I am getting some weird results when using different parenting scenarios in Poser (I am using Poser 9, not pro).
I have a conforming clothing item with body parts that match Dawn, but it also has some extra bones for buckles and some things that need to remain completely rigid at all times.
Then I have a figure that is basically a personal glider that attaches to one of the extra bones/groups on the back of the conforming item (Look at my WIP thread if you want to actually see this; Star Storm harness and glider for Dawn).
Anyway, I thought the best way to do this is to parent the glider to the Back Medallion on the harness. Loading it into Poser and parenting it manually does exactly what I want. Choose the glider body, go to the Figure drop-down menu, select parent figure to... and choose the Back Medallion in the list. The glider follows when Dawn is posed, rotated, etc.
But I wanted to automate this process to make it easier for the user. I hit upon what I thought was a simple solution. By just putting the line, "smartparent BackMedallion:3" in the BODY actor of the glider cr2, it will smart parent automatically on load. However, that led to an unanticipated problem. I have dials in the BODY of the glider that control some bone movements and morphs; these disappear when smart parented to the harness. The dials actually now show up in the harness BODY group, so are kind of hard to find.
So then I made a script to load all the items and conform or parent to the appropriate item. I thought by using "glider.SetParentActor("BackMedallion")" I would be all set. But the glider is parented, but it isn't. It won't move or pose with everything else, but it is also impossible to select the glider without selecting it as a body part of the harness. So, all of the problems of parenting without any of the actual desired results of parenting? Why?
I even spent some time trying to make the glider a conforming item, adding bones back to the hip. I set origin, end, and orientation exactly the same as the harness (and Dawn), but for some reason every time the glider is conformed, it realigns itself to who-knows-what and comes in at an odd angle. I looked at every single body part trying to find the problem, but failed.
So after about a week I feel like I have come full circle and am back where I started. The suggestion I got is to just add info icons to tell the user what to parent to, which may be the easiest solution. But the frustrated perfectionist in me wants to make this work. *Sigh*
It may be less stress to actually be a parent.
I have a conforming clothing item with body parts that match Dawn, but it also has some extra bones for buckles and some things that need to remain completely rigid at all times.
Then I have a figure that is basically a personal glider that attaches to one of the extra bones/groups on the back of the conforming item (Look at my WIP thread if you want to actually see this; Star Storm harness and glider for Dawn).
Anyway, I thought the best way to do this is to parent the glider to the Back Medallion on the harness. Loading it into Poser and parenting it manually does exactly what I want. Choose the glider body, go to the Figure drop-down menu, select parent figure to... and choose the Back Medallion in the list. The glider follows when Dawn is posed, rotated, etc.
But I wanted to automate this process to make it easier for the user. I hit upon what I thought was a simple solution. By just putting the line, "smartparent BackMedallion:3" in the BODY actor of the glider cr2, it will smart parent automatically on load. However, that led to an unanticipated problem. I have dials in the BODY of the glider that control some bone movements and morphs; these disappear when smart parented to the harness. The dials actually now show up in the harness BODY group, so are kind of hard to find.
So then I made a script to load all the items and conform or parent to the appropriate item. I thought by using "glider.SetParentActor("BackMedallion")" I would be all set. But the glider is parented, but it isn't. It won't move or pose with everything else, but it is also impossible to select the glider without selecting it as a body part of the harness. So, all of the problems of parenting without any of the actual desired results of parenting? Why?
I even spent some time trying to make the glider a conforming item, adding bones back to the hip. I set origin, end, and orientation exactly the same as the harness (and Dawn), but for some reason every time the glider is conformed, it realigns itself to who-knows-what and comes in at an odd angle. I looked at every single body part trying to find the problem, but failed.
So after about a week I feel like I have come full circle and am back where I started. The suggestion I got is to just add info icons to tell the user what to parent to, which may be the easiest solution. But the frustrated perfectionist in me wants to make this work. *Sigh*
It may be less stress to actually be a parent.