I have a question...

[eclark1894]

Okay, as some people know I have been working on a house for Dawn. A while back, I made some appliances for that house. Still, I always thought I might need to sell the appliances separately and apart from the house. So, that said, all of the appliances you see here have moving parts, doors, shelves, etc. And I've saved them in Poser props format. I have no earthly idea of how to package up something like this for sale. Also, I assume Hivewire, at least, would require the geometry to be stripped and placed into the Geometry folder? Would each door and shelf obj. file need to be in a separate folder, or would I just drop everything all together into one folder like Refrigerator. or Stove?

I have to say this confuses me greatly because I've never done it.

 

[Alisa]

You're correct - we require pp2 props to have the geometry stripped and the objs put in the Geometry folder (and there should be some templates provided for each item).

No need for separate folders for each item at all. I think it's good to group the products together

For example

\Runtime\Geometries\eclark\Dawn House\ (one product)
\Runtime\Geometries\eclark\Dawn House Appliances (another product)

or the appliances could be a sub folder of Dawn House, ie
\Runtime\Geometries\eclark\Dawn House\ House\ (one product)
\Runtime\Geometries\eclark\Dawn House\ Appliances (another product)

Make sense?

Have you seen the info here, Earl? Might be helpful:

Guidelines for Submitting Content for Sale at Hivewire 3D

 

[eclark1894]

Yeah, I've seen and read them. I think the thing that concerns me most is how exactly I deal with something like the refrigerator. It is not just one object, but several: the refrigerator body, the left and right doors, and the individual shelves. It's been so long now that I have to actually go back and see how they're constructed, as I'm not sure if the doors and shelves are even parented, let alone smart propped to the body, but that does worry me along with the way the doors and shelves work. I'm worried that stripping the geometry might break the way things work together.

 

[eclark1894]

Okay, I just checked and the doors are apparently smartpropped to the refrigerator body.. So now my concern is will stripping them of their geometry break anything?

 

[Alisa]

Don't know, thought I wouldn't think so as long as the pp2 references the new obj file. Hopefully someone will.

 

[eclark1894]

Don't know, thought I wouldn't think so as long as the pp2 references the new obj file. Hopefully someone will.

I'll find out tonight.

 

[Janet]

I just used Creator's Toybox on my dog crate. It has the crate part, two moving handles and a door. I had it all set up and parts parented then used the Toybox on it. I got unexpected results. So I just imported all the objects, used the toybox on each one before parenting or saving it. It seems to work.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

Stripping geometry has never broken anything for me. But I use Creator's Toybox / File Optimizer to do it for me. (It's in the store here)

 

[seachnasaigh]

Okay, I just checked and the doors are apparently smartpropped to the refrigerator body.. So now my concern is will stripping them of their geometry break anything?

Shouldn't break anything. My habit is to set up origin alignment, parenting hierarchy, vis-in-cam properties, and materials before saving the clustered props as a single PP2. I then run the single PP2 through Geometry Stripper which extracts OBJs for each piece and a new PP2 file. That new PP2 file retains all of the properties.

 

[Ken1171]

Embedded geometry should be extracted, that's for sure. But you don't have to split drawers and other moving parts from a model to make it animatable. You can make them move with morphs even if they are in the same OBJ - as long as they are not welded.

 

[eclark1894]

Embedded geometry should be extracted, that's for sure. But you don't have to split drawers and other moving parts from a model to make it animatable. You can make them move with morphs even if they are in the same OBJ - as long as they are not welded.

I know, but I prefer to do it that way. I have trouble with morphs so I shy away from doing them.

 

[eclark1894]

Okay, now I AM confused. I already had Creator's Toybox in my product library here. Apparently I bought it on sale or something, but never used it. Anyway, need some help using it because the guide is confusing me. It's telling me WHAT the Toybox can do, but I can't seem to find HOW to do anything with it.

For example, I have my refrigerator done. Doors have been attached and origins fixed and working. I have saved it to the Props library, so it is now a PP2 file. So now, I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do. If I were going to just package it up, I would create the folders manually for the Runtime and place the files in the appropriate folder. So am I still supposed to do that, or does Toybox do all of that for me? I need some step by step instructions please.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

Create your runtime and put your files where they belong. Then run Toybox File Optimzer. Since your Refrigerator is a Prop, select the Props button and locate the folder with your Refrigerator pp2 file. Select it and follow the prompts.

Generally, I've already put my obj in the correct geometries folder before I import the obj into Poser, so if I get the message that says the obj being referenced is not in the geometries location, and do I want to Copy, Move, or Re-Point, I chose to Re-Point to my original obj. But if your obj is in the same folder as your pp2 file, you'll want to chose move to move the obj to your Geometries folder.

I also use Netherworks PoserFile Assistant (PoserFile Save) for saving my Poser files. That automatically strips the geometries from PP2 files. But I still run File Optimizer to clean up the PP2.

 

[Ken1171]

Oh yes, I prefer to use Netherworks PoserFile Save when I save my props, for then the OBJ gets extracted instead of embedded. It will then ASK you where to put the OBJ, and REMEMBER the location until you enter another one. One of the MOST useful thing considering how Poser handles it by default.

 

[eclark1894]

Thanks, Satira and Ken. That was EXTREMELY helpful.

 

[eclark1894]

Okay, another silly question. I have the props all saved to the library, and I have my Runtime done, except for the geometry folder. So here's my question. Does it make any difference in whether I use my original object files from Blender, or if I use an exported version from Poser? Technically, aren't they the same object? Or does it make a difference?

 

[Miss B]

From what I understand, it's not a good idea to use the OBJ Poser creates, that it will be different from the original OBJ you imported into Poser.

What the specific differences are, I don't recall, but I believe there's a thread, or at lease some posts, at the SM Poser forum about it. There may even be some posts here in the Poser forum about it as well.

 

[Ken1171]

If the OBJs don't have any body groups, then it doesn't matter which ones you use. You can use the ones created by Poser - there is no danger when it's just props. It's only a bad idea if Poser would had created the body groups, but props don't have any, so it's Ok.

 

[Miss B]

Ahhhhh, of course. I should've realized that. Thanks for that Ken. I'm making a note of that for myself.

 

[eclark1894]

If the OBJs don't have any body groups, then it doesn't matter which ones you use. You can use the ones created by Poser - there is no danger when it's just props. It's only a bad idea if Poser would had created the body groups, but props don't have any, so it's Ok.

Ahh, I was hoping that was the case. I do have the originals, but my filing system sucks and I didn't want to have to spend all night searching for them.