Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=834515

The latest frame of "Zos Adventures" is posted here: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=834515 Since I'd built the set for the previous frame I naively expected this one to be easy to complete. Boy, was I wrong. This last panel was particularly difficult to subdue. I've spent many, many hours with Poser, often struggling to get the result I wanted. In addition to Zoand the Caracal and numerous incidental characters (the black birds), it has three non-standard characters wearing non-standard clothes, and is filled with scores of complex props. I thought I'd share some lessons learned. These are just a few of many, but this could be a book it I included them all - and I'm still learning. First, it's best to plan in detail what you want a scene to look like before you begin to set it up. I have used a very simple so-called "storyboard" that used a simple textual description of the contents and action for each frame. That has proved to be insufficient. There's a reason moviemakers use graphical storyboards to envision a scene. The upfront effort prevents a lot of wasted effort and rework later. My original concept for this panel was nine frames, but I ended up with thirteen to encompass the action and struggled to make the pieces fit. Second, build your scene for versatility, especially if it's highly complex. When you look at any of the Adventure's panels, you'll see that not all of the elements appear in every frame. Make sure you can easily hide, eliminate, or add an element to speed the process, not only during rendering but also during detailed positioning and composition. At the same time remember out-of-frame elements may cast shadows in the frame. Third, plan for your cameras. Positioning Poser cameras is an awful lot of work and almost never provides the desired field of view. Fourth, save every scene in a way that makes it easy to retrieve. Even when you think it's complete you'll decide you want one more rendering with something slightly different. For example I originally had Zowalking after the Caracal in the last frame, but realized that running was much more effective, and truer to life. I saw similar changes I wanted in other frames as I composed the panel. On the other hand, you'll need to decide at some point that the scene is finished. Resist the tendency for one last tweak. Fifth, depend on post processing. No matter how good a render may be it will always require additional work. Many of the Adventure frames are layers of at least three different renders, usually the background, the foreground and the key players. I could then adjust the appearance of each layer in post work to achieve the desired look. In most cases the background is independent and keeping it separate assures no unintended shadows or other contamination. The foreground and key players separation is more problematic, since interaction may be required. Nevertheless, if the rendering isn't useful, the alpha channel will be. Sixth, ask the community. You may not get all the answers, but you'll get some and you'll get ideas you can work with to solve a problem even when you don't get the solution. I'd never have completed the last frame without the suggestions I received here.

The story board idea is good, you could use simpler poser 4 figures to make the story boards using a different figure for each character in your scenes and making small renders of each scene to help with your story, this idea would work well for animations, too.