I am animating a short video in poser where there is an explosion and then a hole in the wall..have no trouble with the explosion but how to do the hole?  Could I export the video as a series of bmps and then add the hole and would I have to remake the hole on every frame?  Please advise.

Hi! I try to be logical here,
I am a free hand drawer, i did work with flash and director and other frame metodes, if you are making an animation even if it ia a gif animation or else, you need to have all the steps.

so if your movie is an explosion with a hole, and if you have to draw every thing sure you need to modifie the steps.

but you have to be sure that your object stays in the right place and modify only the explosion and the proces it self.

you need an original wall clean and modify as many frames as possible if you want to have a quick or a smoth animation I am sure that there is no differences between poser and the other programs.
regards one5910

Thank you one.

you are welcome tell me when you did it

I'm sure I'm a bit late, but have you tried keyframing your texture (to make a hole - or what LOOKS like a hole) or model (duplicate model, but add a REAL hole - or add a boolean object)?

The more professional and controllable method would be to do this in a program like After Effects - or Photoshop CS3 Extended which has a new AE-like interface for video. The wall is rendered separately in Poser (or your 3D app of choice), a wall with a new blasted hole is also rendered separately, the explosion is overlaid on top (either created in 3D, or use photographed/filmed/taped footage elements), and any characters sent flying back from it are rendered separately as well (or filmed/taped against greenscreen or bluescreen).

You put them together in the compositing software. Why? Because it goes MUCH faster, and you have MUCH more control. Elements render faster alone, and you can make the explosion bigger, smaller, add layers of fireballs and explosions, add smoke, add haze as a result, add lighting effects, debris, continued sparks from nearby machinery, bits of nearby surfaces on fire as a result, etc.

Try to do ALL of that in your 3D app of choice? You'll wait days per frame - HOPING that you set up all the elements correctly in the first place.

Ever see the first renders of a shot that went bad in a CG movie - when the head turns, eyeballs stay exactly where they were in 3D space and pop completely out of the head - that's FUNNY to watch! And these are seasoned 3D professionals! You never quite know exactly how it'll render out until it's done -or midway through. You're also limited to the ability of the program's renderer as far as realism. Renderman may be a world class renderer, but "Cars" was rendered out separately, and composited together LATER.

If you need a hand, lemme know. Render out the animated elements as Quicktime (Sorenson3 codec, or Animation codec) or AVI files (just Microsoft DV AVI is great), and we'll find a way to hook up and I can put them together fo you.
Hope that helps - good luck!
-Lew ;-)

if you work with director or flash yes you need to work on each frames 
do not forget to adjust the size and places

any way you can also work in photoshop or psp or painter and after import som gif in a gif animation if you do not have premiere flash or director

you can also try in movie maker but all your pictures must be realy aligned from each others
regards