New User questions

[Steve.M]

Hello

I am currently attempting to learn the basics of Poser 11(pro).

Some questions I have not been able to find an answer for. So if someone could please be so kind to help.

1. How to rename a material.
2. How to remove/delete a material.
3. How to re-order the (drop down) list of props in scene.

 

[Miss B]

Hi Steve, could you be just a little more specific as to where in PP11 you're trying to do these 3 actions? That would help folks to be more specific with their responses. In fact, a screenshot would help as well.

That said, I'm assuming your second item is how to remove a material from a character/clothing/prop you have in a scene. If that's the case, you would click on the Material tab up at the top of the Poser interface, and then click on the Advanced Tab at the top of the area where you see the PoserSurface root palette. The material, more than likely, is an Image_Map node plugged into the Diffuse Color node on the PoserSurface root palette, and to remove it, you can just unplug that Image_Map node. If you want to change it to something else, you can just click on the link next to Image_Source, and browse to where the material you would prefer to use is located on your hard drive.

If the material is a more complex Poser shader setup, then a screenshot of what it looks like will help.

 

[Steve.M]

Hi Miss B.

Thanks for the reply.

For the first two questions/actions, it would be in the material room. I simply want to either rename a material, or delete a material.
As a simple example:-
I import a mesh, it as one material named "Default". I use the "Grouping tool" and created 2 groups on the mesh, those 2 groups cover all the polygons on the mesh. I apply a new materal to the 2 groups. That means the "Default" material is no longer used. How do I delete that "Default" material so it no longer shows in the materal drop down window for that mesh?.
Alternatively, how would I rename the material named "Default" to another name?

For question 3. In the "Pose" room, you have at the top of the "Parameters/Properties window, a drop down window that show a list of current props in scene, the order of that list appears to be random, how can I sort the list, so for example, it shows all the props in alphabetical order?

 

[Miss B]

Ohhh, OK. For the 1st question, I don't think you can delete any of the material names from that list, as there's a number of them which show up even if you haven't used it in a scene. An example would be the toon textures, which show up by default even though I've never done a toon render. I also think a material you've added, and then changed, will stay in the list, probably because you may want to go back to using it, so the list keeps track of it.

As for question 3, I think what you're referring to can't be reordered either, or at least I've never heard of a way to do so. I believe, and someone will correct me if I'm wrong, that list is generated in the order the props were added to the scene. For example, the Poser Ground/Construct will be near the bottom of the list, as it's in a new scene by default, and then the props you add will be above it in the list.

Hope that helps.

 

[Steve.M]

Hi Miss B,

Thanks for the reply.

I was hopeing there would of been better scene/material management in Poser, but we cant have everything I suppose

I found that the scene(pz3) files are in plain text, so have been able to change the prop list order and remove the unused materials.

 

[Miss B]

Interesting, that you were able to do that in a plain text editor, but at least a plain text editor won't add anything to the pz3 file that could hurt it in Poser.

 

[HaiGan]

Poser does do a bit of tidying up after itself when shut down and restarted, but what will get tidied into nonexistence does depend on what you're saving/reloading (pz3 or just individual scene elements).

 

[Steve.M]

Poser does do a bit of tidying up after itself when shut down and restarted, but what will get tidied into nonexistence does depend on what you're saving/reloading (pz3 or just individual scene elements).

Are you putting forward that Poser save/reload is buggy?

 

[eclark1894]

My suggestion would be for you to go to the SM forum, Home | Smith Micro Graphics Forum
and ask your question there. You'd probably get a more knowledgeable answer a lot quicker.

 

[HaiGan]

Are you putting forward that Poser save/reload is buggy?

No. I'm saying that whether or not it will retain unused material names and unused material files depends on what you are saving.

 

[Steve.M]

No. I'm saying that whether or not it will retain unused material names and unused material files depends on what you are saving.

Apologies, I misunderstood.

I did a quick test and saved an item to library as a prop, it did remove unused materials

---------------------

Another question if I may.

If I have a static mesh in poser (with materials set) and save that as a prop to library, it creates 3 files(one of which is just info, one a screengrab, the other the pp2 file), If I give those files to another poser user, would they simply be able to drop those files into their prop directory and load it from poser library? Or is there another method of saving/redistributing a prop?

 

[HaiGan]

Apologies, I misunderstood.

I could have phrased it more clearly!

If I have a static mesh in poser (with materials set) and save that as a prop to library, it creates 3 files(one of which is just info, one a screengrab, the other the pp2 file), If I give those files to another poser user, would they simply be able to drop those files into their prop directory and load it from poser library? Or is there another method of saving/redistributing a prop?

You could redistribute just the .pp2 file. It would show up in the other user's directory with the default (shoulder-shrugging person) thumbnail. HOWEVER, this is not best practice.

If you were to distribute for sale, or otherwise to follow standard practice, the geometry of the prop should be saved and included as a separate .obj file. You would also distribute the .pp2 fie and a 91 px by 91 px png thumbnail image that will be displayed within Poser for the prop (you could use the screengrab, or make yourself a nicer one and replace the screengrab).

The obj file should be located in the Poser Geometries folder (in an appropriate subdirectory), and the pp2 file should be edited to reference this .obj file instead of containing the geometry information within the pp2 file. If you modeled the geometry outside Poser and already have it as an obj file then editing the pp2 file is pretty easy in Notepad or similar (Try the tutorial here: JCH Digital Designs - Creating Your Own Props 2 from JCH Digital Designs). Otherwise there's tools that can do it for you (such as Dimension 3D's Tool Collection for Poser). For ease of use by the end user, recreate the folder structure with a top folder called Runtime and put each file into the relevant place: Runtime/Geometries/<Foldername>/yourgeometry.obj , Runtime/Libraries/Props/<Foldername>/yourprop.pp2 and Runtime/Libraries/Props/<Foldername>/yourprop.png (you don't need the other file).

I'm not sure of the legalities when it comes to redistributing things built entirely within Poser using primitives- someone else will need to chip in for that one.

 

[Steve.M]

You could redistribute just the .pp2 file. It would show up in the other user's directory with the default (shoulder-shrugging person) thumbnail. HOWEVER, this is not best practice................

Many thanks for the detailed reply.

I'm not sure of the legalities when it comes to redistributing things built entirely within Poser using primitives- someone else will need to chip in for that one.

Not a problem. I make all the mesh/objects myself.