Hi,
I am new to Poser. What is the best way to place an animated model created in poser over video? I am not sure if poser has the feature, but it would be great if I could see the video on a timeline within poser, so I could position the characters according to the video background. Is this possible? If not, how do I do it? Do I need other software.

Kind regards,
Mil

You can import a AVI video as a background. Scrub through the timeline, and you can see the video move, and animate the characters accordingly.

Message edited on: 04/11/2005 02:07

Thanks, I will give it a go. Is there a way to mask the figure over the video? For example, imagine I want the figure to appear from behind a door way, can I create a mask to do this - so I can make it look like it comes from the doorway. Kind regards, Mil

Do you mean creating a render for compositing into an image of a doorway? Is this also for animation? There's no way that I'm aware of in Poser, be it features or material tricks, that allows you to "occlude" certain portions of rendered objects in this way for compositing purposes. The way it's done in other apps is with special "matte" composite materials. You would basically insert a "mock up" of whatever object is in your background image into the scene, then apply a special matte material to it, which would render invisible, but also occlude objects behind it for seamless compositing. Poser simply doesn't have this. You can, however, make objects into "shadow catchers" for compositing shadows, if you have P5/P6.

How do you import avi to background? Is this different to import avi. When I do import avi I cannot see the video. Thanks.

I just answered my own question - the first fram simply didn't show video. It is working now.

Another question if I may: I got my model to walk over imported avi file, but when I make movie, the background video is omitted - oh - so close - but so far. I can only see model and default poser background. How do I make movie with both? Cheers.

If you render to a file format with alpha channel intact, then all you need to do is composite it with the original movie in post. It's better that way anyway. To answer your question, though... check to make sure "render over" is set to 'background picture' in your render settings. If it's set to 'background color', then that's what it will render.