Creating A Poser Figure Part 3

Assigning Material Groups

With the newly created figure ( new cr2 file found in the new figure library ) loaded in the window, the Surface Material Editor ( found at: Render/Materials ), will only show two material groups.


The Object: option is to select a figure or prop, the current selected figure/prop name is displayed in the text block. The Material: option is for selecting the material groups for the figure/prop. With a newly created figure there will be two material groups, one called preview, and one called none.


Preview: is the material the figure takes on when it's optimized for tracking purposes. None: is the current material group all the body parts are assigned to.


To create material groups for the various body parts, the Group Tool Editor needs to be used. Clicking the group tool will open the Group Editor.



With the Group Editor open the figure in the window turns black with the exception of the current selected group.


The group editor shows the current selected group in the text box. The pull down menu is for selecting other groups that may exist in the selected body part.


This is where Poser uses the internal name used in the modeling program the figure was created in. Since this model was merged into one object ( with the exception of the eyes ) and that object was named body in Amorphium 3, all the body parts will have a group called: body ( with the exception of the eyes ). This is where there can be two or more groups, if two or more objects where exported together out of the modeling program. An example is: a finger part was cut off the mass of a body, and the nail for it was a separate object in the modeling program, but added to the exporting of the finger. So the two objects are exported together, but come into Posers as one object ( a finger and nail). On the group edit text block pull down menu there will be two groups, ( body and nail ) or whatever internal names where used in the modeling program. Which makes it very easy to assign material groups for the two parts in Poser.

To assign a body part to a material group, select the body part in the Poser window, then in the group editor, select the group from the pull down menu ( body in this case ) and hit the Assign Materials Button.


This will bring up a naming dialog to assign the group to. When a name is typed in, it will assign the group to it. If the group does not exist Poser will create one with the name and it will be added to the Material Editor's material pull down menu. This way material groups can be created for all the various body parts like, skin, head, finger nail, toe nails, eyes, teeth ect...


For this figure five material groups will be created, ( Body ) will include: chest, neck, head and proboscis. ( Antenna ) will include: all the antenna parts. ( Eyes ) will include: both eyes. ( Legs ) will include: all the leg parts. ( Tail ) will include: all the tail parts.
The body parts can be selected either by clicking on them in the Poser window or by opening the hierarchy editor and selecting them there. The group editor will be updated while it's still open as each body part is selected. As the new material groups are created they are automatically assigned a new color in the Material Editor. So when the Group Editor is closed, the figure has new colors for all the new material groups, and all the new material groups are listed on the Material Editor's Material pull down menu.





Continue to Part 4



This character creation tutorial is written and provided by : Stephen Ray