Hi, I've been trying to render my animation as an AVI file in P5 using the Firefly renderer but all I get is a blank grey (background) picture (ie no props, figures, ground, NOTHING)! If I render the same scene using the P4 renderer it works fine. The raytracing toggle etc... seem to have no effect - still a blank grey picture! Rendering just a single frame from the animation either into the document window or into a new window using firefly works fine. I've installed the SP1 - did it do this before the patch? Am I missing something obvious? Any help VERY much appreciated.

uknight, I got the same problem when I tried to render. I think something is wrong with the AVI rendering option. The individual frames will render, however. So simply: (1) change the "sequence type" option in the "make movie" window from AVI to image files. (2) Next, render the image files(either jpg, png, bmp,tiff, etc.) to a folder of your choice. (3) use an AVI animation creation program such as AnimationShop (there are lots and a few free ones also) to collect and sequence the still images into your own AVI file. A p.i.t.a. glitch, but it's not to hard to find a work around. I hope CL addresses this soon. Btw, did you report this problem to CL? I hope this helps. --lb

It worked fine for me. I installed the patch and tried a simple 30 frame movie in Firefly with the default settings in draft. It took a couple of minutes to render and it turned out fine.

I have exactly the same error...even after the patch it don't work...I emailed CL and yet got no answers. I hope they'll fix this in the next patch, if there ever is a next one!

Patched P5 sort of works for me. I get some black vertical bars in a Firefly animation that I haven't figured out yet. P4 render works OK.

Attached Link: http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.rance01/rqsv.htm

The problem with AVI animations also happened to me BEFORE the patch. I haven't tried to render an AVI since but use the image files work around mentioned above. I haven't tried to render to AVI since the patch (sounds like I quit smoking or something) because I didn't want to waste the render time. I will try to do a short animation today sometime to test Poser 5. I've always had problems with Poser's AVI files anyway. The format was never quite right. I rarely render animations with compression as I will want to edit pieces together later. I've a couple of video applications which simply do not like Poser animations. The one I've had the most luck with is VideoWave. I just don't really care for that interface much.

Thanks for the tips/info guys. I just wanted to check that it wasn't me doing something wrong. I'll send of a bug report to CL. BTW... Just out of interest it seems some people have this problem and some don't - I'm using Windows XP pro with SP1 installed, 512Mb RAM, Atlon 1.2Ghz Thunderbird processor - the system was home built. Dunno if my setup makes any difference.

Attached Link: "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots Animation"

It works fine for me (not that my animations are all that great). Could it be the CODEC you are using?

I tend to use DIVX but I know I've used the Microsoft one too.

I have a primitive animation at the 3D Fight Club (a great site for modelers looking to blow off some steam and have a good time). There's a link to it on their main page (probably until Monday... after that you could find it by going into their forum under the weekly scene animation topic... Rocky Animation).