The "scale cube" method of OBJ importing from Curious Labs Poser® to Corel Bryce® Part 1

The "scale cube" method of OBJ importing
from Curious Labs Poser® to Corel Bryce®

By Hamfast (aka ) ©2002

(Tools: Poser, Bryce)

This tutorial is dedicated to my wife, Mariaan, who despite her illness has been a rock of stability in my life, and who has shown me the rewards of helping others.

Return to "Worlds in the making..."

Part 1

Introduction

I will not go into the depths of how the scaling of objects in Bryce works - because I don't really understand how they work. Susan Kitchens and Victor Gavenda in their book "Real world Bryce 4", dedicate the entire 6th chapter to this aspect of Bryce.

It is enough to say however, that when Bryce imports objects from other programs (in this case WaveFront OBJ files) it scales them according to its own internal grid, and the results are sometimes quite chaotic.

So let us start with the problem:

Importing single OBJ figure files from Poser to Bryce is quite easy, but I noticed a problem when I started creating larger files in Poser with more than one figure - especially DAZ3D's Millenium figures. I created a scene with 2 figures including the Victoria 2.0 figure and exported them as a single OBJ group file in Poser. I then closed Poser, fired up Bryce and imported the OBJ file...

The Bryce Import begins...

...and got the following error.

With 256Mb of memory? Ridiculous!

This is a pretty common error with large .OBJ files. I have noticed similar errors with .3DS files (3D Studio) and with 256Mb of RAM it is hard to believe!

The solution comes with its own problem...

I then returned to Poser and set about splitting my Poser scene into its individual figures and exporting them as smaller .OBJ files. I then imported them one by one into Bryce into the scene that I had prepared...

The first figure... ...and the 2nd figure...

...and immediately I could see that there was a problem with scale. The German Sheperd dog was now the same size as the woman and the side view in Bryce confirmed it!

The side on view confirms my suspicions

Apart from physically rescaling the individual object in Bryce, (which is not an easy task as percentages are not used in the Object Attributes and proportional rescaling is not supported) the placement of the figures is a difficult task too and all my hard work with the posing of the hands in Poser has to be tackled again when placing the individual figures in the group.

The solution lays in Bryce's own internal grid and something common to both Poser and Bryce - a simple cube!

This concludes the 1st part of this tutorial. Are you ready for the next part?

[Return to the beginning] [Next part]

Most recent revision 14 March, 2002

	*The "scale cube" method of OBJ importing* *from* *Curious Labs Poser®* to Corel Bryce® By Hamfast (aka ) ©2002 (Tools: Poser, Bryce) This tutorial is dedicated to my wife, Mariaan, who despite her illness has been a rock of stability in my life, and who has shown me the rewards of helping others. Return to "Worlds in the making..." *Part 1* Introduction I will not go into the depths of how the scaling of objects in Bryce works - because I don't really understand how they work. Susan Kitchens and Victor Gavenda in their book "Real world Bryce 4", dedicate the entire 6th chapter to this aspect of Bryce. It is enough to say however, that when Bryce imports objects from other programs (in this case WaveFront OBJ files) it scales them according to its own internal grid, and the results are sometimes quite chaotic.
	So let us start with the problem: Importing single OBJ figure files from Poser to Bryce is quite easy, but I noticed a problem when I started creating larger files in Poser with more than one figure - especially DAZ3D's Millenium figures. I created a scene with 2 figures including the Victoria 2.0 figure and exported them as a single OBJ group file in Poser. I then closed Poser, fired up Bryce and imported the OBJ file... ...and got the following error. This is a pretty common error with large .OBJ files. I have noticed similar errors with .3DS files (3D Studio) and with 256Mb of RAM it is hard to believe!
	The solution comes with its own problem... I then returned to Poser and set about splitting my Poser scene into its individual figures and exporting them as smaller .OBJ files. I then imported them one by one into Bryce into the scene that I had prepared... ...and immediately I could see that there was a problem with scale. The German Sheperd dog was now the same size as the woman and the side view in Bryce confirmed it! Apart from physically rescaling the individual object in Bryce, (which is not an easy task as percentages are not used in the Object Attributes and proportional rescaling is not supported) the placement of the figures is a difficult task too and all my hard work with the posing of the hands in Poser has to be tackled again when placing the individual figures in the group. The solution lays in Bryce's own internal grid and something common to both Poser and Bryce - a simple cube!
	*This concludes the* *1st* *part of this tutorial. Are you ready for the next part?* [Return to the beginning] [Next part] Most recent revision 14 March, 2002