Hi there, I'm kind of new to animating, and I so I was wondering: doesn't an animation "action" (say, smiling), freeze right there (like stay smiling) when you go to the next keyframe? I don't know how to describe what's going on, but I have a sample of something I tried making with some skull prop on the 'net, and basically the head is supposed to come forward, open it's mouth, and stay there. Unfortunately, what happens is that it kind of comes forward, pops back a bit, moves forward a bit more, and its mouth gets has this bulldog thing going on before opening. If I add other stuff, it gets even worse. Anyone know how to make things stop moving when they're supposed to, and can explain it in simple terms? Thanks.

unfortunately. i have run into that before try setting the timeline forward and adding the same morph to it. in theory because the 2 keyframes are the same there should not be any interpolation between the 2. but as far as i know poser does not let you freeze a pose in the timeline and continue afterwards. it would be nice to have a way to edit the interpolation through a panel and set the parameters between 2 keyframes through a vector curve. maybe in version 6? doubt it though... LOL

Attached Link: http://homepage.mac.com/kflach

Actually you can change the keyframe interpolation to "linear" and it will stay steady. There's another one too that makes the keyframes white - I can't remember it off the top of my head. One note though. No one ever holds their head completely 100% still. If you're going for realism sometimes you can just set a keyframe after the head "stop" that reduces the motion but adds an element of "randomness" - a *very* small motion. It makes it look more natural. Check out Guido (the hero) in "dude, you suck" via the link or check out little-dragons Sabrina animations (you'll have to search by his name to find threads he's posted in). QuickTime required for my stuff at the link.

All together now:

Learn to love your graph editor!

Double click your offending action's dial, where it says 'graph' click that and have a shufti at what's going on. You'll find that the curve goes way beyond where you want it either before or after your key-frame. Just as Bobasaur says it's the interpolation thingy again. The graphs allow you to see these in action. Over on RDNA I've put some tips and tricks up that cover this and tell you an easy way to prevent it happening again.
My clean site here also has some info on this. Head for the tutorial section.