Requesting help in posing playermodels for Sandbox

Sandbox is a brilliant tool for creating awesome images, though it has a problem: it can only use exisiting animations and poses of current player models.

I tried to open erebus in blender, only to see that it's very complex, and already has tons of animations. I can't do anything with it

I suggest to put together a model-posing pack. I'd do it, but I truly lack the knowledge how to do that, that's why I'm asking for help.
The pack would consist of the current playermodels with their bones, but no existing animations. The model should stand in T-pose.
There should be some kinda documentation how to pose the model, to get a static pose (eg. sitting on a chair, jumping in the air with hands raised, giving the middle finger etc.)
Documentation how to export the model, so it can be used ingame with sandbox oob.

Who'd like to help me to put this pack together?

Hmm, I am not sure that what you ask for is even possible with DP right now. There is no real-time manipulation of rigs in the engine right now AFAIK.
If what you are asking for is similar to what people do with Garry's Mod, then you would need a rag-doll physics simulation (which is a special kind of real-time rig manipulation).

You didn't read the post, did you?

He wants to pose the models in blender, not ingame. But the models don't seem to cooperate a lot.

Ahh ok... well to get the mesh into t-pose is rather simple, just select the rig by right clicking on it and then go to the small stickfigure looking tab on the right hand menu and choose "rest position".

However if you are a total n00b with Blender doing all the rest will be not so simple (posing is done by selecting the rig and switching to "pose mode" at the bottom menu, then you can select individual bones and rotate them), and getting that into the game I am not sure about.

The problem is, that when I open the blend files, they rearrange the panels, so there's no "panel at down" anymore for me (as if the .blend file would remember the last used panel arrangement used by the last user, who saved it.)
If I can get the model exported into a static zym model or even obj with proper paths for it's shaders, it's a piece of cake to get into the game, with the mentioned sandbox gamemode.

Ahh, you have to uncheck the "load ui" box on the left side when opening a .blend to keep the original orientation.

If you are not it the "rest position" it will also .obj export the mesh in the pose it is currently in. You will need to remove/not export the bounding box etc however.

Edit: to reset to t-pose in the pose mode (without toggleing the "rest position" option) select all bones by pressing "a" and then go to "pose" in the bottom menu and select "clear transform" -> "all".

Like I said on IRC today, I don't have the energy and often time to pose them myself (even if I know Blender well). It's not possible in DP / Xonotic yet, but it is a planned feature for the sandbox (later on) to allow armature posing... plus animations. But that will probably be much later on, after ragdolls and other features are in.

Ahh, you have to uncheck the "load ui" box on the left side when opening a .blend to keep the original orientation.

If you are not it the "rest position" it will also .obj export the mesh in the pose it is currently in. You will need to remove/not export the bounding box etc however.

Edit: to reset to t-pose in the pose mode (without toggleing the "rest position" option) select all bones by pressing "a" and then go to "pose" in the bottom menu and select "clear transform" -> "all".

Ok, following these, I could get erebus to pose in a sitting position, wohoo!
Just when I exported it, it was the crouching pose
So obviously I'm missing something.

See, that's why I'm talking about. With a little tinkering around, I could easily figure out how to do this and that, pose the model (some parts were a little bit awkward I have to admit), however in the end, it was still the crouching pose.
This is what I ment about tutorial: a simple description of fucntions, like where to click, what buttons to push, how to use bone groups, special bones - I suppose there is something like that, because when I rotated a spine, that rotated the whole model above, not just the torso.
Some tips and tricks.

Ahh ok... let me check the part about exporting in the position it is in again... maybe I was wrong.
About the torso thing you can not do much in the current rig I think, it's not set up for a more complex IK that would allow you to rotate the torso only, while keeping the arms or head in position.

About the torso thing you can not do much in the current rig I think, it's not set up for a more complex IK that would allow you to rotate the torso only, while keeping the arms or head in position.

That's ok like that. I mean, I like it.

I've got to say well done on having a look at posing! I'm looking forward to seeing some experimental stuff/crazy machinima.

This is NOT ANIMATIONS. Only POSING the models into static meshes, so I can use them for eg. WoX BloX comics.

Do'h! That's what I meant! (delete your post please Cube Owl and I'll delete this one).

Don't delete posts! Why would you do that!

Update: I've watched two very good blender tutorials, and by triel and error, (and with some help from nifrek and povoq) I already rigged Ignis, Erebus and Mega erebus for easy Sandbox posing. I think I'll be able to compile the tutorial pack all by myself now.

Sounds great.
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Here's a little sneak-peak of what's possible with the news rigs, and sandbox:

Gakly is Assasin Creed guy in disguise?

so thats how you made that .... you had me wondering ....

Awesome pic. And woah... how did you do that Did someone implement rig posing already for the sandbox? Must see a video or screenshots of how it's done, that is awesome

Nope. Like I said above, I watched two tutorials on cgcookie about creating armatures, and after that, I grabbed the playermodel source files, cleaned them up, made my own armatures (!), and posed the models in blender (with the new armatures it's only 2-3 minutes to make a pose), exported them to obj, fixed the texture paths, and used the models in sandbox.
It took me 3 whole days to clean up Ignis, Erebus, Megaerebus, Seraphina and Gak. Other are still waiting to be rerigged, but that I might save for another day.
Once I can get a little rest, I'll clean up the models even more, fix issues the armatures have, and write a detailed instruction on how to pose, export, and use them ingame, because once you get the flow of it, one model is like... 10 minutes to get ingame?

Ah ok, they're statically exported meshes then. I forgot about that Still hope it will be possible to do this soon with the sandbox (likely can't do it much without help). And glad the tutorials helped... Blender is really fun