I've been a member for a while but this will be my first post. I've been working with Poser 6 for a while, forging my way through it with only minor difficulty from time to time. I've recently decided to begin learning about animation using poser. I've made a few short ones as tests and they've come out all right as far as the animation part goes. My problem is when I make a movie, whether it's an AVI, flash or whatever, not all of the colors and textures show up. I get a lot of white where color and texture should be. I've searched through the manual and couldn't find a reference to this. I know I must be overlooking something but I don't know what. Could someone point me in the right directions? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

booksbydavid

on the Movie Settings dialog, when you go to make Animation, do you have Renderer set to Firefly rather than Preview?

I've tried to render animation using firefly. It takes a while for the AVI to complete (which I expect) and when I view it all I get is a gray screen (I forgot to mention that before)  that lasts as long as the animation was supposed to. I've rendered using preview and I get the animation but missing some of the textures and colors.

When I create a normal render  everything comes out fine. (I render using firefly). These problems only occur when I try to render an animation. I've really become intrigued by the whole animation process and I'd really like to create them. I hope you can help.

 you'll need to be systematic to solve something like this. go over all your "make movie" render settings and just render a few frames each time as you change things until you find the answer. It's far too complicated to dial you in when all you are telling us is that "it doesn't work." confirm that your movie settings are actually using the firefly renderer if that's what you want.

what codec are you using to render the avi file? start with the cinepak codec by radius, not any of the windows or indeo stuff.

try rendering sequential frames to see if they are ok. There should be no difference between rendering one frame and rendering 200. render out 5 frames as tiff or png then look at them to see if they have all the textures you expected. if so, your problem is elsewhere.

without some in depth research and feedback on your part  there are too many variables.

 
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Try rendering the animation as individual tif frames, and save them in a special folder.  Afterwards, you can then assemble them in  Animation Shop or Gif animator, or some such program.  That way, you'll avoid any codec problems.  (Also, if for anyreason the render should stall in mid process, you haven't lost all your work
DPH

fuaho, I never said "it doesn't work". I gave what information I knew to give in hopes that someone could point me in the right direction. I did say at the outset that I was new to the whole Poser animation thing. I apologize if I wasn't technical enough for you.

With that said, I'd like to thank you all for the help. You've given me things to think about and try that I hadn't thought of before. I still get only a blank screen when I render an AVI with firefly (using several different codecs as well as with no compression at all) but I have had success with rendering individual images and putting them together in a separate animation program so I guess a blank AVI doesn't really matter.

Thanks again to you all. You've help me solve my problem at least well enough to dive a bit deeper into Poser animation.

NEVER render an animation as an AVI; that can ONLY lead to grief.  In your animation settings, set to render as individual tif frames instead, to be saved in a special folder.  Then afterwards, assemble them into a movie in  Animation Shop or Gif animator, or some such program.  That way, you'll avoid whatever codec problems, and increase your control over the output.  (Also, if for anyreason the render should stall in mid process, you haven't lost all your work
DPH

Thanks. I'll be following your advice.

David H is right on target that it is much better to animate using individual frames. 

My animation process involves saving as individual PNG files then assembling into an AVI using the free VirtualDub program.  Then I use the free Windows Media Encoder to create a WMV version.  Using this approach, I can generate 1280x720 animations which look fabulous on a hi-def TV hooked up to a PC.

i'm new to poser too. i have the same problem, rendering with firefly just gives me a blank avi. (although i made the background green not grey as i am trying some green screen stuff) but i don't know if i really like the answer of make them png's and assemble thenm in another program...although it's a great way to increase the resolution, although most of my stuff is 720X480 video junk. I can get it to render using poser 4 settings, i get a good movie. i wish i could select firefly and get a good avi file. although i will try what has been suggested. any other ideas? is everyone else rendering a avi with firefly and not having this problem? is it just the two of us? hmmm

Never had a problem rendering to avi in Firefly myself. Though I really do generally render to an image sequence ( I use PNG). Mainly for the reason DPH mentioned, if the process does get interupted on say, frame 298 of 300 I haven't lost those 298 frames.

Read my patented screed on rendering to codec here; http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2701396 The -only- time I do this is as a check, and I never render beyond preview quality, as that is all I need for timing and intersection tests. Whether you should stay with single renderer Poser or invest in another program as your end stage renderer (one that has network rendering abilities) is another topic altogether.... ;)