In the latest excerpt of Poser 7 Revealed, Kelly L. Murdock shows how to load and save expressions in the Library.
This is the next in a new series of excerpts from the Thomson Course Technology book Poser 7 Revealed: The e frontier Official Guide. In the next few months, VFXWorld readers will develop the skills needed to create, render and animate scenes and projects using the amazing tools offered by Poser 7. We will offer step-by-step tutorials for each task, followed by projects that allow readers to apply each new skill.
What You'll Do
In this lesson, you learn how to work with the Library to load and save expressions.
Before leaving this chapter, you need to look closely at the thumbnails located within the Expressions category of the Library. These expressions give the character a different facial look and are different from the faces created in the Face Room. You can also make facial expressions automatically using the Talk Designer, which is covered in Chapter 15, "Lip Synching with Talk Designer."
Loading Expressions from the Library
To access the available expressions from the Library, click the Expression category and navigate to the folder containing the types of expressions you want to apply to the current figure. Within each folder are thumbnails of the various expressions. With an expression thumbnail selected, click the Change Expression button at the bottom of the Library palette. The selected expression is loaded onto the figure.
Creating a Custom Expression
When the head element is selected, the Parameters/Properties palette includes all the parameters for creating a custom expression. The available parameters for the head element for creating expressions include those listed in below:
Head Parameters Category Parameters Brow Brow Up All, Brow Up Left, Brow Up Right, Brow Up Center, Brow Furrow, Scowl, Scowl Left, Scowl Right Eyes Look Up, Look Down, Blink, Blink Left, Blink Right, Eyes Dilate, Eyes Up-Down, Eyes Side-Side, Eyes Smile, Eyes Wide, Eyes Worry, Wince, Lower Eye Lid Up Nose Nostril Flare, Nose Wrinkle Jaw Jaw Shift Left, Jaw Shift Right, Mouth Open Lips Smile, Smile Full, Smile Grin, Smile Left, Smile Right, Smile Thin, Smile Teeth, Smile Small, Snarl, Snarl Left, Snarl Right, Lip orner Depressors, Lip Lower Depressor, Lip Upper Raiser, Lip Stretch, Lip Stretch Left, Lip Stretch Right, Pucker Tongue Tongue Out, Tongue Roll, Tongue Tip Up-Down, Tongue Curl Up-Down Phonemes Mouth A, Mouth CH, Mouth E, Mouth F, Mouth TH, Mouth O, Mouth M, Mouth P, Mouth R, Mouth U, Mouth W, Tongue L
Load an Expression from the Library
1. Open Poser with the default man visible.
2. Select the Face Camera from the Camera Controls.
3. Click the side control to the right of the interface to open the Library palette or select Window, Libraries.
4. Click the Expression category at the top of the Library palette and navigate to the James folder.
5. Select the Random Face thumbnail and click the Replace Expression button at the bottom of the Library palette. The expression you see will likely vary from the figure. A new expression is generated every time the Random Face expression is applied. The selected expression is loaded into the Shader Window, as shown in Figure 1.
6. Select File, Save As and save the file as Random expression.pz3.
Save a Material to the Library
1. Open Poser with the default man visible.
2. Select the Face Camera from the Camera Controls.
3. Select the head element in the Document Window and select Window, Parameter Dials to open the Parameters/Properties palette (if necessary).
4. Expand the Eyes category in the Parameters palette and set the Blink parameter to 1.0. Then expand the Phonemes category and set the Mouth A parameter to 0.5. The new expression is shown in Figure 2.
5. Select File, Save As and save the file as Grit teeth.pz3.
Find out more about how to put the power of Poser 7 to work as you learn how to use the new Talk Designer to automatically sync facial animations to an audio track, combine the power of Poser 7 with other software packages, create new motions using the new animation layers feature and much more. Check back to VFXWorld frequently to read new excerpts.
Poser 7 Revealed: The e frontier Official Guide by Kelly L. Murdock. Boston, MA: Thomson Course Technology, 2007. 592 pages with illustrations. ISBN 13: 978-1-59863-296-5; ISBN 10: 1-59863-296-5 ($29.99).
Kelly L. Murdock has a background in engineering, specializing in computer graphics. He has worked on several large-scale visualization projects, created 3D models for several blockbuster movies and has worked as a freelance 3D artist and designer. Murdock is the author or co-author of several books, including seven editions of the 3ds Max Bible, two editions of the Illustrator Bible, Adobe Creative Suite Bible, Maya 7 Revealed, LightWave 3D 8 Revealed and Poser 6 Revealed. He works with his brother at his co-founded design company, Logical Paradox Design.
