Pros and cons of connected poses

[onevision]

Pros and cons of connected poses

Connecting limbs in poses has a number of advantages, and unfortunately also disadvantages. Some say it makes editing more difficult, and while that's certainly true, that is not the real problem.

You get the true limit of connections when you try the same connected pose on different models. Actually there is a workaround, and usually you don't have to make any changes in the pose. Just disconnect and reconnect the limbs: they should go magically where they are supposed to be. But you have to do this each time the model is significantly different in shape, which is a rather common event. A much better way to improve things is using a small toy as "man in the middle" between link source and link target. It's a great lesson from NC I had completely forgotten.

Please be aware that I'm not talking about scaling of the model's size (which is handled well enough), but rather differences in shape/proportions. It's no wonder that the most commonly known cause of incompatibility is difference in breast shape (rather than size) for the Hand/Breast link type. There are so many different morphs for shaping breasts that the combinations are limitless, and so the consequences practically impossible to foresee.

PelvisZ has influence on the Penis/Neck link type. This is ancient (LOL) and common knowledge. PelvisX and PelvisY also affect spine, although in a different way.

Some other causes of incompatibility are less obvious to spot but equally worth mentioning.
Recently I found that Foot Width (that's right!) has a tremendous impact on Hand/Foot connection. See for yourselves.

I'm not saying this because I want you to make your models with all the sliders at default, not at all.

Just remember this when the next pose you download looks like total sh*t, then you'll know why. Once you gain a bit of experience with PE, you'll be able to adapt the pose to your needs rather easily.

[McKeu]

There are some other issues with connected poses:

While editing, connecting body parts will restrict your freedom in the animation. You can move the body part that was connected freely, but not the body part it was connected to. You do that and the first body part will be auto-moved to keep the alignment. A pain in the ass for any penetration loop. It works well for a hand on a shoulder, knee or hip, but for fun parts and boobs, it ends up looking ridiculous: A "dead", limp arm flopping wildly about in synch with the bouncing boob, etc. I don't know about you, but when I do that IRL, my hand controls the boob, not vice versa.

Also the engine reacts way too early when it comes to connected items. The vagina will already open up, while the dick is just about in shouting range. That is, ofc, exaggerated, but you get the gist.

I can probably find of a lot more issues I have with connections that I have long forgotten about, when I make an interactive pose again. But that happens once in a blue moon. I stick to animations and don't connect (At least not the fun parts. Hand-to-shoulder and stuff like that I do indeed use at times.) 

[onevision]

Interactive poses are connected by definition, and personally I think they are a pain in the arse. All the difficulties of regular animations, plus all their limitations. But some are really nice, I have to admit (modsgarden user norman used to make excellent interactive poses).

8 minutes ago, McKeu said:

You can move the body part that was connected freely, but not the body part it was connected to

Are you sure about that? Probably you just have to disconnect, edit and reconnect. Give it a try.

[McKeu]

5 minutes ago, onevision said:

Interactive poses are connected by definition, and personally I think they are a pain in the arse. All the difficulties of regular animations, plus all their limitations. But some are really nice, I have to admit (modsgarden user norman used to make excellent interactive poses).

Are you sure about that? Probably you just have to disconnect, edit and reconnect. Give it a try.

When you disconnect, it might reset the connected item, e.g. penis into some off position and you have to start over. All adjustments you did while the item was connected (for example penis rotation, and so on), will be nullified once you remove the connection. It's a very risky gamble in my book.

[onevision]

3 minutes ago, McKeu said:

All adjustments you did while the item was connected, will be nullified once you remove the connection

True, and that's when the Global Key editing comes to the rescue. I'm not sure how I managed it, but recently I had the problem you mention and was able to solve it.

[McKeu]

4 minutes ago, onevision said:

True, and that's when the Global Key editing comes to the rescue.

I make wide use of that, but it only carries you so far. In more elaborate poses you will have to go frame by frame and edit, cause the global editing might ruin stuff in other places. Especially in animations, where only one or two frames need corrections. The disconnect reset will ruin your day.

[onevision]

If you lose your work at some point, you can (for instance) reload the animation from a backup copy of the pose.

[McKeu]

2 minutes ago, onevision said:

If you lose your work at some point, you can (for instance) reload the animation from a backup copy of the pose.

Well, of course... you still cannot properly fix the pose, is my point. It will simply reset again, if you disconnect. So your possibilities in making corrections in single frames in connected animations, are limited at best.
Let's say I want to adjust the girl's hip a bit in the middle of the animation. Well, I cannot move the hip without moving the penis and the male's hip along, while connected. I don't want that, cause the dick is totally fine. So I disconnect in order to move the hip a bit.... et voila, the penis got reset. Now I have to redo that one, too. It's a hassle to deal with.

[onevision]

Soo... There is a solution to the problem, and it involves the use of the key editor. Copy the linked keys from the key editor and paste them in a new pose (without links). Then use this second pose to import the correct key values (after you've changed the keys of the target). I can't be more precise than that, you'll have to figure out how it's done. This is not easy, I know.

[McKeu]

3 minutes ago, onevision said:

Soo... There is a solution to the problem, and it involves the use of the key editor. Copy the linked keys from the key editor and paste them in a new pose (without links). Then use this second pose to import the correct key values. I can't be more precise than that, you'll have to figure out how it's done. This is not easy, I know.

That actually seems like a workaround. Will give it a shot.

[onevision]

4 minutes ago, onevision said:

Then use this second pose to import the correct key values (after you've changed the keys of the target)

Don't miss the edit.

[Smoke]

IMO this is my take:

Connected;

Pros: Less work/hassle, simple but effective animation, and if you are about interactive poses - its the best option.

Cons: Less details, animation gets 'boring' pretty fast, less of a variety - by that, an example is; doggy style, you will only see 1 pose - the women on all 4 and the male from behind. Yea, you can say that is how it is but there are ways you can spice it up. And connected feels like its stuck in 2004. 

Not connected;

Pros: Details, it can range from simple to more complex animations - both routes are effective. Uses the current options in which greatly improves the details of a animation. Example: The vagina/penis; the sliders are there and you can conform them to their shapes - end result is a realist animation.

Cons: Tons of work, more of a hassle. Can make people rage quit due to the effort that is needed for "good" quality"

[McKeu]

1 hour ago, Smoke said:

IMO this is my take:

Connected;

Pros: Less work/hassle, simple but effective animation, and if you are about interactive poses - its the best option.

Cons: Less details, animation gets 'boring' pretty fast, less of variety - by that, an example is; doggy style, you will only see 1 pose - the women on all 4 and the male from behind. Yea, you can say that is how it is but there are ways you can spice it up. And connected feels like its stuck in 2004. 

Not connected;

Pros: Details, it can range from simple to more complex animations - both routes are effective. Uses the current options in which greatly improves the details of a animation. Example: The vagina/penis; the sliders are there and you can conform them to their shapes - end result is a realist animation.

Cons: Tons of work, more of a hassle. Can make people rage quit due to the effort that is needed for "good" quality"

That is a good sum up. It is a matter of personal gusto in the end, but I like my poses to look good from every angle and have some shifts and changes. If I zoom around and look at the penetration and I see holes and gaps everywhere around the penis, it's just annoying. Everything needs to sit tight. The engine penetration is just not made for that. Also making minor corrections in just a couple of frames is way easier and more convenient in unconnected animations.

The engine penetration SFX are also not really something to write home about, but that is just a subjective opinion. I think the most bearable ones are the ones for BJs.

IMO there is no real use case for connections, unless you either like the SFX or want to fill up the pleasure meter.

 

EDIT: As much as it pains me to say it... the only good interactive poses animationwise are the original ones from Thri..x, and those were not made with the pose editor. They worked pretty much in the same way as toy insertion. You could go in a bit and then out again, while with pose editor created interactives it will simply play the loop beginning to end at mouse controlled speed.

[Morius]

6 hours ago, onevision said:

Interactive poses are connected by definition, and personally I think they are a pain in the arse. All the difficulties of regular animations, plus all their limitations. But some are really nice, I have to admit (modsgarden user norman used to make excellent interactive poses).

Are you sure about that? Probably you just have to disconnect, edit and reconnect. Give it a try.

I think you are right, I'm feeling stupid now. I'll give a try.

[Morius]

My cents:
I also don't like to connect on the funny parts, sometime I lock genitals to use the pose on the free mode.

To edit the connected parts, I do the hard/fun way: I just readjust the models to fit in. The end result end up looking more natural.

[keno213]

I still prefer connected poses myself, all the sound cues for custom/vanilla voices don't work without them. [A huge part of the game IMO] However I understand why lots of people don't want to deal with connections. 

[Drahzar]

I'll give my own experience:

 

It mostly boils down to using Animation vs Interactive, but it is not only that, there's some occassions where connecting is the way to go. I mean, if you insist on certain bodyparts to interact with another, why wouldn't you do it? Like you want to have models hold hands while fucking, you can to hold the hips while fucking, etc...

 

No doubt, connections add extra trouble and add extra work to poses, if possible, you avoid them. In certain particular cases though, they do the opposite and add extra work.

For example, if nothing is connected and you can to adapt the pose to your models, it may add a lot of extra work, if you want to move & rotate the pose, no connections will add extra work, because lots of parts will be unaligned.

I connected a few bodyparts because this way I know I can adapt the same pose to different models with different settings, especially things like difference in height, if you don't connect, usually the pose is completely off.

 

In interactive, the whole deal is exactly to have connected bodyparts, which you can control.

I like having access to different loops all into 1, you control the speed, but you also get access to the orgasm loop (I usually merge orgasm & cooldown loops into 1)

Sure you can create really nice & detailed handjobs with animation, but I like having the exact same handjob, but I can control whether it goes slow, or it goes fast or it goes super fast, depending on what mood I am in. It's all about control, but it's not only control. It's also nice to separate the loops, have the normal loop and the penetration, you have less frames in one loop, it's less confusing, though depends on exactly what you're doing, in some cases it's more work, in some cases it's less work. The Normal loop doesn't need to be too long, it can be long though if you want variety, generally I do tend to keep my normal loop into one single full line/cycle, it's more then enough usually. I use 2 lines or more when there's some (heavy) interaction between the models, usually one model is doing 1 thing in line 1, then the same model is doing something else in line 2.

 

Of course Interactive is limited and some buttons don't work properly due to VX using a different set of new options, well even 7,5 at times was limited. Some options don't work in the penetration loop, or on the contrary you don't want them to be locked. Yes, in some cases you actively don't want to lock certain bodyparts, because you can a very specific effect.

No doubt, Animation is handy, though for me it's not the way to go, I mostly use interactive poses, though I still have a fair amount of animation poses.

For sex poses, vaginal & anal, I use mostly interactive poses.

For blowjob poses, fingering, boobjob, cuni, whatever, there it really depends. There's so limits, in some cases some things are not possible abd you're forced to use Animation.

One extreme where you really might to go animation, if you have too many models interacting with each other, like three or foursome poses, where all the models are doing something to each other. Connecting may lock 2 people up, while the third & fourth player will be unaligned. I've found some cases where this is no problem, like I've managed to make excellent Double Penetration poses, this isn't a problem, if you do it right, it can look awesome & smooth, working perfectly. If you combine a vaginal penetration and the same girl is giving a blowjob, that usually messes up the blowjob, either you only stick to the blowjob and keep the keeps in the same spot, this is one way to keep the pose valid, but it's limiting, if you want bloth the hips & mouth to move, then the pose simply won't work, the mouth will keep getting unaligned and it won't look right, in this case you're forced to go with Animation. You need that extra control, while losing the speed adjustement, all the actions need to happen in the same speed frame to work basically.

 

Interactive & locked bodyparts limits you, like a blowjob pose where you want the hips to move, that's not possible in interactive, only the mouth & spine are supposed to move (actually find it sad that it wasn't programmed differently, if it was, you would be able to make insane interactive poses), same problem arises when making boobjob poses. The boobs movem, (male) hips & penis can move, female hips are not supposed to move and can't move.

Actually going into boobjob poses, interactive boob poses aren't total crap, well make, can be pretty decent, but they only portray some limited poses, the better poses in Animation allow you to move the hips and you get a new range of movements, allowing way more poses. In this case, I still like to connect the penis to the boobs, it's not really a factor in animation, but I prefer to do it. If I'm using a slightly different model, adapting is either super easy or I don't need to do anything, because the boobs are locked up, when I do use different sized models, then I got more adapting to do, but still, because of the locking, it's less model. Same pose with none locked boobs would be a lot more work with height differences. In some rare cases, I can even change the height and the pose still works because of the locking. I just find it more useful to lock parts. I do see the usefulness of some times not connecting penetration or blowjob, etc... in some very specific cases, smoothness demands non locked parts, in some poses in fact, locking up will make making the pose more difficult. Like certain vaginal penetrations where you can the penis to go a certain way at a certain angle, or you want a blowjob where the mouth moves a certain way vs the penis, locking up will only make it harder and it's better to leave them unlocked.

 

The real problem with non locked animation poses is the fact that they only work for those models used, they don't always work for other models and models with different heights are usually completely messed up.

 

I would say, the holy grail ,at least for me, when it comes to the PoseEdit, is making poses who should make in animation, but you somehow manage to make them in Interactive. I just love having access to that orgasm loop, but most important of all, I love being able to pick whether I want the pose to go fast or slow.

I'll give 3 examples of this concept, most people would make them in Animation, including me. Going the interactive way is...the longer and more troublesome way. In some cases I'll even admit, i gave up trying to make the poses I wanted.

 

Example 1: three or foursome, guy is fucking a girl and either the guy or the girl being fucked is licking some other girl (or guy, whatever). Basically you need to limit the hip movement of the fucking (anal or vaginal penetration, doesn't matter, about the same movement), while keeping the licked part in roughly about the same range. It's about syncronising the bodyparts and not doing overboard with the movement. Sounds easier said than done. If the movements are too big, the mouth gets unaligned, but it's too small, the movement doesn't seem natural. You also have the phantom frame to deal with, before & after the penetration, in most cases I prefer to not add the extra hip movement at the bottom of the models options (the one you pick or don't pick). The only way to test out and see the working pose is to launch it and see it yourself, what you see in your timeline won't be what you see once launched. The hip & penis movement have to remain in a certain range, then the mouth (and tongue) need to remain in a certain range vs the vagina being licked, you have to keep the mouth/tongue somewhere between the vagina hole, again, only launching the pose and testing can you see the true range, vs the fake range in the timeline.

These type of poses are hard to make and like animation, mostly will work with whatever settings you got on your own models. In some cases I had to give up, I couldn't make the particular pose I wanted. Even now I don't have a ton of these.

 

Example 2: this is a fun one, very particular example; 2 girls with a single dildo (double dildo action basically, 100% has to not be curved or this add extra difficulty). Some dildos inserted, you can't tell front from back, maybe as well imagine it being a double sided one. In this cases, it's a bit easier, though not so easy either. The difficulty lies in ligning up the 2 vaginas & the 2 hips perfectly, basically you want both girls, all the movements to happen exactly over the dildo and nowhere else, while also fully taking into account the shape and the entrance of both vaginas. I did this connecting the main dildo to one girl, you align perfectly the second girl, put it into her vagina as well, you make this second girl move by connecting a second dildo at a distance where you can't see it, this second dildo serves to get the penetration and get access to that speed control.

The result you want is both girls going on the dildo, you got 2 speeds and you even get to choose the speed, you can synchronise it, but you don't have to, it's up to you.

 

Example 3: somewhat similar to example 2 in therms of mechanism, but result is different. Intercrural sex where both girls are rubbing their Vags on the dick. Basically 1 penis, 2 girls rubbing on it. You start by 1 girl connected on the guy, penis is outside, rubbing on it, the second girl kind of doesn't matter, this pose can work as a duo pose on it's own. It's mostly the girl rubbing on it with very minimal movement from the male, keep the penis straight up. You add the second girl, align the hips and the vagina entrance, generally this is way easier than example 2 as you're only using the entrance of the vagina. Same as E 2, you connect a second dildo to the second girl and that lets you control the speed. These last 2 examples are very similar concept, I've used about the same mechanics to create a double to triple blowjob on 1 guy, same as E 3, you have 1 main girl blow him, though, here you need to leave some space for the others, then you add the second (& third?) girl, put her mouth in the right spot, connect it to a phantom dildo for the movement.

Sure there's some limits, in some cases even I prefered to go the Animation route, in these examples I managed to pull of what I wanted though.

 

 

Really long rant, I use both types, I connect and I don't, it's all just tools to achieve a goal. Got a preference for interactive and connecting, but only because it suits my goals better this way.

 

 

 

[AdultRex]

sometime the links body parts is useful and sometime it make make it harder 

for exmaple if you want to use a toy . if you connect the hand to that toy it will be really easier to move the hands with the toy smoothly

and for example if you do some boobs hand rubbing or touching if you connect the hand the breast that will be useful when you change the model the hand will fit the breast even if you increases the breast size 

but when it come to connect a penis to pussy here will be some issue if you rotate the hips the body do some funny annouing extra movement and fixing that it more time consuming then the pussy open silder 

so you mostly need to how to link to body parts work then you can find it useful to you

it good mechanic