Creative Thumbnails for Poser
Got an outfit you love, but you want to use only part of it? Need to keep the mapping the same. No problem!
Sure, you can use transparency maps to hide out the parts you don't want, but if you have a lot of figures, you'll want to load only what you need to save on system resources. To trim the mesh, you'll need the professional version of UVMapper (the last I heard, it's PC Only, sorry!) and a decent text editing program. (There's a bunch of free ones out there. Notepad just doesn't cut it.)
Note: you can cut up any mesh you want to, but you CAN NOT redistribute the new mesh without the explicit permission of the original mesh creators. It's like editing a movie then trying to pass it off as your own. It's not legal.
I'm going to use DAZ 3D's MM SciFi Suit II, but this will work with any Poser mesh.
UV Mapper
1) Load the object into UVMapper. (File: Open Model.) I opened the SciFiSuit2MM-top.obj mesh.
2) Select the part you want to delete. Depending on how the outfit is mapped, you may want to delete by group, sometimes by material. I want to get rid of the pants and the boots. Looking at the groups, I see all the body parts. Being lazy, I looked through the material list, and found BootLeather, BootSole, and Pants. Since everything was nicely categorized for me, I decided to delete by material.
3) Select: Select by: material.
After the material was selected, I hit the delete button and then confirmed the deletion.
4) File: Save Model. I chose the name SciFiSuit2MM-top.obj and saved
it in the same folder as the original mesh.
In a Text Editor
5) I opened up the corresponding .cr2 file in a text editor. (I use Textpad, even though I had to pay a nominal fee.)
6) I looked for the line that started with figureResFile and changed the line so it pointed to my new mesh.
from:
figureResFile :Runtime:Geometries:DAZClothing:MilMan:SciFi:SciFiSuit2MM.obj
to:
figureResFile :Runtime:Geometries:DAZClothing:MilMan:SciFi:SciFiSuit2MM-top.obj
There are two places near the top of the file that need to be changed.
7) At the bottom of the file, there are material blocks describing each material in the mesh. Since I deleted the pants, BootLeather and BootSole materials, I removed them from the .cr2 as well. This isn't technically necessary, but it's cleaner. A material block is the name of the material and all the gunk inside the { } braces underneath. Here is the material block for the BootLeather that I deleted.
material BootLeather
{
KdColor 1 1 1 1
KaColor 0 0 0 1
KsColor 0.101488 0.118532 0.0805524 1
TextureColor 1 1 1 1
NsExponent 30
tMin 0
tMax 0
tExpo 0.6
bumpStrength 1
ksIgnoreTexture 0
reflectThruLights 1
reflectThruKd 0
textureMap ":Runtime:textures:DAZ:DAZClothing:SciFiSuits:!SciFiSuitMM2Tex.jpg"
0 0
bumpMap NO_MAP
reflectionMap NO_MAP
transparencyMap NO_MAP
ReflectionColor 1 1 1 1
reflectionStrength 1
}
8) Save the .cr2 under a new name.
In Poser
9) When you open up Poser, you'll find the new .cr2 file with a shrugging guy. You can create a new thumbnail for your .cr2 file, or just copy the original thumbnail (.rsr or .png depending on your version of Poser) and paste it using the same name (though with a .rsr or .png extension.) If you want to make a custom thumbnail, here's a tutorial for it.
10) Load up the new figure and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
Note: if you get an error like: the file is not a valid Poser file, then you probably didn't properly delete a material group from the .cr2 file. Go back and look at it carefully. You probably have one { too many, or you may be missing one. Worst case scenario, delete the new .cr2 file and start over from the original.
Note: If the item has morphs, those morphs may not work after you delete pieces of the mesh. You can always use a program like DAZ 3D's The Tailor to recreate those morphs. (Just load the original outfit in as the character, then load the altered outfit in as the "dress" and have it start computing the morphs.)
I repeat: you CAN NOT redistribute the new mesh without the explicit permission of the original mesh creators. It's like editing a movie then trying to pass it off as your own. It's not legal.