Now we’ll discuss some experience with Poser Physics when used to create animations for Second Life.
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Poser Physics is a plug-in which adds rag-doll behavior, as well as other physical behavior to Poser. This is not a tutorial on Poser Physics, but a few hints and experiences that may be helpful if you need physical behavior when building animations.

Falling Down

Having a figure fall down is the default simulation of poser physics. Any enabled figures are turned into Rag-Doll characters and then they just obey the force of gravity. Since falling down is not often seen in SL, it can be quite startling in an animation.

It is possible to have a figure fall out of a chair by enabling props in Poser Physics so that the body is constrained by a chair and table as they fall.

No script is needed to control Poser Physics, just start the simulation. There is a problem however to watch out for. You will need to start the simulation from frame 1. It is tempting to start the simulation after some other behaviour, like taking a drink or receiving a blow. However Poser physics is not kind with respect to the transition between normal poser keyframes and it’s keys. It changes the body center, and other parameters, so, you will probably find that the character jumps and rotates around in SL when you do this sort of thing. I have not experimented extensively with this problem. It may be that by doing a dummy physics simulation from frame 1, then animating the figure during the first frames, and then using physics again starting later, this problem may be eliminated.

Hanging from Body Parts

To accomplish this with Poser Physics takes a little trickery and a Python script.

1. First, position the body above the ground, and let it fall using poser physics. No script is required. You will want to position the body slightly off center and tilted so that when it hits the rope end in the next step, it swings rather than just stopping.
2. Next, use a script to animate the rest of the scene, so the body stops it’s fall and does not hit the ground.

Here is the script that I used:

if float(poser.Version()) >= 7:
import PhysicsToolsP7
from PhysicsToolsP7 import *
else:
import PhysicsToolsP6
from PhysicsToolsP6 import *
#import PhysicsMath
print
print "Sample of woman hanging from her neck..."
gPhysicsEngine = PhysicsTools.PoserPhysicsEngine()
gPhysicsEngine.importDefaults()
gPhysicsEngine.setupSimulation()
#gPhysicsEngine.createFixedJoint("woman/rHand", None)
gPhysicsEngine.createFixedJoint("woman/Neck", None)
gPhysicsEngine.runSimulation()
print "Finished"


A number of things are apparent as you use Poser Physics:

• The documentation is sketchy. And the example scripts are wrong. There have been incompatible changes that nobody bothers to mention. Check out the forum for recent examples that work.
• It’s hard to find the name of the body parts to refer to. I still don’t have a definitive list of the built in poser body parts to use in these scripts.
• Physics has a lot of undocumented behaviors and quirks that nobody bothers to mention, so you will have to do some experimenting to get your job done.
• The folks that make the plugin are either not home, or don’t bother watching their forums. I was unable to register for the forums to get support from the physics website.

- enjoy – sort of…
- windy