Introduction

I've tried to include everything you need to know on this page.  If I've left something out, or gotten something wrong, or you have any other feedback, please let me know.  But I am not a technical support line for Poser or Cinema 4D ... anything you need to know for those, please consult your manuals first, OK?

I have made this page print-friendly - that is, black writing on a white background - so that you can print it out if you wish.  For following the tutorial, I find it really helps to have a printed copy, otherwise you're forever switching between different windows.
 

System Requirements

Poser for Windows or Macintosh and Cinema 4DXL 6+ for Windows or Macintosh.  I don't know if it will work on earlier or lesser versions of Cinema 4D.  Try it, and let me know!

You will need a Windows PC or a machine capable of running Windows EXE files for part of the process.  I hope to create a fully Macintosh version soon, but this is the first Cinema 4D development I've done so I'm literally learning as I go.
 

What is PAIS?

This system allows you to create animations in Poser and then transfer them to Cinema 4DXL for lighting, rendering and special effects.
 

Why do I need PAIS?

Poser is able to export animations as a series of Wavefront OBJ files.  Cinema 4DXL is able to load these OBJ files directly.  However, there are a couple of drawbacks;

1. You have to import each OBJ file manually.  Cinema 4DXL can't open a bunch of them at once.

 
2. The OBJ files come in without texture information, so you have to texture each one individually.

 
3. The OBJ files are huge ... for the standard Poser business man with hair, an export OBJ file is about 2.8Mb.  That's around 84Mb per second of animation at 30 frames per second.

 
4. Even assuming you've had the patience to import and texture all these files, you still have to set up the animation parameters so that they are made visible/invisible at the appropriate times.

So how does PAIS help?

PAIS automates the production of Morph Targets and Morph Keys.

PAIS consists of two parts;

1. A pre-processor, called OBJCrusher, takes the individual OBJ files exported by Poser, removes all the information from them that is not necessary, and builds them into a single* OBJ file for import in to Cinema 4DXL.

 
2. A C.O.F.F.E.E. expression, called WriteMorphKeys, for use within Cinema 4DXL which creates the appropriate animation keys based on parameters you specify.

What's the catch?

There are a few things you need to realise about this process.

1. Even using PAIS, this is still a time-consuming process.  On my 700Mhz Athlon system, it takes around half an hour to completely bring a 10 second animation from Poser to Cinema 4DXL.  However, this is still vastly better than doing it all manually ;-)

 
2. The file sizes involved can get pretty scary ... for example, in the 300 frame (10 second) demo animation you'll see below, here are the file sizes at each step;

 

 
 
 

Step 1 - export 300 OBJ frames out of Poser ... total file size 867Mb  (this took about 11 minutes)
Step 2 - use OBJCrusher to compact these OBJ files ... resulting file size of the output file 366Mb (this took about 10 minutes)
Step 3 - import into Cinema 4DXL and save C4D file ... resulting C4D file size was 109Mb (this took about 10 minutes also)

At each step, you can, if you wish, delete the preceding files ... for example, once I've run OBJCrusher, I can delete all the individual OBJ files which Poser exported.  However, these file sizes should give you an appreciation of why this is not a fast process ... it took about half an hour to do the above.

You must also understand that with everything loaded into Cinema 4DXL, memory starts to become an issue.  You may find that you start to get a lot of disk thrashing as virtual memory is employed.  There's not much you can do about this other than try to keep your animations short.  If you're trying to make a short film, I'd suggest that every different camera angle shot is stored in a seperate Cinema 4DXL file.  This will require a lot of planning up-front, but will save a lot of disk-thrashing later!
 

3. PAIS does not import lighting, texture or camera information.  So it doesn't matter how you light your Poser scene and it doesn't matter how often or to where you move the camera.

How good are the results?

Check out the gallery to see stills and movies done by myself and others.

Naturally, rendering quality depends on factors like lighting, render settings, camera settings, and so on.  However, the model import from Poser is perfect.  That is, the model you end up with in Cinema 4DXL is geometrically identical to the model in Poser - and that includes facial features, expressions, lipsync, the lot :-)
 

OK, sounds great - how much is it?

Nothing.  Nada.  Nix.  It's totally FREE.  I wrote this because I needed and wanted it, and because I wanted an excuse to learn how to use C.O.F.F.E.E.  I know there are other people who will make good use of it also, and to all of you, please accept this system with my compliments.

All I ask for in return is;

1. If you make animations using this system, please let me know so I can see them - I love seeing (and being inspired by) other people's work :-)

 
2. Please don't make the files available on your own site, but link to this page instead.  That way people are always downloading the latest versions.

I want it!

Continue on to the download page, then :-)