Poser Tool Box
Custom Control Cages Tutorial

Objective:-
If you only want to manipulate the front of a face and find that loading a full cage slows down Poser too much you can easily customize the control cage to suit.

Method 1:-

Simply delete any unwanted nodes.

Method 2:-

1) Load the desired figure into the scene and File/Import its control cage. The files are stored in Runtime\Python\poserScripts\PhilC\Poser Tool Box\data. The naming convention is figureOBJfilename-CAGE.obj To find the figure's object file click on the Poser Tool Box buttons Geometry Tools/Actor statistics.

 

2) With the cage selected click on the Poser Grouping Tool.

3) Click the New Group button and type in a name for the new group. Any name will do, here I went with the default name of "NewGroup".

 

4) Use the "+" tool found at the top of the Group Editor panel and click on the polygons that you want to form the custom control cage.

5) When you have selected all the polygons required click on the Create Prop button.

6) When prompted give the new prop a name. Any name it is not important.

7) In Windows Explorer make a copy of the original CAGE.obj file.

  • Do this by selecting the file.
  • Right click and select "Copy"
  • Click into a free area of the file listing.
  • Right click and select "Paste".

8) Now in Poser export out the new custom cage prop. Select OBJ format. No export option boxes need to be checked. Save the file using the naming convention figureOBJfilename-CAGE.obj

 

9) Now when you use the Poser Tool Box/Load Control Cage button it will load in your custom cage. In this example the new cage has 55 nodes compared with the original 97.

10) You also have the option to create your own cages in a third party modeling application. The only restrictions are that there is a maximum allowed vertex count of 100 and the file must be saved in OBJ format within the Poser Tool Box/data directory following the naming convention given.

Other tips to speed up the Poser scene:-

  • Use a Smooth Shaded display mode.
  • Set all other body parts invisible. There are buttons in the Figure Utilities section to quickly do this.
  • Do not have too many lights in the scene. Three will be quite sufficient to be able to see what you are doing.

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