I am trying to make an animation and I run into problems during movie making. the animation is set for 10 FPS and has 300 frames. Every 10 frames I make an adjustment(EX: Slighty open door, move models hand to follow knob, Go 10 frames ahead, move all items a little more, rinse, repeat...) During all of this it "seems" fine, but when I review or make the movie, the model jerks around like crazy and all the frames start getting screwed up. IK is set for legs and arms. Any help is appreciated.

What type of interpolation are you using? Spline, linear, static?

Whatever the default is. Spline I believe.

Hmmm... that should give you fairly smooth animation. It could be your frame rate. 24fps is what is used for film and approx. 30fps is used for TV/Video video. 15fps should still looks okay in most circumstances, though.

Maybe check your animation pallette and see if any extra keyframes were inadvertantly created that could be causing this.

Let me clarify. It's not the frame rate or animation "speed" that is the problem. The problem is like this: I made a posable cage prop that folds and unfolds. I put the models hand on the cage and every 10 frames unfold the cage a little and keep the models hand on it. It looked ok so I continued to do the rest of the animation (300 frames) When I went back to some of the frames I did in the beginning, they were messed up. The model was in the cage prop, the cage prop was twisted the wrong way, the model looked like a contortionist, etc.... It looks as though Poser changed some of my keyframes on it's own. I made the movie just to make sure and it IS changed.

What you're seeing is a common negative result of the Spline interpolation. Let's say the first time you turn the model's head is in frame 200. Poser runs the spline forward and backward from that point, resulting in Exorcist-style head spinning. The cure is to use the keyframe graph setup to place a "Spline Break" at the points where movement of one element begins and ends. You have to do this immediately, before Poser has a chance to extrapolate both ways. Another cure, even more tiring but also less error-prone, is to set up the animation in short segments, each with its own PZ3 file, then join together the AVIs after Poser is done. This prevents Poser from messing anything up outside of each segment, and makes it easier to correct interpolation problems when they do arise. .....ockham

Okay, I think I have a better idea now. Taking a look at the twist channel of the cage prop in the Graph Editor might give you an idea of what is going on.

With spline interpolation, the motion is calculated as a curved line that travels through all the points (keyframes). If you have only 2 keyframes, the motion will be calculated as a straight line from point A to point B. With 3 keyframes, the motion is a curve that starts at point A and curves through point B on it's way to point C. The more keyframes you add, the more complex this curve gets, and too many keyframes will cause extreme arcs in the curve that often go opposite the direction you wish.

The easiest solution is, every few keyframes, at the start or end of a particular motion, to add spline breaks to the keyframes. These interupt the curve and help to eliminate many of the nasty motion arcs.

I hope that makes sense...hope this helps.

Ah, you beat me to it ockham.

OK, I'll look into both of your suggestions Thanks! Now an important question. Do I have to start over or can I insert them in the exisitng PZ3 file?

Also is one of the other interpolation methods better at not affecting my animation? (I am a newbie at all of this)

You can insert them into the existing animation. Keep in mind you may have to do a little adjusting afterwards.

Using linear interpolation will keep you from having this problem, but keep in mind that the motion moves from a straight line from keyframe to keyframe, giving you much more robotic looking animation. That can be desireable sometimes, but it always depends on the situation.

Is there any chance you are creating your avi with a Codec compression, if try uncompressed and use a video editor try using a standard compression format. Second thing that occurs to me is I have to ask what is your Shadow Map Size on your lights. A smaller shadow map some times makes an image look shakey in animation. I hope this helps if it isn't this it is likely to be something you can figure out by looking at your key frame editor.

Deimos, it's not frame rate that was the problem. The models themselves get all twisty, even before I make the movie. EX: If I make a straight arm in frame 10 and bend it every 10 frames til frame 200 to bring it over the head, and then I go back to frame 60, the arm looks likes its twisted into a pretzel. I still have to try the other suggestions above though.

Ya that sounds like some thing you will have to currect with your key frame editor like the others said. Best of luck.