I create 3d comic books. Now, in a lot of cases, the scene I am working with has the same exact items in it as the previous scene only the objects are posed differently. For example, I may have a character fighting a bunch of bad guys. Nothing is added or removed from the scene, only posed, reposed etc. I also do batch rendering with a script I wrote that loads a scene, renders it, saves the pic then loads the next scene listed in a text file etc. So currently I pose a scene, save it, pose a scene, save it then render all scenes overnight. So I thought, if the scene never introduces or removes anything, wouldn't it be far faster to save off a scene pose file instead of the entire scene then load the scene. apply the pose, render, rinse and repeat. So here are some ideas on how to accomplish this and do it in a batch rendering way. 1. Create a python script that saves all poses of all elements. Effectivily makes an entire scene pose. Then write another script that loads a scene then applies each pose as it renders each scene. 2. Use the animation system. Each frame is a distinct key frame with all frames seperate (no SLERP or interpolation between frames). Then have poser simply render all the scenes as a movie as seperate frames. I would think the animation system would work if I don't introduce and delete objects between frames nor do anything else that can't be handled in an animation. I would just have to make sure that no linear interpolation occured to mess up the scene. Any thoughts?

"2. Use the animation system. Each frame is a distinct key frame with all frames seperate (no SLERP or interpolation between frames). Then have poser simply render all the scenes as a movie as seperate frames." This will work, and is probably the best way to do it. You can apply linear keyframes to every frame all at once in the graph editor, so it's very easy to do. Then every frame can be a "panel" for the comic.

Well I just tried the animation route. Holy crap that's messed up. Its like beating Poser over the head with a 2x4 screaming at it to do what you told it to do. I have to expand every figure branch then mark them as linear and broken links. Problem is you add a new frame and it still decides to up and move things around without me telling it to do so. Its worse than that auto complete selection thing in word processors. There should be a law or something that says no software should ever do anything you don't explicitly tell it to do. I finally got 4 frames worth of stuff in approximatly 8 times the time frame due to poser going back and altering previous frames without my consent and me having to readjust them only to have those adjustments change other frames. I don't think the animation thing will work. It just has a mind of its own.

You can set all the keyframes of a given animation to linear or broken all at once. Ideally, do this before you even start to pose any figures in the scene. I'd start by setting up say 200 frames on the timeline (or enough that you'd know for sure you won't exceeed it), then add all the figures and props to the scene that you'll need. Then go into the animation palette, and lasso all the frames for every character/prop/bodypart you see by holding down your mouse button and dragging over them. Click the "+" sign (add keyframes) to keyframe everything you have selected, then click the "linear selection" button to make then all linear at once. After linear selection, you might wanna make them all broken splines too, so click that button. I just tried that method, and made a couple frames with drastically different poses and location adjustments, and it seemed to work fine.

Great I'll try that. Thanks

If you select an object and then make it a constant keyframe (white) on the very first frame, all your subesequent keyframes will be constant as well. Things will stay exactly where you leave them. This way you only have to create keyframes when you change something and it's much easier to keep track of what's going on in your timeline. Also, you didn't indicate this but there's no reason not to make each frame represent a seperate panel. A 4-panel comic strip doesn't have to take more than 4 frames on the timeline. It doesn't matter what FPS you use since you're rendering individual stills rather than an animation. Now, just for the record if you collapse the triangle by the figure name in the timeline it'll look like it's not constant keyframes but if you uncollapse it (so you actually see the parts - "body," "hips," "abdomen," chest," "neck," etc) they will be white indicating constant keyframes. You can introduce an element by bringing it in the scene and putting it waaaaay out of sight until the desired frame. I've actually hidden multiple characters within the same animation that way. Since they are out of sight, they don't add much overhead to the render.

I've thought about using animation function for this very purpose...so, bookmark! :-)