I would like to make some cool animations using Poser and Metaform but the only way to export from Poser is with still images. QT imports them and puts them back together beautifully and then makes a really hot mp4. I want to splice this into some real digital video but Premiere won't take it. Any suggestions?

Hiya ajvelez, I'm not familiar with Poser or Metaform, but if you can export your animation as a series of numbered still images, you can import that sequence directly into Premiere (File / Import / File ... then choose the first still in the sequence, and be sure the little check-box labeled "Numbered Stills" is checked). My general "rules of thumb" are: render your stills as TIF or TARGA (TGA) files (to eliminate compression artifacts like you'll get with JPG files), and ... ... avoid using files previously compressed with other codecs -- only use captured Digital Video, or imported still sequences in your project, to keep your video quality as high as possible. I hope that helps!

Thanks, it worked! The only problem I'm having is that the I saved the animation at 30 fps. When I get it into Premiere each image is 5 seconds long. It has a kinda interesting effect, Like tripped out slo mo, maybe I will use it later, but I would like to set the duration of each image a 1/30th of a second to retain the original animation speed and I don't want to go in and change each frame. Is there a way I can batch process all these seperate images?

Hiya, That sounds like you imported each render separately. You want to import them as a sequence of numbered stills. Your renders should have a number suffix on the file name, like "render001.tif, render002.tif, render003.tif", etc. When you choose "File / Import / File ..." in Premiere, select just the FIRST file in your sequence, and then check the little check-box labeled "Numbered Stills" at the bottom of the import file dialog box (it'll be greyed-out until you select your first file). Premiere then imports the whole sequence as one chunk of video. If your renders are NOT sequentially numbered ... It might be just as easy to rename the renders so that they ARE sequentially numbered, and then re-import them. But, if you've already imported them separately and placed them on your timeline in Premiere, then you can control the duration by creating a "virtual clip" ... Use the "Block Select Tool" in Premiere to select the whole sequence on the timeline, then "click-and-drag" the sequence to another location on the timeline -- this will create your "virtual clip". Then, just adjust the "duration" of your virtual clip to the correct value (30 stills equaling 1 second). Hope that helps!

Hey, I didn't even see that select numbered list box. My settings are so touchy, as soon as I put the mouse over the image it just selects it. Anyways, I was able to select the first frame named Barney_00001.bmp. The rest are sequentially numbered. I clicked the numbered stills but it only gave me 1 barney, waahh. Anyways I can get the whole group in there and I dragged the entire sequence like you said but the speed/duration option is greyed out. So, what I did was make an avi out of the sequence then reimport the file and set the duration for 30 frames. Seems rather cumbersome to me. Just goes to show what a little knowledge will do for you. Anyways, I put barney out there for you to look at, it's at foreordained.org/barney.mpg. I would love to get this stuff into premiere and use those tools to make some trippy stuff and the metaform plug in will only export as stills. The QT program just grabbed them all and made a beauty. I'll try again tomorrow, cya. ADAM

Hey bro, I just realized that I was doing what you said and it was working all the time! I had the timeline so large that to me it looked like one frame and the sequence came in as barney_00001.bmp, I thought it was just one frame but then, guess what, I hit the PLAY button and it worked fine! Thanks alot for puttin' up with my dopey self. Adam