Charge them a fair rate, as patorak suggested, so you can do more of this stuff for other museums.  Showing it on their website should be okay; I wouldn't charge more for that.   Maybe you could work out a deal whereby you sell copies of the models through their online museum store.  I've seen 3d exhibits of this kind at Fort Ancient and Cahokia and other archaeological sites and would have bought the models had they been available.

Yes, of course and it looks fine without displacement, except then I lose all the bolts and other detail.  The strange thing is that the whole train uses the same shaders, only different maps (which are constructed in the same way) for each of 9 materials, all use displacement, and the only problem is with the main boiler.  I thought it might be the geometry of that part so I rebuilt it and subdivided, and still no luck.

Quote - "All parts are using the same smoothing of 22.5 and it is rendered with smoothing off."

Do you mean crease angle? That's kind of low - might be the problem. Try increasing that.

Yes. I meant crease angle.  I raised it and got the same result. 
This is confusing me because back in November I rendered using the same maps and models, and didn't have the banding.  I don't know what has changed.

Quote - ($50.00 an hour + resources ) x 1.5(profit margin) = Fee to charge client

This is closest to the correct answer.

Don't fall for the "in lieu of payment you'll get exposure and we'll put your name on it for advertising"  line.  The reason you advertise is to get commisions like this.

mark's right in saying to hold on to the distribution rights.

After I move files I run CRPro from Hogsoft.com and it fixes all the paths (plus cleans up the files).  I don't know if it works on Mac.

Anthony and Helgard, check Detonation films.  Great stock fx clips already in avi format.  The mirror download is much faster.  (Also check out their tutorials sectioon.)

http://www.detonationfilms.com/free_stuff.htm

patorak, the licenses are for rendered images of the models, not the models themselves which may not be redistrbuted.  Oh, and if you place it in the market for $20, you get one bill, not two.

For the dust cloud and middle explosion, go get a loop of frames of an explosion and make an avi texture on some planes.  Works great.  You can either use a static plane, or get fancy with it and apply the animated tex to some particles for good effect.

Quote - Quote-"Then start designing, modeling, uvmapping, texturing, shading, rigging, testing, rendering promos, packaging, dealing with the upload process and the two week wait to get it into the store, and customer service now so we can have lots of your wonderful 2 dollar models.   I look forward to seeing them."

No!!! You lay down too many conditions with it. What do you expect for a dollar or two? When you go into a dollar store or a flea market if you have one where you live, do you expect top of the line items? No you don't, but for a buck or two you buy it anyways even when the English on the package is so bad you can't read it.  I don't want a bunch of harsh terms of service or ultra high quality control with it. For a buck you could remap or re-texture and or tweak in some way.. I say 50 cents even is better than zero, but who has a place where they do that?

I can buy songs all day for under a dollar and they require bandwidth too. I imagine that it was harder to make the song also. But the it's the same in terms of copy, copy, copy. Sell a million and it adds up. Shoot, sell 1000 even. Oh, well I tried and got "put" in my place. See ya
dogor,

You're joking.  That list is only part of what it takes to put a product up for sale, whether (and IF) it sells for one dollar or fifty dollars.  I didn't even include the cost of hardware and software, time to learn it, etc.  nor opportunity cost.

If you want cheap models and can do them for a dollar, go for it.

"We lose a nickel on every sale but we make up for it in volume."

Quote -
My wish is a site with 1-2 dollar items. Lots of them. No club fee or nothin'. Just prices that keep the the site and contributors going.

Then start designing, modeling, uvmapping, texturing, shading, rigging, testing, rendering promos, packaging, dealing with the upload process and the two week wait to get it into the store, and customer service now so we can have lots of your wonderful 2 dollar models.   I look forward to seeing them.

dpi has nothing at all to do with video resolution.  It only matters for print.

I'll add here that i usually render a quick test of the whole animation at the lowest resolution/fastest speed (wireframe preview) to check it before rendering the whole thing at high quality.

First set your timing as ockham suggests.   If you have 47 poses that are to be evenly distributed across the range of 230 frames.

230 divided by 47 = 2.89

So:
Make your animation 235 frames long (47 x 5).

Go to frame 1:  set the first pose and set a key.

Advance 5 frames, set the next key, and so on until you set them all.

Thanks guys for your help.  Just a couple of quick notes before I dive into another serries of tests on this.

The dispacement map starts at pure black; the only displacement on the main steam cylinder should be the bands and bolts.

All parts are using the same smoothing of 22.5 and it is rendered with smoothing off.

Other cylinder shapes on the model use the same type of map yet show no defects.

I'll render some more side-by-side tests and post here in a bit.

As an aside, the only time I have trouble with displacement at edges of maps is when I haven't carefully uvmapped and then drawn the displacement map to line up exactly.  I make the displacement black/zero at corners of cubes to avoid it pushing the surface outward and splitting it. 

Quote - Animation is a nice to have but most people using Poser have no need for animations as they mostly produce stills only.

Only because Poser's animation and scene navigation is a pain to use.  I animate, but if the interface was improved, lots more folks would too.