I'm trying to do a fairly involved animation where the character is asking a question (using mimic), asks a question while bringing her hand up indicating the question number with her fingers. At the same AND different times during I'm trying to get her other arm/hand to make simple gesture as someone would do if talking to a group... Question: how do I seperate the movements so poser doesn't try to make them one continious movement? It really causes some bizarre hand gestures when I do it....

I think your answer lies in the "animation pallette". By default the system uses Bezier curves to ramp motion. If you have a keyframe at frame 1 and want the hand to move at, but not before, frame 120 you need to place a control keyframe at 120 which mimics the frame at 1. those two keys should be made "linear" so that the movement doesn't ramp before you want it to happen. Hope this helped. If a clearer explanation is needed you can reach me off-line at visionquest3d@mindspring.com. Visque

I don't quite understand what you mean by linear doesn't "ramp". I tried adjusting the animation pallette to remove unwanted movements, but that REALLY screwed things up! How, by using the pallette or other device, can I completly stop a particular movement between actions?

A motion doesn't always start at the point that you place the keframe. Let's say that your arm is straight out from the body and you want it to raise to be straight up at frame 120. The software tries to "get ready" for the action by actually dropping the arm before frame 120 to created a fluid motion. It's great in theory, but it can cause unpredictable actions and does not always create the desired effect. Example: You want the arm to raise and wave 2 seconds in, but want no anticipation before that. (perhaps the character is responding to something.) In the animation pallette find the shoulder.(for the purposes we will only use one object) Copy the KF from the first frame and move it to frame 120(Alt Drag). Swipe the two Kf's and click on the "linear section". This should eliminate motion until you place the desired motion until after frame 120.

Okay... I'll give that a shot. I'm beginning to understand how the KF systems affects the animation. I guess a LOT of experimentation is in order to get the desired effects! BTW, where would a person find this kind of info to read up on it? I've checked the most common sites that have tutorials, but none come close to this situation! Thanks for your help, Don

Luckily I have been working with animation software for many years and my experience has come from "trial and error". The term "ramping" refers to how you get from point A to point B. Think of two points on a grid. You can draw a straight line between the points, or you can curve the line up or down. If you add another point to the equation you have the same options. The poser software assumes that given those three point that you want the motion to be smooth, so it creates a curve (look at the "graph" under the "animation pallette). The reason that most software defaults to this curved approach is that the human body is Always in motion. Lots of other packages use keyframes and while they would not directly coorospond to poser, the same theories are used. You may want to check books for 3D Studio or other 3d animation packages, or use the keywords "tweening" or "animation" in a web search just to get the theories down. Bottom line... don't give up. Visque

Thanks for the info!

There is an instruction "Break Spline" somewhere.

Anthony, I had totally forgotten about break spline. I guess, be it right or wrong, I got wrapped into doing it the way it has worked for me. That's what makes this site great. Different folks have solved problems by different means and are willing to provide others with solutions to an end. Visque

Just because I happen to be interested in the topic and ya'll seem to know it pretty well, what's the break spline function actually do? I'm fairly familiar with spline interpolation, at least in the fact that I believe it to be that curved line you were referring to earlier. If there's a way to extend this conversation thread, I think many people would benefit from a straight forward discussion on the topic. Thanks, Dan

While I pesonally haven't used it (quickly opening poser and looking at the function), it appear that the leading keyframe that is selected when the "break spline" in clicked is turned into something like the first node of a spline (no interpretation from the previous node) basically setting up a new "starting point" to work from. Am I correct Anthony?

Something of that sort.

"Break Spline" will prevent the curve from going WAY beyond this point, as spine interpolation is sometimes wont to do. You could get a sudden change in direction of the curve, though.

So "Break Spline" only works when using the bezier (curved) spline setting and not the linear (jagged) setting? Another question....Say I've made an animation, but notice at the end of doing it (close to 500 frames) that one gesture is too quick, that is, doesn't last on screen long enough. Is there ANY way to make it last longer, ie, stretch one pose over more frames WITHOUT changing the overall frame count? It's got a mimic pose for the dialog. Thanks to all that have helped with this one!!!