So I have this panel with lights and I use the ambient to make them "blink". This is in an animation over 130 frames or so.  Everything is good and then all of the sudden the shadernode settings stop working or are corrupt. I go back into materials and the Animate icon is OFF - although earlier it is on.

But in the animation palette all of my keyframes are still there!  Then if I turn the animation for the ambience back on it adds a dupilcate entry in the animation palette neither which will work now.  I cannot figure out why this is corrupting.

The only way I can correct it is delete the prop. Add it back and then redo the color settings and the animation. This is maddening. Something is causing the shader node to corrupt in the PZ3 file but I don't know how to correct it any other way.

Can the PZ3 be edited and fixed w/o having to redo all the animation?

I think the duplication is coming from the 'ERC-like' control dial that Poser
adds to the BODY when you animate any material.  This control dial remains
in place even after you turn the little key back to gray on the material itself.
When you turn the animation back on, it adds another dial to the BODY.

You should be able to edit the PZ3 to get rid of the duplicate dials, and
also to place the keyframe sequence only on one dial.   It won't be easy
unless you're really familiar with editing such files.... might be easier to
start the scene over again.

Okay it sems to have something to do with Saving the file. when I saved the file quit poser and then brought the file back up - the shadernodes for the ambience were corrupt. They were working fine for all 3 separate props until the "save".

When I edit the PZ3 what am I looking for? 

And, where are the animation settings kept? I can't find anything in the PZ3 file that references that - just the parts of the prop.....

The parameters have distinct names.  Here's a sample from a stove figure with
controllable ambient 'burners'.

This paragraph is on the BODY:

        shaderNodeParm element-right_PoserSurface_6
            {
            name rightburner-ambient
            initValue 0
            hidden 1
            forceLimits 1
            min 0
            max 10
            trackingScale 0.01
            keys
                {
                static  0
                k  0  0
                }
            interpStyleLocked 0
            }

And this is how the animated part looks within the shader nodes of
the burner's own material:

                nodeInput "Ambient_Value"
                    {
                    name "Ambient_Value"
                    value 0 0 10
                    parmR "element-left_PoserSurface_6"
                    parmG NO_PARM
                    parmB NO_PARM
                    node NO_NODE
                    file NO_MAP
                    }

Note that parmR, which normally would be the red color, takes on the
name of the control.

Attached Link: http://www.jupiter2consoles.com/Images/shader.jpg

Thanks I found that but only one occurance even though in the animation palette it show TWO for the brown buttons! Notice that when I add in the AMBIENT animation again I now have 6 shadernodes in the animation palette but only 5 in the file and the object window. The file looks good but clearly the animation palette is goofed up.

One more thing.  When I save the PZ3 with the extra node in their and then reopen it - it goes away. I guess when you save the file it knows to not duplicate however this is where i believe the corruption is coming in. 

I still have no idea where the animation palette settings are in the PZ3.  Clearly they come back when you open it but I can't find it when I am editing it. Something tells me that is where the problem is.

If by "animation palette setting" you mean the whole graphs you can see in "graph window" (or squares in "palette window") then it's just what ockham wrote:

 keys
    {
    static  0
    k  0  -2
    sl  1
    spl
    sm
    k  1  -2
    ...
   }  
then the graph is made accordingly (k stands for keyframe, first value is a number of frame in which a keyframe appears, second is the value of parameter in that keyframe; spl, lin, br - stand for spline, linear ...)
And if you want to remove whole parameter then delete the first part of ockham listing (the one starting with: shaderNodeParm element-right_PoserSurface_6) and in the second part change: parmR "element-left_PoserSurface_6" to parmR NO_PARM.

So I found it......here goes.....

shaderNodeParm eng_ops_buttons_brown_PoserSurf
                  {
                  name eng_ops_buttons_brown_PoserSurf
                  initValue 0
                  hidden 0
                  forceLimits 1
                  min 0
                  max 10
                  trackingScale 0.01
                  keys
                        {
                        static 0
                        k 0 0
                        sl 1
                        lin
                        sm
                        k 19 0
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 40 1
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 59 0
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 88 1
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 107 0
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 128 1
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 147 0
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 162 1
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 181 0
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 202 1
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        k 221 0
                        sl 1
                        con
                        sm
                        }
                  interpStyleLocked 0
                  }
 

....But......It comes up okay but just flat doesn't  change the ambience at all when the key frames are processed. It is though nothing is animated. Then you look in Material and the animate key is OFF but as you can see it is clearly ON in the PZ3 "key" section.  How do I make it work again.. be sure to look at link in prior post....

I suspect that what's going on is that Poser hasn't (re)connected the dial to the Poser node input, so it's that that you need to be checking and fixing up.

Quote - Thanks I found that but only one occurance even though in the animation palette it show TWO for the brown buttons!

If you were looking for:
eng_ops_buttons_brown_PoserSurf
and you found only one paragraph with it (the one you posted, I'm not counting very first occurance of that line in Groups section) then as nruddock said there was no connection with Poser node input.
If everything was fine you would be able to find also next paragraph - second one from ockham listing, started with: nodeInput "Ambient_Value".
If that's the case then find that paragraph (near the end of the file) and replace whatever is in parentheses after PARM in that section with: eng_ops_buttons_brown_PoserSurf

But if you did find it before (second section) then I don't know.
And about two same lines in "animation window": still makes me think (sometimes it is a good idea to quit Poser and start it again:)

When I save the PZ3 the little green "animated" icon next to Ambient Value in the MAT room is ON.  When I reopen the file it is OFF.

But the animation palette still has the shader nodes and the keyframes.  The PZ3 file still has the KEY values and as far as I can tell everything looks like it should work but somehow it boils down I believe to the "animated" button not being ON in the MAT room.  Something is toggling this OFF when I save the file and when that happens the exisinting animation does not work.

After saving the file and reopening it for example the ANIMATED shader node for this mat is still ON using the DIFFUSE value:
 

shaderNodeParm com_display_5_PoserSurface_1

                  {

                  name com_display_5_PoserSurface_1

                  initValue 1

                  hidden 0

                  forceLimits 1

                  min 0

                  max 10

                  trackingScale 0.01

                  keys

                        {

                        static 0

                        k 0 0.2

                        sl 1

                        lin

                        sm

                        k 14 1

                        sl 1

                        lin

                        sm

WHEREAS, on this one the ANIMATED little green icon is OFF - But I can't see anything different other than one above is constant and this one is linear. This one uses the AMBIENT value fields rather than the diffuse value fields:

shaderNodeParm comm_ops_buttons_blue_PoserSurf

                  {

                  name comm_ops_buttons_blue_PoserSurf

                  initValue 0.996078

                  hidden 0

                  forceLimits 1

                  min -10

                  max 10

                  trackingScale 0.005

                  keys

                        {

                        static 0

                        k 0 0.996078

                        sl 1

                        con

                        sm

                        k 14 0.0823529

                        sl 1

                        con

                        sm

                        }

The only thing that is odd is the values I am using here are 1.0 and 0.0 but you can see that it is assigning .996 and .082.
 

Quote - When I save the PZ3 the little green "animated" icon next to Ambient Value in the MAT room is ON.  When I reopen the file it is OFF.

It behaves like this only if in following section parmR  is not correct:

nodeInput "Ambient_Value"
     {
     name "Ambient_Value"
     value 1.83751 0 10
     parmR "blablabla"  <----- change this to: "comm_ops_buttons_blue_PoserSurf"
     parmG NO_PARM
     parmB NO_PARM
     node NO_NODE
     file NO_MAP

I just checked this by saving with the KEY ICON "green" and then I edited PZ3 (I changed the line I marked above to something else). After reopening the KEY ICON was "gray" and animation didn't work on it.
BTW you will find plenty paraghraps like that in PZ3 so cannot tell you which one is the correct one.

And don't worry about values - you will find more of them like this.

Quote - BTW you will find plenty paraghraps like that in PZ3 so cannot tell you which one is the correct one.

You should be able to determine the correct one to modify as it will be the node input block belonging to the Poser_Surface node for that material.

So you'll first need to find the correct material section, then look for the Poser_Surface node, then for the Ambient_Value input (each of these will be a an increased nesting level).

Tks. However, the shader node for node input is correct and references the right control. I checked that first. Again, the animation palette shows the animation keyframes but the MAT shows it off.  Something is getting clobbered. It works when Poser is open. It corrupts when I save it.  Weird.