By the way, Dr. Geep, your tutes rock. I'm plowing through the animation tute right now. I've been using Poser since v.2 but haven't really ever taken the time to delve into its depths. Last week, however, I scored a freelance gig with ADP to design and animate a character for them in Poser, so I'm on a steep learning curve. Your stuff is really helping me.

Thanks, folks -- muchly appreciated. Resetting to the Factory UI state did the trick -- I'll be more careful in the future. And using the UI dots never occurred to me! D'oh!

Cool! That might do the trick -- I'll play with it. Thanks, Little Dragon.

Yeah, I was thinking that it would be the chain that was the hard part, too. But I figured I might be able to adapt a necklace for that... though there don't seem to be many of those, either. Even a leather thong, if I could find one off a barbarian character or something.

Thanks. I've been doing computer graphics/animation for almost 20 years now, mostly for online. I did a twice-weekly animated feature for Prodigy back in the day, for example, though I started off doing educational software. So all along I've had to be very conscious of byte-count and/or download time. It is never wise to piss off the audience! The challenge will be to do these little anies of a regular basis. They need to tell some sort of story in a very brief time. I'm not a whiz-bang animator, but I love it and I think I know a little about how this stuff is supposed to work. I didn't spend all those hours watching Chuck Jones for nothing!

Thanks again, on behalf of Duncan, for the kind words.

Duncan, Sounds like a plan. I'll email the Photoshop and Poser files to you. I have been messing around the the pzr file and the Photoshopped background and having some fun, but I really can't devote much time to it because my life has become a hell of BOXES as I get ready to move. I will send an edited PSD with most of the layers collapsed into three or four. No point in dealing with all of 'em; the PSD is too big and you don't care about all the truckle making up the pipes and whatnot. I am also going to animate the fuse-like thing on the left, wit ha glow and a crackle of electricity as our man passes it, but I can do that myself when I do the Flash compositing. I'll take the money discussion offline if you don't mind. Al

A little more -- I'm thinking that the green dude is small enough that there will be little need to have a really GOOD look of panic on his face -- that can probably be dialled in without much hassle. And if his run isn't 100% realistic, I don't mind. This is really an experiment on several levels, as I said in my initial post. If it works out I will look at making the next one more sophisticated. I want this one to be as simple as possible for all concerned. A 50K swf is okay. I wouldn't want to go much over that for obvious reasons. I will try to do up a storyboard this week, but I'm slightly hampered by the fact that my scanner is down, so I can't scan sketches. If I can key the moves in Poser I will do that. And again, this does not have to happen for the April issue. I have a static image I can use. The animated file can debut in May. Al

Hi, Duncan -- yes, that's about right. Take a look at the "static" version here. Obviously it would need to be tweaked a bit for animation, but basically the green geek runs on from behind the ball on the right, pauses to the right of the FS banner, looks back and forth, then runs off BEHIND the banner, and offstage to the left. We might not even see his feet -- let the sound carry the idea of running. Besides, the image space is probably not tall enough to see the full figure, which is pretty small anyway.

I am off to work now, but will reply later in the day with some more details.

Al

Thanks, cruzan, I appreciate the input -- it's all grist for the mill. My little alien guy would probably only need to be visible from the waist upward -- cutting down the amount of on-screen info needing to be compressed. The SOUND of runnning feet would carry the idea adequately, I think. He'd still have to be fully animated in Poser, against a green or blue background, I am thinking. That way I could composite him into Photoshop bgs brought into Flash. I love doing this sort of thing, but again -- my time is so limited. As I say, though, it doesn't NEED to happen before April. I can shelve the project and collect information on how best to get it done. Best of all, I will learn a lot -- and that's always good.