Curio's Majestic Dragon

User Guide



		MAT files and Bump Maps When you load the Majestic Dragon from your library, it will be untextured. To apply the provided textures, go to your "Poses" library and select "MAT Majestic Dragon" from the list. For the standard Majestic texture select either "Majestic PPP" or "Majestic P4" depending on whether you are running Poser Pro Pack or Poser 4. Poser Pro Pack If you are using PPP, then this is all you need to do - all your material setting will now be set. Poser 4 The P4 MAT files don't include a bump map, (this is because P4's .BUMP format is uncompressed, meaning the download would be too large to be practical).If you are using Poser 4 you will need to convert the provided bump maps from jpeg format to Poser 4's own "BUMP" format. This is very easy to do; Once you have loaded the P4 MAT of your choice, go to Render>Materials The material group "body" will be selected by default. Go to the Bump Map section of the dialogue, and click "load". Navigate to Poser4\Runtime\Textures\Curio's Creatures\ and load the map called "MajesticBody_Bump.jpg" Poser will inform you that this isn't a .BUMP file, and ask if you'd like it converting. Select OK. Now make sure all the bodyparts have the bump map assigned, then do the same for the Wings and the head You may wish to create a new CR2 to save you having to do this again. Just add the figure to the figures library and call it something like "Majestic Dragon - Bump". This is a list of which material groups belong to which maps; MajesticBody Body UnderBelly Spines Claws MajesticHead Head Inner Mouth Teeth Horn Eye-White Pupil Iris Eye Trans Tounge MajesticWings Wingskin Wingskin-Underside Wing Digits



		EasyPose The Majestic Dragon is equiped with an "EasyPose" neck and tail. The EasyPose system allows for quick, fluid posing over a chain of bodyparts. In other words, you can twist or bend (and a number of other options) the whole neck or tail in one easy operation. To use the EasyPose system, select the parent of the chain. In the case of the neck, the parent is the chest - and the hip is the parent for the tail. In the list of dials you will see things like "TwistAll" and "SidetoSideAll". These are the EasyPose dials. The best thing to do is just have a play with them - you'll find they speed up posing brilliantly! A HUGE thank you to bloodsong, who set up the EasyPose chains for the Majestic Dragon! Cheers Mate! I don't know what I'd do without you! ;)

Some special notes on morphs

The Majestic Dragon includes a few special morphs which aren't intended to work in the usual way. These are located on the rear toes. They are intended only to work at a value of 1.00. In other words, any value between 0.00 and 1.00 won't look right. The morphs are; "Tight Grasp", "Loose Grasp", and "Wide Grasp".

NB. In an effort to keep the figure efficient and keep the CR2 weight down, the toes are one object (as opposed 12 in my original vesion). These morphs are intended to give posability to this solid piece. The "rear thumbs" are still divided into 3 pieces however, and can be fully posed.

How to make a Land Dragon The Majestic Dragon has the ability to shed it's wings, and become a earthbound Land Dragon. How? Like this; First you need to hide all the wing body parts. Do this by selecting the wing parts one by one (Right and Left "wing shouulder" and right and left "wing"). Go to Object>Properties and untick the check box for "visible".
Right, now he's got no wings, but - eek! he's got bloody great holes in his body! Not a problem. Select the "Chest" and set the "LandDragon" morph dial to a value of 1.00 - The holes are gone. You now have a Land Dragon.

How to make a Wyvern The Majestic Dragon can also loose the arms to become a four limbed Wyvern. Here's how; You need to hide all the arm body parts. Do this by selecting the arm parts one by one, (that is the left and right conterparts of Shoulder, Forearm, Hand, and all the finger and thumb digits). Go to Object>Properties and untick the check box for "visible".
This time, to close the resultant holes at the shoulders, select the Left Collar and set the "Wyvern" morph dial to 1.00, do the same for the Right Collar. Now you have a Wyvern! NB. The morph that closes the holes will create a little texture stretching. However, this would probably only be noticable in close-up, and can be taken care of with the smallest amount of post work.

A note on the Eyes

Like Ragbash, the majestic Dragon has a 3 part eye structure, with a hollow interior. This means real simulation of natural "red eye" is possible, (useful for animations - think Gollum in LOTR). Unlike Ragbash, the lens of the eye bulges outwards, like eyes in real life. This can be taken advantage of in programs like Bryce, where the refractive properties of the "Eye Trans" mesh can be set to "Glass" giving a really realistic depth to the eye.

Tips For Expressions First off, the jaw is a seperate body part. So instead of using a morph to open and shut it, you use the "Open Jaw" rotation dial. Of course this means you'll find all the morphs for the lower teeth and tounge on the Jaw body part.
The Majestic Dragon mesh was built incorporating a nasty snarl on both sides of the mouth. The "Unsnarl" morphs are there to relax the mouth. The "Mouth - Close Lips" morph is similar. It pulls the lips down on both sides, covering the teeth. Use this for a less menacing, or more relaxed look.
The morphs for "Head - Long" and "Frown" have counterparts in the Head and Jaw body parts. You can use them indepentdantly of one another, or select "Body" from the drop-down selection menu, to access the Full Body Morphs, which will effect both components simultaneously. Incidently, a minus value on "Frown" will give you a rather wicked smile!
The head has morphs to open and close both the upper and lower eyelids. This makes lot's of subtle expressions possible, such as pain, anger, suprise, condescension, fatigue and bordem.
The ears can be morphed independantly of one another. This important expressive device was pointed out by Beta tester pddxjims - so thanks Jim! Alot can be communicated by the positions of ears - just think of dogs! One ear up, and one flopped down, both ears swept back to the wind, and so on. The ear morphs work in isolation, but you can get all kinds of results by combining them. Try a bit of "gremlin" mixed with "long". Here we see our friend practising semiphore! NB.The one thing you shouldn't do is have NO morphs on the ears. For technical reasons the default mesh of the ears is stupidly small and odd looking!

Tips For Posing The poses supplied with the Majestic Dragon contain morph information. This means that if you apply morphs, (say - to the head), then apply one of the preset poses, the original morphing you did will be lost. Therefore if you want to use one of the preset poses and customise your dragon's head, apply the pose first.
The Majestic Dragon's wings are two sided. That is, they have a top surface, ("wingskin") and a lower surface, ("wingskin-underside"). This is handy if you'd like the two surfaces to be different colours, or use different textures. In some poses where the wing is severely bent or twisted, you may see one surface poking through the other. To rectify this, simply make one of the surfaces invisible, (or of course, edit in post work).
The Majestic Dragon's wings are very large. This is because I wanted him to look like he actually could fly with them (so many dragons don't!). However, if you would like them smaller, the "Scale" dial will work well down to around 70%. You might find this useful, especially when you have the wings folded.
Any EasyPose settings will not save with a pose. This isn't too much of a problem though, since it's so easy to re-pose, (I guess that's why it's called "EasyPose"!)