i want to start posting/making proper gposes….but i am very bad at it lol. with most things however, i do tell myself that even if i am pretty shit/useless at them, i don’t use ai for anything! so thats something! probably.
seriously tho if any gposers have any guides or just general tips for someone new to it; especially if that someone (totally not me) has no background in art/photography and knowledge of composition or whatever idk. pls and thank u 🙏
I. Well. That didn't take long at all. In all transparency! I was not aiming to get a new area unlocked just yet! But I had the points, and decided that it would be smarter of me to go and unlock a new area asap. I was hoping to go to Ul'Dah but unfortunately the game chose my path for me.
how would a complete complete beginner get into gpose? like how to make npcs appear and pose my oc with them?
love your blorbos and the triad and your gposes and writing btw. thank you and pls keep creating <333
Hi, anon! Thank you so much, that's so sweet 💜
So, I may have gotten a little carried away, but I wanted to be thorough responding and I thank you for your patience. This is going under a readmore out of courtesy to the dashboard.
To start out you'll need to download some stuff.
Programs
Anamnesis:
Install: download
This is an entirely self-contained program, and you could technically stop here and do all your posing from Anamnesis, I know several people who prefer it. It’s perfect for posing with humanoid models, minions, and mob creatures.
The biggest downside is that if you don’t have a second monitor (or have a really small screen like I do), it’s going to get in the way of a lot of your posing. It gets pretty fiddly having to readjust the camera around the doll and move the screen aside so you can see what you’re doing. So if that’s going to be an issue for you, I would also recommend using….
Ktisis:
Install: download
You will also need to install the FFXIVQuicklauncher, which is linked in the Ktisis instructions. It’s a bit more work to set up, but if you think you’ll want to try out using mods, Penumbra works on the same framework and this will save you a bit of hassle later on.
Ktisis operates within gpose from a little dropdown bar on the side of your screen, and the biggest difference is that it puts the skeleton directly over the models in 3D instead of a flat view. It does still have a flat view option, but I am much more 3D oriented so having the skeleton visible right under my cursor works better for me. It’s also helpful for showing all the special bones on monsters and bosses that Anam doesn’t!
I am also currently using the testing build version of Ktisis as it offers the ability to select multiple bones at a time, which I don’t believe the current public release has. This can be turned on by right clicking on the plugin and selecting “receive plugin testing versions”.
There is a third posing program called Brio, and it requires the same level of install as Ktisis, but I personally don’t like using it. I find the posing interface unwieldy and at a beginner level, it really cannot offer you anything that Anamnesis and Ktisis already don’t. The only thing it would be absolutely necessary for is to spawn in actors through Anamnesis.
So now that we’ve got the programs installed, time to get some actors in here.
Importing Characters
You can get characters into gpose one of two ways. You can rock it old school and load a character file onto a pre-existing model, or you can spawn a new one digitally within gpose.
Old School Method:
Use an overworld model! I’m just going to borrow this Temple Knight real quick-
-and now I have successfully freed Aymeric from his office. Time for a lunch date!
If you don’t have any overworld models to use, like in instanced areas such as dungeons, you can use a carbuncle instead.
Using the powers of arcanima-
-I have now brought Estinien into the realm of the Fuath. And he thought the moogles were bad...
New School Method:
In the Ktisis testing workspace, there’s a little plus icon at the bottom left hand corner.
“Create new actor” will make a clone of your model with all the same gear and physical appearances. You can then load a character file onto that of your choice, or you can customise it from there. “Import actor from file” will skip right ahead to loading in a premade character file you’ve saved as it spawns a new model.
Importing/Exporting Character Files
Character files are how your appearance, gear, and weapons are all stored to be loaded in onto an actor. These will appear in your program save files as a .chara file. Anamnesis and Ktisis should create their own save files and will automatically save character and pose information to those locations. You can also check to see that they saved correctly by opening up your files directory and tracing the file paths.
In the “Character” tab in Anamnesis, select the actor of your choice, hit “Import”, and select your file. The dropdown menu gives you some options for what specific parts of a character file you want to import. There’s also the option to import game NPCs.
In Ktisis, right click the actor and select “Import…” then “Character”.
This will bring up the import screen, where you have the same choice between files saved to your computer or NPCs from the game.
Changing Gear
Changing gear can be done through Anamnesis simply by clicking on the item slot in the appearance tab, and you’ll get a list of everything that can be equipped into that slot. Ktisis will require you to right click on an actor and select “Edit appearance” before giving you a similar menu.
This is one of Anamnesis’ biggest selling points because it has the most robust gear filtering and search system of the three posing programs. You can filter by class, job, race/genderlocked gear, items that are Mogstation purchases, and save favourites to the top of each list.
Ktisis and Brio do not have this feature, so I really recommend doing all of your gear searching through Anamnesis unless you know exactly what the gear piece is called.
If you change your mind mid-pose that you want a different piece of gear, changing the equipment in Ktisis will not break the pose, but trying through Anamnesis will.
Posing
Now that you’ve got your dolls in place, it’s time to actually start posing! Like I said above, Anamnesis is mostly a flat view of the skeleton, and Ktisis has the skeleton visible in 3D on the model, so choose which format works with your brain easiest. (And they both can swap formats as well.)
The red/blue/green gizmo is the same across all three posing programs, and comes in three modes; rotate, position, and scale. Body bones will all be manipulated through rotation. Scaling can be done if you want to change how a body part looks and is especially helpful for fixing elbows. Facial bones, however, will need to be moved in position mode due to the new graphical update. And this is really why I recommend you use Ktisis testing build as this gives you the ability to select multiple bones at once to move in tandem.
The easiest way to start learning to pose is by modifying the existing emotes and actions. Cycle through the various emotes and job actions to find something that gets you close to what you want, and then make minor tweaks from there. It’s not impossible to pose from a base standing idle, but it is a pain and takes a lot longer.
Before you can start repositioning bones, you’ll need to toggle “Posing Mode” on. In Anamnesis, this is in the “Pose” tab, and in Ktisis it’s the red/green toggle at the top. You’ll also need to pause character movement in gpose (freeze character).
If you plan on moving models around in the XYZ coordinates instead of leaving them where they are in gpose (especially since the digital actors will spawn directly on top of you), you will need to freeze positions as well. This is found in the top right corner of the “Action” tab in Anamnesis.
In Ktisis, the "Freeze Positions" button is under the character editor. Right click on your character, choose "Edit appearance", then under the animation tab (third from the left), check "Freeze Positions".
Importing/Exporting Poses
Another place where Ananmesis shines is having all of the vanilla pose variations for all of the races and genders available as pose files to be uploaded. This is in the second file button, underneath the list of your original files.
Note: All default expressions currently in Anamnesis are out of date. Take the time to go through the expressions in gpose and save each face individually to be loaded on separately as expressions.
This is the same process as importing/exporting characters. Poses will be saved as a .pose file to the program of your choice. If you’ve downloaded pre-made poses from someone else, make sure they’re in the program files and not your downloads folder just to keep everything in one place.
Note: Pose files from before Dawntrail will break expressions. These should only be imported on body bones.
Loading Select Bones
You can piece together new poses using bits of old ones, too! In Ananmesis, click and drag to highlight the parts you want to transfer (it can be a little finnicky around the hands/hips.)
And in Ktisis, right click select down the list of bones you want to use.
Expressions will always need to be loaded onto a model as selected bones. Anamnesis has the “Expression” option, which will automatically select all the bones on the head parent.
Ktisis will need to have the “Face” option ticked on the “Import Pose” if you’re importing from the actor’s name. If you’ve clicked the parent you want to apply it to, it will automatically tick “Apply selected bones”.
The ideal order of operations is Load Actors > Load Gear > Posing Mode.
Miscellaneous Tips and Tricks
-Ktisis lets you import reference images now! In the same place as importing a new character, you can import a reference image to be on the screen with you instead of tabbing between the game and browser.
-If you like the pose you get while riding a particular mount and think “wow I wish I could have that as a normal sit pose” you can just fire up your program of choice, freeze motion, and save the bones! My personal fave is the sit from the hippo cart mount.
-Don’t rotate your model from the root bone (the one that’s named after the actor), rotate from the abdomen. This will still move your whole actor without compromising the XYZ alignment. Think of the root bone as the little plastic support stand for an action figure you’d put on a shelf. You can pose the action figure however you want, but the plastic stand still has to stay touching the table.
~
That’s it for what I would consider getting started with. A lot of this is stuff I’ve had to learn myself or piecemeal together from various people, so I hope it’s not too overwhelming, but if I can save someone else the hassle I went through then I will!
My final piece of advice is to remember that this is supposed to be fun. If it’s starting to become not fun, take a break and do something else that isn’t gposing for a bit and come back to it.
Wishing you the best of luck in your gposing journey!
