[Studio] Minifigures and Parts Manager

[ExcelsiorUK]

I'm getting to grips with the Studio way of doing things and if I'm understanding correctly minifigures are sometimes treated as a solid piece, but put their components in piece by piece and you can manipulate them?

Now, I tried creating a custom minifigure in Parts Manager (spinning it made my graphics driver crash?!) and managed it but on importing into Studio it seems to be a solid unit - I was going to use a stock head but it seems welded on! Am I missing something, or do I need to add decals to a left arm, right arm and so on? Still on the learning curve! Thanks.

[SylvainLS]

A part, even if it’s an assembly of subparts, is fixed and immovable.

The same can be said for submodels: on the level they are used in, they are seen as parts.  The only difference with parts is that you can edit them in Studio.  They then become the current model and their submodels and parts are immovable.  It’s submodels all the way down, until you hit a “part” which you can only edit in PartDesigner.

BUT, as it was a big problem for hinges, torsos…, Studio added a tool.  If you use a standard torso (that comes with Studio), if you select the part and hover over the hand (looks like a wrench) icon, there’s a third icon on the right (the first two being translation and rotation).  That icon is a hinge tool for these assemblies: you can edit the part and rotate the arms.

BUT, you can’t make your own hingeable assemblies with PartDesigner, yet (we asked…).

So, TL;DR, yes, for now, you have to make the minifigure in the correct pose in PD or create a decorated part for each subpart, and all the separated parts will appear in the BOMs.

[ExcelsiorUK]

Thanks but as is often the way no sooner had I asked than I realised that whilst the import had brought in the whole figure, when I scrolled down the sub parts were also staring me in the face! Very clever, and problem solved. Only side issue - the inside of the legs you can't apply decals too. Might try and mention that to them...