2. SASHA Basics:




2.1. The dials and groups sort order

 When you look at the parameters palette of every body part, you'll always notice the same sort order:

  1. First are the joint rotations like Bend/SideSide/Twist and always in that order. These are always on top, thus always quickly accessible. If there are any special "posing" controls or morphs for that body part they will be right below it.

  2. Next follows the "Easy Posing" dials (plus the "Expressions" in the head actor)

  3. Following that, the "Special SASHA Controls"

  4. The "General" Group always separates the dynamic "Action" from the static "Shape" morphs:
    The most relevant part of this group might be the "Scales", which is why they are expanded by default when you expand the "General" group. You might need scale information when fitting clothes. Anything else is of no real importance here.

  5. Next comes the "SHAPE" group:
    These are the general BODY or Face shapes used to create a character.
    Only use the BODY and HEAD actors to set a shape for a character. Those parameters are valid globally and help you keeping track of what shapes are set.
    NEVER use the SHAPE dials to create poses or expressions!

    The "SHAPE" group is mostly subdivided into subgroups depending on body or face regions. The subgroup names should be self-explanatory.
    However, it also contains the "Community Channels", so if you inject a conventional custom character this is the place to look for it.

  6. Finally, the usual "Morph" and "Other" groups:
    These are needed by Poser because it's here where Poser deposits new morph or master dials. So if you create a new morph or a master dial, look here to find them.

  7. At the very bottom of the list you'll find the "Injection Checker".

NOTICE:

In the "BODY" and the "KarinaVagina" actors, the above group order is prefaced by version information and some important information of usage.
You'll need this information to check whether you have the latest version installed.



2.2. The SASHA Command Posts

 In SASHA, there are 3 major (++) and a few minor (--) body parts from which you can easily control your figure.
I call these "Command Posts".
These are:


So remember:

++ BODY
++ Head
++ KarinaVagina

plus

-- Chest
-- Eyes
-- Hands
-- Feet/Toes

is about all you'll need to take total control over your SASHA figure 99% of the time.



2.3. The SASHA Posing Concept

 The general idea was to make the figure work with both injection poses and poses built by the user (==you!), or a combination thereof.
With conventional figures, there were dozens of ways to mess up a pose so that it looked wrong and you could easily destroy a carefully built pose by pulling at the wrong end.

 SASHA can assist you in creating realistic poses; in fact posing has never been easier.



2.3.1. The Joint Limits

 SASHA's joints all have limits set which will prevent "overstretching" a joint or moving a joint in a direction which is anatomically impossible (like you can't swing your shins and forearms sideways because they are simple hinge joints). For the same reason you can't twist your fingers (or only in a very limited way).

 I did set the limits to the joints to what would be the average in a teenager. (If I'd set it according to my own body, you'd end up with a nearly rigid figure)

 For some of the "anatomically impossible" joint rotations, I introduced a little "leeway" to help you to cheat a bit with extreme poses. This can be turned On/Off globally or set to permission per individual body part.

 The idea is to globally disallow it when creating pose sets for redistribution and globally allow it when working on a story or using injection poses. Use the "Allow per body part" setting to adjust SASHA's behaviour to your own choice. For information on how to work with that feature and how to save poses generated with SASHA, look here: 6.2 Posing SASHA

 If you don't like this feature at all, there are two scripts (#310 & 311 in the "Switches" folder of Karina's Toolbox) which will turn ALL "Force Limits" completely OFF (or back ON again if you change your mind).



2.3.2. The Posing Ensembles

 Posing a figure with the joint dials can be a frustrating thing, especially if there are other bones "up the line".

 So I made it as easy as possible to pose SASHA by simply *dragging* at her torso, the arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet and toes to place them where you want them, how you want them.

 If you tried to pose V4 in it's original state and you pulled at her pinky finger, the whole upper body would follow. Now imagine you've posed the right side perfectly already and continue with posing the left side: your first attempt to pose something would lead you right into catastrophe because it would influence the torso too and destroy your pose on the right side (and don't tell me you always remember to set a chain break first!)

 With SASHA this won't happen:
I've divided her body into "Posing Ensembles" by appropriate chain breaks. Now you can pose each "Posing Ensemble" by dragging with the mouse and your action will only affect this single "Posing Ensemble".

Examples:

Thus, all "Pose Ensembles" can be dragged around independently with the mouse, without affecting the rest of the body.

The "Pose Ensembles" are:

 You'll quickly see how much this helps you in creating or refining poses. The days of the dreaded "finger posing" are a thing of the past. Now you can pose the fingers of a hand in a matter of minutes without the fear of distortions.

Joint limits + Pose Ensembles = Advantage: SASHA

(For a step-by-step tutorial about the most easy way to pose two figures, continue here )



2.4. The SASHA "Movement Control"




2.4.1. Overview:

You've all encountered these problems before, more than once:

 - You place your figure in the scene, and then click a pose from the library: Whoosh! The figure has gone to wherever and you'll have to hunt it down and move it back into your scene.

 - Now you have it back in place but it's facing in the wrong direction. So you try to rotate it by the BODY actor (which is the only correct way): Whoosh! it flies away again to Timbuktu, or Ouagadougou, or to Andromeda...

 - You undo that turn and try to rotate it by the hip instead (which is the wrong way, but the only one left). But instead of turning on the spot, your figures starts a career as "voltigeur", rotating around all axes except the one you want.

In short: the figure is completely uncontrollable.

The SASHA "Movement Control" can help you to protect you from inadvertedly "creating" bad poses which will inevitably cause problems later.

It can also help you to detect problems with badly designed "click" poses (as described above)

 However, to fully understand the problems and to learn how to pose a figure the correct way, there's more needed than two or three simple sentences.
YOU need to study the problem more in-depth.
Don't worry, it won't harm you, and only cost you a single hour of your life time.

But it can help you greatly to improve your art, independent of figures used (Posette, V4, Dawn, Genesis etc.)

If you've fully understood the concept of posing figures correctly, you'll never again have problems with posing figures.

Isn't that an hour of your time well-spent?



2.4.2. The SASHA "Movement Control": A Detailed Explanation

You know the problem: You want to move your figure about in the scene or adjust the figure to touch the ground. Most people would simply grab the figure by the hip and move it to where they want it.

--- That's as simple as it's WRONG! ---

Gimbal Locks, actor offsets, and why you should avoid them like the plague:

(This is going to be a bit long, but it will help you all to understand how 3D figures work and about the DOs and DON'Ts. I suggest you take your time to read and understand this part! You won't regret it.)

 In general, the problems all occur if you rotate and translate a figure by the wrong axes in the wrong body parts. The rules to follow are quite simple but they must be heeded, otherwise there's trouble ahead.
Sure it won't matter much for a one-off pose in a single render. But if the pose is part of a series, or worse, an animation sequence, the problems will add up until the figure is totally and utterly incontrollable.

The SASHA "Movement Control" was designed to avoid all these mistakes and to help you keep control over your figure at all times.

To use it go to the group "Special Sasha Controls" in the parameters palette in the "BODY", and set these dials as follows:

From now on you can only move the figure horizontally by the BODY, and translate the figure up/down by the hip.
To turn the figure while maintaining its actual pose relative to the ground, only use the BODY's yRotate dial.
To rotate the hip for a non-vertical position, use the hip's x, z (and y rotation if you must) dials. BUT ONLY for this purpose!

So Sasha's "Movement Control" forces you to design poses that are clean and correct and which won't cause problems in the next frame.

It can also help you to fix problems with commercial poses:

If you have a commercial (=pre-designed) pose which acts weird when you click it, go to the group "Special Sasha Controls" in the parameters palette and set these dials as follows:

Now load the commercial pose. If it was badly designed by rotation axes you'll notice it immediately because the figure is completely ill-tilted.

To begin with, check that the BODY x and z rotations are 0.000
(The BODY yTranslation is locked to 0.000 anyway and the Movement Control also denies any hip x or z translations of the hip)

Next look for illegal x and z translations in the hip: Look at the hip's parameters "General/Transforms/Translation" group. If there are any illegal x and Z translations, you'll notice that the "Movement Control" has forced them to Zero.
To completely get rid of it (just in case), zero the dials completely by [ALT] left-clicking them.

Problem #1 solved: "Actor Offsets" eliminated.


Next we fix the hip's rotation, and this is a bit tricky:

First zero the hip's yRotation!

Then try to come as close as possible to the original pose by changing the hip's x and Z rotation. In upright, standing poses this is sufficient 90% of the time.

However, in lying poses you must turn back on "Allow Hip yRotation" (there's a sub-dial in the hip for quick access), and then continue to play with the dials until the body is in the right position. Use the yRotation as sparingly as possible, and always as your last resort.

Problem #2 solved: "Gimbal Lock" avoided as best as we can.


Now you have a pose which won't cause any more trouble and follows the rules of correct 3D figure posing.


Summary:

How to save this pose for further use, continue here: 6.3. Saving poses to the Library

Heeding these "Iron Rules" of posing will spare you many headaches in the next panel/frame.

Hint: look at the "100+ SASHA Poses" in the Pose Library to examine how they are built!



FOOTNOTES:

 *1) This needs to be 1.000 because for creating lying poses like the "Movement Control Demo" Pose you need to rotate the figure by the hip yRotation too. Check what happens when you turn it off/on.

 *2) This needs to be 0.000 in this case to better detect what's wrong. Often changing the hip x and z rotation is all you need to fix any problems

 *3) Always leave this at zero to avoid actor offset problems. If need be, use the BODY translations instead!



2.4.3. The SASHA "Movement Control": A Practical Example

This chapter was exported to a separate page because it's quite extensive and more of a separate tutorial.

Click here to read. (link opens in a new tab/window)



2.5. The "Collar Control"

 A lot of arm poses look unnatural because people just omit to pose the collars accordingly or don't know how to do it right.
That is why I devised the "Collar Control", which can pose the collars automatically for you when you pose the arms. It works with both dial-spun of mouse-dragged posing.

 As a nice side-effect, it also eliminates the dreaded "Quarterback Shoulders" look when the arms are moved down, because the collars follow suite.

 Of course this is just another option in SASHA: You find the switch to turn this feature on/off in the BODY actor, group "Special Sasha Controls".

How does it work?

 Stand in front of a mirror in the T-pose. Now move your arms up and down and watch how your collars move along. Go back to T-pose and move your arms front and back. Look at your collars to see how they move along. Your body does the collar movement automatically for you.

SASHA does the same for you:

 All you have to do is move the arms (shoulders or forearms), either with the dials or by dragging at them. Internal controllers will move the collars in a smooth and anatomically correct way, so normally you don't have to bother to pose the collars at all.

However you can still do so if you wish:

 In the "Special Sasha Controls" group of the BODY actor there is a switch called "Yet Collars Are Poseable" where you can switch manually poseable collars off or on. (I suggest to set this to OFF to detect bad commercial poses and ON when creating your own poses)

 Using this feature you can now pose SASHA's arms in a completely natural way, without even having to bother with posing the collars. SASHA does this for you!


NOTE:
If you intend to use pre-made poses you can either switch "Collar Control" OFF to get the original pose or you leave it ON, inject the pose, zero the collars *1 and continue by fixing and refining the arms pose. I prefer the latter because some pre-made poses are seriously messed up in the collars!

Footnote *1:
There's a pose script "026 Zero Collars Only" in the Toolbox which will zero the collars with a single click. Otherwise [ALT]-click on each collar's rotation dial to zero it.



2.6. The Feet Controls

 One of the most common problems when posing 3D figures is the feet pose:
This starts with a basic feet pose to fit a shoe then it gets worse when these shoes are high heels and gets really frustrating when body poses are made for either barefoot or high-heeled shoes of unknown model.
I think you've seen this all before, so I devised a system with which you gain control over the feet again.

Now please make yourself some tea or a drink because this is somewhat a long section, however in the end you'll benefit greatly from it!
Read on and you'll never have problems with feet and shoes again!



2.6.1. General feet controls IN THE BODY

 These can be found *globally* for both feet in the BODY actor, "SPECIAL SASHA CONTROLS".
These are:



2.6.2. Individual controls IN THE FEET

 Though some dials are duplicated in the toes for posing convenience, your primary "Command Post" for everything to do with feet poses are the FEET.
Exception: If you want to dial "Feet Presets" you'll have to dial it in both the feet AND the toes. See chapter 2.6.3.



2.6.3. Setting and using the Feet Presets

 You must set these per single foot and per single set of toes. This is because some shoes are built asymmetrical, so sometimes individual settings are necessary.
You can dial these either individually depending on the shoes you use or use one of the "Feet Presets" from "Karina's Tool Box" which contain some specimen.

 How to proceed:

From now on, whenever a click-pose throws your feet out of whack (almost all do!), all you have to do is ZERO the feet ("Karina's Tool Box": "116 Zero Feet Keep Presets") and then probably re-adjust the feet "Bend" and "Side-Side", but the feet and toes will still fit the shoes!



2.6.4. The Feet Presets from "Karina's Tool Box"

 I've added some feet presets for shoes that are either commercially available or are "kit bashed" own models. You can find these in "Karina's Tool Box" in the "Feet Presets" folder.

 What's special about these feet presets is that they not only pose the feet and toes with one click. They also set those parts of the feet which are completely hidden by the shoe to "Invisible in render".

But in a special way which has a big advantage and a small caveat:
 It sets all "Render" visibility to OFF: No visibility in the render, no shadows cast, no reflections/light emitting. For the render engine they don't exist at all.
Yet they are *still visible in the preview window*!

 It may be a bit disturbing look when posing but it has a huge advantage over the method of simply turning visibility OFF altogether (e.g. clicking the "Eye" symbol in the Hierarchy Editor or un-checking the "Visible" box in the Parameters Palette):
Because they are still visible in the preview, you can easily grab and pose them with the mouse, which you couldn't if they were completely invisible

 You can add your own presets to the Library:
Use one of the included presets as your prototype, then change the values and save it under a different name.
I use the original shoe's name and as a thumbnail I just copy the original shoe's .png thumbnail.

 If you want to remove all feet presets just use the script "117 Feet Presets OFF" in the same folder.

NOTE: All these feet presets ONLY work with SASHA-16! ALL other figures don't support this feature.



2.6.5. Summary

 All those options for posing the feet look challenging but they aren't!
In fact, after you've found out how it works, you won't want to be without them anymore!
Clicking a new body pose doesn't force you to set 12 dials again, over and over. Just using the Feet Presets and the compensation dials reduces this task to a matter of seconds.

 If you don't use or need them, just turn them OFF altogether in the BODY and your SASHA will behave like any other standard V4.



2.7. Various



2.7.1. Subdivision

 SASHA can be subdivided like any other figure.
However, some body parts already have a distinctively denser polymesh. Subdividing these wouldn't make much sense and only result in a higher memory usage.

 These are the eyes, the jaws, the tongue, and the KarinaVagina.
They are set to "Subdivide Separately From Figure" with a setting of zero. If you want these body parts to be included in subdivision you must change this setting in the properties tab of that body part.

Pro Tip: *Never* use different subdivision levels on body parts that are welded together, like arm and forearm, etc.
This would result in a visible mesh break in the render!
However, with the separate actors eyes, jaws, tongue and KarinaVagina it's not critical.

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