This is making me crazy! I'll try to explain it: I'm trying to change a speaking character's facial expressions throughout an animation via the animation palllette, by CLEARING an entire row of a facial part's 11,000 frames- NOT just the highlighted keyframes, but ALL of them so that row is truly EMPTY, then tweaking my character's expression as she speaks.

And it works, yes truly WORKS with the "Smile" feature,  but when I try to add some expression to the "Sneer Right" column, no matter how many times I tediously select the whole row and clear it- making it to all apearances as empty as I made the "Smile" row, any addition to it will fill the whole row to the end with dark green frames, causing her expression in a very few seconds to become a grotesque caricature of herself. It seems that having that row filled will cause that expression to keep increasing. Any attempt to adjust by adding or subtracting the precise number I subtracted of added earlier will only throw it off more!

Does anybody understand what I'm trying to say?

Is there any fix for this? So long as that "sneer right" row operates under the same principles as the "smile" row, what I'm trying to do OUGHT to work, but it doesn't.

I've spent virtually all day on that one little thing and gotten nowhere and I'm a nervous wreck.

I've already spent two weeks on this project and it would kill me to abandon it now. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

dnstuefloten (or anybody) I've been able to change facial expressions throughout a short trial by clearing a body part's whole row of keyframes in the animation pallete, (and found that going through the motions of that is necessary even when that row appears to be empty, otherwise any new key frame will fill the rest of the row...) but I've found that for the six minute, 11,000 frame project I'm working on that my mouse simply cannot select that row to its end no matter how carefully I click and manipulate it. I've spent half the day trying to do that with no success whatsoever and I am completely stymied.

Is there any command for selecting and deleting a whole row? Clicking around, I can't seem to find any. I see no way of proceeding unless I can get by this hurdle.

It works! It works! It works!

Thank you SO much!

Someone on another forum had suggested that I work with morph targets, about which I am totally ignorant, and when I looked them up in the poser 7 reference manual I found it entirely unintelligible; painful even to read, and I nearly despaired at ever finishing this project. Now I have some hope.

One thing that still vexes me is how simply manipulating the parameter dial will automatically create a keyframe at whatever point on that green grid you're at. The aforementioned reference manual says, in ALL CAPS on page 120:

"CAMERA ANIMATION MUST BE ENABLED FOR THE CURRENTLY SELECTED CAMERA IN ORDER TO AUTOMATICALLY SELECT KEYFRAMES. IF ANIMATION IS DISABLED, YOU CAN ADD KEYFRAMES MANUALLY..."

Well, I un-clicked "Animating" in the Main Camera's Properties, but the #&$^%@ thing still insists on creating those keyframes automatically. I want to do it manually, however tedious that may be, because I know how totally a single mistake can screw up an animation. Is there some other way of enabling/disabling it, or did that damn reference manual simply lie to me?

Can I put a link here to a 6-minute animation that I posted on youtube? It's from a video slide show I'm making of a graphic novel-in-progress.

Quote - Open the Edit Keyframes panel (that's the key icon at the lower right). Youll see the list of all the parts of the scene. For a human figure (like my Young John), click the triangle to his left, and youll see all his individual parts unfolding below. I clicked the "Head" here, and the head bits are now visible. I selected "Eyes Open - Closed." If there are keyframes here at the part of the animation you want to change, erase them. Then use the parameter dials to open or close his eyes wherever you want that to happen in the animation. You can do the same with any other body part. Just dont, as I said, alter his mouth movements for his talking. What figure are you using?

Will it be necessary to change the parameters for each of the many keyframes in a row, or does the manipulation you describe change them all till the next point where you decide to make a change?  I'll go ahead and give it a try just changing once in a row for the body parts in question and see what that does.

There are columns for body parts like head, neck, etc, but I don't recall seeing columns related to parts of the face. Or do you mean using the parameter dials to change the expression without changing anything in the mouth, then creating a new keyframe? I'm only running poser 7.

Quote - In the Edit Keyframes panel, you can remove keyframes for the parts you want to animate (like changing the eyes, opening and closing them, adding a frowning forehead, whatever) and add the expressions you want. Just dont change whatever mouth movements the Talk Designer has created.

Quote - Actually, I've found that most people tend to throw away their old computers. Just let friends know that you'll take them, and a lot of the time they'll just give them to you to get rid of them.

My friends are the WORST bunch of Luddites you've ever met. Half of them have never even touched a computer, the rest are like me, using hopelessly outdated machines that move at a snail's pace. It's an age thing (I'm 62) and a class thing (uneducated) and an economic thing (living in Cleveland Ohio, where you're lucky to have a roof over your head.)

But thanks.

Thanks guys, but I can't afford anything like that stuff. I can barely pay my rent.

Animating in Preview mode will have to do. That's quite quick, actually.

Quote - Try running the sim without the text. I never put the text in there and it's never an issue.

Thanks Rokket, I'm trying that now. I'd used it before and I seem to remember having the same problem then, and eventually ran it without the text.

Thank you! That will help a lot!

Thank you JoePublic. That appears to have done the trick, but I can't say for sure because there have been short periods of time when that red outline went away as I worked, then came back for no apparent reason. If this is successful it'll save a project that was fast becoming impossible. I'm not a young person and focusing my eyes close-up is not as easy as it once was.

Why do you think they would make an option so basic as using that highlight so difficult to turn off?

I confess I'm clueless about diffuse components, but I went to the advnaced panel of the material window for that prop and took the attached screen shot in the hope you can perhaps interpret it.

Is there any way to change those values to something more likely to show a shadow?