Just got the email from EF.
Pretty cool stuff! I just can't believe how far they're taking Poser 7.

Ooh, i'm the first to reply

I think the animation layers is totally awesome.

so that's like layers or tracks in whatever video editors we're already using? I'm trying to imagine the memory load on poser if it's forced to render several layers (tracks) for one animation, given the difficulty some folks say they have, just trying to render one track in the current version of poser.

Totally painful to me. ;)

You know that I'll have to support this with my C4D plugin before getting full Poser 4-level support implemented.  Let's see Dazzzzz.... do that! ;P

while the animation is good.. I prefer the new Python options and having Python to hand more easily :)

I've been wishing for animation layers in Poser for awhile and am glad to see it finally implemented. It's going to save a lot of wear-n-tear (that is as long as the memory doesn't take a bit hit as a result.) :thumbs up:

I’m starting to raise my eyebrows! At long last something for the animator - this is the best reason to buy so far – just hope you can scrub the timeline in layers (I didn’t see a playhead). Hope the Setup room gets some work done to it too. Bit disappointed to see the interface is looking much the same I was hoping the space could have been utilised better – I think there’s still going to be usability issues. Poser at some point has got to turn at least semi professional, not sure if version 7 takes it there yet.
(~~/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")  oh! - they're at it already

I dont think memory management is going to be too much of a problem.

Unless you don't have enough. :)

Great stuff eFrontier!!!    I was half the way off the fence aready, now..you've sold me!

A bonanza for animators. Way to go!

This is I believe the best reason so far, the possibilities are mind boggling. It might not provide so much eye-catching-with-eye-candy screenshots, but for anyone seriously into Poser animation, this is heaven sent.
Three cheers for whoever is responsible for such a cool feature!

Five stars, three cheers and two thumbs up!! ( I need more thumbs.)

i can't use flash 8 can somebody convert it in flash 7 or a mov file ? many thx; Andygraph

You know this opens up a whole new market: animation layers. short area specific animations to speed up and drag the 'well, I'd -like- to try and animate, but...' crowd into the fray. Wonder how Vue 6 will treat this feature....? Anywhichway, this is going to be soooooo cool, being able to build a final animation in discrete layers. Once the bugaboos in their implementation are understood, this will really speed up the process....

SOLD!!!
:thumbupboth
Remember You can use all those layers in creating the animation
and then save the completed animation in youR library as an animated pose or BVH file and then apply it to a "clean" unlayered poser scene and character.

this theoreticlly will  allow backward compatibility to earlier versions

the KEY here is efficient  realistic character animation creation and REUSABLE
animation data.
that can be later applied to other figures etc.

I'm sold also!

You can scrub the graph editor - I wonder how the layers show up there?

That visability function sounds interesting.  If for no other reason, it might be nice to be able to "ghost" parts of your scene while working. I wonder if it works in prewiew or just at render?

I think we also got a glimpse at a full screen shot at the beginning of the video. Same interface as p6 (fine with me I guess), same room tabs, library looks the same,  extra tab on the Animation Window - so I wonder where the lip-sync function is called from...The face room? or a menu pop-up (i bet) like walk designer? Same walk designer (I always wished for an easier way to edit the  walk path. )

JP

And make abalible the walk designer to quadrupeds.

Oh my. Combine the new layers ability with Puppet Master's abilities. As in take a bvh, load it, delete the unwanted sections, then use PM to translate for a different character. Talk about an easier way to animate with non DAZ meshes! I foresee new life in all those 'old' meshes no one wanted to support. Throw in Wardrobe Wizard and dynamic cloth, and we may just be cooking with gas here!

Quote - so I wonder where the lip-sync function is called from...

I paused the video. it is in the menu between walk designer and Python scripts window (which has a hot key now along with Hierarchy editor and joint editor)

also note there is a Scripts pull down menu

I got the e-mail, but I don't even know what animation layers are. 

Quote - I got the e-mail, but I don't even know what animation layers are. 

Conceptually, like photoshop layers. For an example: 1) Create a walk cycle as the first layer, and set it to repeat X times for Y seconds. Now you have a figure walking. 2) In your library you have a 25 frame animation of a figure waving its arm; no motion in the torso, legs, etc. Load this onto a second layer. 3) Poser then compiles and combines the two layers, so you get an output of a figure walking for Z frames, waving in the first 25 of those frames (assuming the wave isn't set to loop) 4) You don't like the wave there, so you open the layers control panel and slide that 2nd layer's position down the timeline to where you want it. Poser recompiles, and you have the wave occur later. By doing animation in layers, this allows you to say, spend time on getting a hand reach and grab perfect...then saving it, and ignoring that hand and arm in favor of getting the body where it needs to be for that grab to occur. When you have that, just add the arm--hand motion as a new layer, and Poser does the rest. BY doing it this way, you could animate feet in one layer, legs in another, hips in a third, torso in a fourth, chest/shoulders in a 5th, and so on (at least to the limit of the number of layers you can have....no idea on that yet). This will help big time with the problems a lot of people have, when they get one body part perfect, and then in the course of working on another, utterly screw up that perfect work. It will also help with repetative and location specific animation (another example; you could set a figure down at Davo's SFCS consoles, and animate a series of hand motions, saving each one to the library, then add them to a later animation, saving you the trouble of having to keyframe them all over again). Clear as mud?

Hmmm.  Sounds great in theory.  But it seems like everything would have be lined up perfectly for it to look right.  Never mind the way the motion of one part of the body affects the rest...

True, which makes me wonder if improved IK chaining is one of the new features.; if so, that would tend to deal with passing motion from extremeties to the torso. And since layering of this nature is pretty standard in the higher end packages....

Quote - ...Bit disappointed to see the interface is looking much the same I was hoping the space could have been utilised better – I think there’s still going to be usability issues...

I just had a thought about this.

Maybe they're showing us the old interface, so that they can use either reason #6 or #7 to unveil a new interface, without having given anything away.

At least, it's something to hope for.

I hope you can still edit your animation after 'Layers' is done with it. As randym77 is correct in saying you’re in danger of getting a mechanical look to your animation.

This is a good time to introduce new words to the makers of Poser for Poser 8 –

'Squash and Stretch'.

How about true bezier handle on the spline curves or the ability to animate the x, y and Z axix seperately?