Hi- wondering what is the best way to compile animation images rendered in poser.  I have rendered my animation as images, then I tried to compile them in pinnacle studio video program (I am full aware this program is low level).  Anyway, I am not sure what the best way is to make the video animation from the images- pinnacle added way too many artifacts when rendered as avi.

-how many seconds, or tenths of seconds should each frame be in order to create a non jumpy animation?

-what is the best way to change speed throughout the animation- before compiling, or after?

-should I render the animation in my video program and then change speed to my liking after importing the rendered video?

-what program is best to do this?

-I rendered as TIF - should I change the format for compilation?

I have photoshop, and macromedia suite- will these help me?

Thanks a lot for any help, I just got a new job teaching drawing at a new media college, and I have my first class this Thursday and am trying to quickly throw together an animation that looks good to tie together with story-boarding  - so far my images look good, but I need to compile them with a good final result.  I am pretty excited about the job- they will pay for me to learn 3DSMAX in order to teach it and I am trying to make a good first impression, even if I am only using poser.

thanks!!

For smooth playback motion, you would want to render 24 frames per second at a minimum. This is the same frame rate at film cameras and high def TV (since the frame rates of NTSC and PAL will soon be an issue except to "digitize" legacy footage).

I render out series of TIFs or openEXR files, but you should choose a format that works best for you. There's a jillion programs to turn your images into moving pictures - if Pinnacle works for you, then use it until you need more powerful features.

[edit] I didn't read the teacher part. If you're using 3DS Max, you'll probably use Combustion or Toxic since they're packaged together. I currently use After Effects and considering moving to Shake [/edit]

Whatever program you use, even Pinnacle, to avoid artifacts, use the least amount of compression you can get away with. If your computer can play it back smoothly and it looks acceptable, you've found the settings that are good for you. If you're playing it back on a DVD, then use the settings that will work best for it. Many programs, like Pinnacle Studio, have pre-sets that are ready made for that. Do a couple of test runs using enough frames for a few seconds of play time just to see if things look good and frames are playing smoothly. If you get a strobe effect, next time use motion blur when rendering. At this point, you just need a program that will put all the frames together and render out a movie file in the fromat that will work for your needs. If you didn't change the frame rate, Poser defaults to 30fps.

You can  create actons  of filter effects  etc in Photoshop  which will apply them automatically to each frame in your image sequences folder.

Good luck with the job:)

Thanks a lot for the replies.  The problem was that I was rendering as an avi file.  Maybe this works for some on some programs but not with with what I was using.  

I changed to mpeg with a high bitrate, and wow, what a difference, looks perfect.  It seemed the best to compile at .02  per frame- not sure if that is exactly right, but Pinnacle does not go beyond tenths.

Quote -
Good luck with the job:)

Thanks!!!

I render to image sequence at 30 fps openEXR.

That way for highest end, I can take it into Abode After Effects and/or Photoshop and adjust at 32-bit for exposure, balance, contrast, channels.

I then make my final out to the Quicktime h.264 codec.

But for several years before I could afford that, I assembled my image file with Quicktime Pro ($29) which includes encoding with that same great h.264.

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