From 2005 to 2021 - Apollo Maximus figure in Poser 12

But I make him into an anime guy - WIP

2021 January 24

I created the hair in Vroid Studio. The rest of the figure is entirely based on the original creator's content. I plan on updating his shaders for Poser 12, but they will be non-Photorealistic, to match his character styling. I made a mistake in my Cycles shader for the Vroid Studio hair, so I corrected it.

Using Microsoft RocketBox Avatars In Poser 12

FBX formats (source are MAX format) provided under MIT licensing

2021 February 21

I downloaded the HUGE zip archive from GitHub and organised the unzipped Avatar folders under a new external Poser runtime. I placed the avatar folders into the Textures folder of the new external runtime. This way, Poser can spend less time hunting down the related textures for each FBX file I import.

Out of the box, the imported FBX avatar has its default Diffuse and Specular surfaces set to use Black (in Poser Default Root node). Simply change these to white. I added subsurface scattering to the entire avatar as well.

The XYZ controls are different, so just ignore what your brain tells you and pose the figure using the XYZ dials without caring which direction they are moving the body parts, so long as the dilas get you the pose you want. (Or, if you're so fussy, change all the control dial names in all the body parts to suit the positions they are moving in - a lot of work !)

I managed to use the avatar figure quite easily in Poser 12.

Here I show the Male-21 avatar

VERY IMPORTANT: When the FBX file imports into Poser, the TOPMOST figure controls the rest of the figures (it is the way the hierarchies are organised and interpreted by Poser). For example, if the Teeth are the topmost figure, you pose the avatar using that figure's body parts.

I imported my Vroid Studio Character into Poser 12

Via Blender3D VRM import-export add-on

2021 March 02

I created a character in Vroid Studio, created his hair geometry, and painted his t-shirt. I saved him out as a VRM file (the only format Vroid Studio exports).

I used Blender3D with VRM import-export add-on and imported the VRM file. I exported as FBX and also as OBJ. I tested the OBJ for auto-rigging in Mixamo. It worked well enough. I really dislike the problem with FBX file formats not automatically taking up the textures.

I ignored the Mixamo file output and took the Blender exported FBX file of my character into Poser 12.

I manually added the VRM textures in Poser Material Room. I manually posed the character using the topmost rig in the scene and the hierarchy tab (this is a quirk of FBX imports in Poser). In this case, the Face rig was the topmost rig, so I used the body parts of the face rig to pose the entire figure - must use Heirachy Room to select rig parts, and Parameter dial X,Y,Z rotations to pose the part.

There are some pokethroughs in the mesh (pants cuff area, eyebrows).

The eyes and brows have pose rigs. No mouth expressions are available.

During the auto-rigging test phase using Mixamo, I found that I had to slim down his pants, because the inner mesh was overlapping in Vroid T-pose export position (not adjustable). I also had to make his feet-shoes smaller because his shoes were overlapping on the inner sides as well. This overlap affects auto-rigging in Mixamo. If I had left my character with original shoe size and pants baggy-ness, Mixamo auto-rigging would merge the inner sides and while the character is animated, I get merged pants inner leg, and merged shoes.

Update 2021 March 03

I used my earlier version of the same VRM character and improved materials settings

Here is the original version of the character without the adjustments for Mixamo. I had to add the VRM textiles manually to the imported FBX figure inside Poser 12 software. The head contains many morphs but apart from the eye and eyebrow morphs, the others seem not to work as intended. I would need to manually pose the rest of the figure... but here is what I have for now.