodyMorph Pose is a pose file that changes the dial settings
for one or more BodyMorphs. (Poser 4 can't save them).
A BodyShape Pose is a pose file that only morphs a bodypart
or selected bodyparts but doesn't change the pose.
BodyMorph Poses
As You probably know Poser4 does not save
BodyMorp settings in it's pose (pz2) files,
they are only saved in the large pz3 files
that saves everything on the screen.
But sins the pz3 and pz2 files uses the
same script language You can create
BodyMorph pz2 files by hand.
When you want to save BodyMorph Poses,
first save a Zeroed out pose as normal and call it 'ZeroBM',
then open a text editor and start a blank page
(don't end Poser you need it later to manually read
the dial settings).
You now have to type the pz2 file by hand.
(Or use one of mine, included with my BodyMorpher model)
The pz2 file you have to make is rather simple,
it's divided in three parts.
(Scripts are shown as GIF's sins HTML does
not support
proper Tabulator settings.)
1. The start of the file
The "version { number 4 }" is the Poser version,
if you set it
to a higher number than you are running you get the irritating,
"This file has a newer version number than expected,
Poser will attempt to read it anyway" error.
"actor BODY: 1 { channels{" ID's the 'BODY' which
is the bodypart the BodyMorphs belongs to and the 'channels'
ID's that it is the BODY's channels you want to change.
The first { have to be there or the file is not recognize by Poser!
2. The Morph Dial setting
This is a morph dial setting, it sets the BodyMorp "NailsSharp"
to 0.
It's the second value after the 'k' that sets the morph dial value,
if I changed the 0 into a 1 the nails would have been sharpened, 0.5 would
have made them half sharp ect. Negative values are set by adding a '-' in
front of the number, like this -0.5. I don't know what the first 0 is for,
but if you
change it the dial setting wont work.
Add all the morphdials You want to use with a Zero value setting,
(see 'Finished File Examples' for full file syntax).
3. Ending the file
After you have set all the BodyMorphs you wanted
you add three } to the file to close it.
The file does not have to be ended (some of mine are one }
short)
but they are supposed to be there to close the three{ from the start of the
file
so it's best to add them for future compatibility.
Save The ZeroBM File
When finished, save the text as ascii over the ZeroBM.pz2
file that Poser
created when you saved the Pose.(Poser4 / Runtime / Libraries /
Pose / 'The folder you saved it in'). You now have a template You can
use when You make other BodyMorphs for Your figure.
Make BodyMorph Poses
You now simply have to BodyMorph Your figure, save a pose,
manually read off the BodyMorph values and type them into the
ZeroBM.pz2 file and save it over Your pose file.
An efficient way of doing this is to use a text editor that
does not use
all the screen space, so that You can still see the BodyMorph settings
when you swap to the Text editor to type in the numbers.
After saving and checking the morph, simply undo the changes
to the
ZeroBM.pz2 file in the Text editor and you are ready for a new morph.
Finished File Examples
A completed one morph file looks like this.
A two BodyMorph File looks like this.
Here You can see that SlimArms is set to 0.4 and BigArms is set to 0.
BodyShape Poses
For Morph info that are saved by Poser, like the chest settings
you don't have to type the dial setting in by hand to create a Pose that
only changes the shape of the body.
Morph Manager by Mr. X can save you the trouble.
Make your bodyshapes and save them as standard poses.
Make a blank .txt file and change it's name to .pz2.
In Morph Manager load a pose into file 1 (left)
and load the blank file into file 2 (right).
(MM has cr2 as standard filetype change to pz2 to see the pose files.)
Right click on the bodyparts You want to morph in the file 1
info list and select "Copy only Morph Targets".
The morph info is now copied over to file 2.
Save file 2 over the original for file 1.
You now have a Pose that only shapes selected bodyparts!
Load a new pose into file 1 and repeat (you don't have to reload file 2).
If You only want to save the dial setting for one or a few Morphs then
You can copy over selected morphs by clicking on the '+' in front of
the bodypart names in the file 1 info list, morphs are marked with
a 'M' and pose settings are marked with a 'C'.
-: THE END :-