Hello there,

I need some help and I thought this might be the place to request it.

My situation:  

I'm working on a Star Trek animation and I'm trying to create a Klingon (like the ones you'd see in the TOS movies) with the forehead bumps.

I've been playing around with 3D animation for about 4-5 years now. I' started off with Bryce3D and now I'm working with MAX. For years I used Poser to create my actors, then I'd do an export/import to bryce where I'd set them into the scenes. This worked Ok for a while but I'm now at the point where I need to use Poser to 'bring my actors to life'.

I wanted to make a forehead with ridges like the ones you'd see on a TOS era Klingon but I'm not very good with the whole 'morph' thing in Poser. When I try to use it, I end up with something that looks like a guy who has been hit in the forehead with a baseball bat.

So I decided to do a workaround... Here's my issue...

I made my Klingon character in Poser and saved the file. I then exported the file from Poser and into MAX.

I deleted everything I didn't need (everything from the neck down and everything around the forehead area) and turned the head into an editable mesh. I then created a very nice forehead that has all of the bumps and other freaky looking Klingon characteristics. I imported (into MAX) the Poser image for my character's face. Once I dropped that onto the forehead (in MAX) and saw that it lined up, I exported the bump-forehead mesh and imported it into Poser.

The item came in looking great except for one thing... It's 'Safety Orange' and I cannot seem to get the texture to come with it.

Can somebody either tell me how to get the texture onto the item or how I can morph the face of my Poser character so that it has the forehead ridges?

Thank you in advance.

Ahjah here at posetteforever has made klingon morphs for the p4female. That morph is in our freestuff. So try sending him an im or email asking how he did it, if u want the morph for a male character, or other female character since the prinsiple would be the same.

As for the prop and it's color, did u uvmapp it? U need to to get a texture on it.
U can download uvmapper free from http://www.uvmapper.com/downloads.html

I tried the morph you suggested however I was unable to get it to really work.
What I ended up with was a P4 female face with really big eyebrows. Without any textures it's near impossible for me to figure out what or how to do it.

I'm used to programs like bryce and 3DsMax and when it comes to Poser I get lost pretty easily.

I'm now digging through the internet looking for tutorials for Poser that will teach me how to do my own morphs. I've been an artist my whole life and I've done a lot of cool 3D/CG stuff, but at the moment I'm really frustrated.  

Thank you for taking the time to help me though.
I really do appreciate it.

Hi hellorado13!
This is right, the morph I made don´t look TOS, it´s TNG style
It works best with additional bump map ...
Referring to your problems, I think, TdaC may be right, seems to be an uv mapping thingie  

some small screenshots posted in this thread could be of help

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if u want to i can teach u how to make morphs- using Poser. It is easier than ppl think.

Hi helldorado13, this is my 2 cent:

First export the whole head, not part of it , with all the polys
Then work on it with the program you want, be careful to modify the polys, not delete them (stretch, bend, pull, push without cutting anything), once done save the new head as a obj fie, then go in Poser and load the basic character (the one with that head), now select the head and then "import morph target". The you import the new head that you made and name the morph as you want, then you will see the the new morph in the head properties, set the dial to "1" and you should see your character with the original skin, with your method you would have to replace the head with your prop, and it's a mess. You can even add to the head some props for more forehead bumps if the modification isn't enough.

If you can' load the obj as a morph target there's something messed up with the poly count.

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Thank you all for taking the time to reply to my post and assist me.
Really.
Thank you.

TdaC, Thank you for the offer and yes, if you can teach me how to do some morphs with my Poser characters I would be most grateful.

Ahjah, I like the morph you created. When I looked at the image it was really cool. I'm not trying to get a TOS looking Klingon, I'm trying to get a TOS movie era Klingon, which is pretty much the same as the TNG Klingon. I'm currently using Poser 6 for my 'actors' and any information or help you could provide me with would also be appreciated.

Tormie, I think I may not have explained what I did when it came to my forehead prop. I'll try again, I loaded up a Poser character, exported it as an OBJ, imported it into MAX 8, deleted everything except for the head, turned the head into an editable mesh, grabbed the necessary vertexes and pulled them to make the forehead bumps. Once I had the forehead bumps, I deleted everything else in the mesh (except for the forehead area), textured it, exported it as an OBJ file. Then in Poser I loaded up the same character (with custom face) and imported the 'forehead prop' I created. The prop lined up nicely however there was no texture.

I resolved the texture issue by taking the forehead OBJ file and importing it into Deep Exploration 4 where I was able to give it a texture that Poser would find.

The reason I'm doing this is because I'm creating a 15 minute short Star Trek film set in the Post TOS movie - pre TNG era. The story is very cool and very original. When it's finished there will be closing credits where I mention/thank the people at various different CG sites I've used as resources and this site is one of them.

I don't know how to attach an image in this forum so here's a link to two images of my Klingon. He's still in a rough sketch phase and not at all a final one. I hope these images give you an idea what it is I'm trying to do.

Thanks again.  

http://hellhammerpictures.tripod.com/klingon1.htm

No problem   , however, you do not need to export all the body, just the head , then open Poser and load the character (the original one) select the head and add a morph target, then simply load the obj you created with the head. You'll not need a new from scratch texture, you can use the original texture made for the original character and it's easy to modify it, easier than made it from scratch. In order to add pictures to a post there is an "add an attachment button at the end of the reply page (not the quick reply but the page that appears when you click "post reply")

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