I'm not a new user, but you'd never know it from seeing my results, or listening to some of the questions I ask. Let us be diplomatic and say I'm a dilettante.

I bought the Rain Tool quite some years back, and every now and then, I try it again.  I have no problem making still images with rain, but when I try to animate it, I get recurrent gaps in the rain, typically about 1/8th of the screen tall.  I have tried to follow his tutorial in the Daz documentation (where I originally bought it), and I've asked him for advice a couple of times, but I just cannot seem to figure out how to get rid of the recurring gap between segments.

I have tried following the directions.  I've tried disregarding the directions.  I've experimented with the timing, the placement (changing the XY coordinates of the segments with respect to each other, which mostly causes unsynchronized movements). I have tried scaling the segments,  and tried using three segments instead of two. I've tried parenting two segments together.  That worked fairly well for movement, but then the lower segment would jump back above the camera's view, prematurely taking the higher segment with it before it had sunk into the ground.

It's embarrassing, but it's time to admit that I am an idiot and seek assistance from wiser minds than mine.  Maybe the problem is with the instructions.  More likely, the problem is with me.  If none of you has had any problems with making animated rain, then I'm the problem, but maybe someone can make me understand.  Or maybe you, too, had problems, but figured out how to do it right.

Help me Obi-wan Kenobi; you're my only hope.

An interesting tool, I think I must have passed it over on Hivewire. It's not listed on Nerd's Store page but I find it's now at the Marketplace as https://www.renderosity.com/marketplace/products/147068/rain-tool but lacks the specs it had on HiveWire. For the sake of future searchers, here are the specs as a screenshot:

I can't offer any advice on workarounds for animation glitches. Other than to consider rendering separately as an overlay layer, cutting out the glitchy frames (if that's possible) in a video editor, seamlessly looping, and then compositing the result loop over the scene in a video editor. 

But I would be interested to know what recent version(s) of Poser it can successfully run on. Can you say what version of Poser you're using please, and perhaps post a screenshot of the glitch?

And I'm a bad nerd for not getting this stuff revved up and re-submitted to the Marketplace. Someday poser will get real particles and make this stuff obsolete. Until then ...

Increase the Depth for each of the sheets of rain. Select the Control for the Rain tool. The for the Depth control increase the Depth to someth8ing like .125 for the entire duration of the animation. That's most easily done with the graph tool. Open the graph and select all the keys for Depth and [Control] + Drag then up to fix the gap between the sheets of rain.

HartyBart posted at 5:59 AM Mon, 1 May 2023 - #4463892

I can't offer any advice on workarounds for animation glitches. Other than to consider rendering separately as an overlay layer, cutting out the glitchy frames (if that's possible) in a video editor, seamlessly looping, and then compositing the result loop over the scene in a video editor. 

But I would be interested to know what recent version(s) of Poser it can successfully run on. Can you say what version of Poser you're using please, and perhaps post a screenshot of the glitch?

I'll certainly give that some consideration if I can't get it to work any other way. I've always found results to be more important than methodology; I'll go the more complicated route if I have to.

Yes, I was uncertain if  some of the problems I was experiencing in Poser 13's animation editor were bugs or simply poor technique on my part (haven't used the timeline editor in awhile), so in addition to P13, I also tried it in Poser 12 and Poser 2014.  There are no Superfly materials in a product this old, unless it was updated since I purchased it on Daz, but it seemed to render adequately in Superfly as well as Firefly.

As you can see, the still images are pretty good.

nerd posted at 3:02 PM Mon, 1 May 2023 - #4463958

And I'm a bad nerd for not getting this stuff revved up and re-submitted to the Marketplace. Someday poser will get real particles and make this stuff obsolete. Until then ...

Increase the Depth for each of the sheets of rain. Select the Control for the Rain tool. The for the Depth control increase the Depth to someth8ing like .125 for the entire duration of the animation. That's most easily done with the graph tool. Open the graph and select all the keys for Depth and [Control] + Drag then up to fix the gap between the sheets of rain.

You're not a bad nerd, I'm a bad student.  Yeah, I liked Weird Juice's MetaForm. Particles and nurbs.  I could do flames splashing off shields, torches, fountains, Green Lantern's force field in space, blood squibs . . .  Thanks again for the nifty tools you've created over the years.

I'll give those instructions a try.  Sorry I've been so thick over the years.  One trick I have been using is parenting an object to the control triangles:  makes them easier to find to apply poses and textures.  Alternate way to keep the depth settings constant through the animation is to click on the arrow on the far right of the dial, go into settings, and turn off Animating. Less editing required, therefore less chance I'll make a mistake.  And I always make a few.  [sigh]

Thanks.  I didn't want to bother you again because you're busy with Poser 13 these days, and I apologize for interrupting that.

Thalek posted at 4:37 PM Mon, 1 May 2023 - #4463970

Alternate way to keep the depth settings constant through the animation is to click on the arrow on the far right of the dial, go into settings, and turn off Animating.

Uhm, except I that forgot that the reapplying the pose every 30 frames overwrites the depth value I manually entered.  Doh!

Well, that fixed the problem right quick.  I thought that I'd tried various combinations of length, width, and depth, but obviously, I did not.  Or I forgot to make the value non-animating.

I abase myself.  Again.

Thank you!

Now to make this a permanent scene so that I can reuse it.

To quote nerd: "Someday poser will get real particles"

nerd posted at 3:02 PM Mon, 1 May 2023 - #4463958

...Someday poser will get real particles and make this stuff obsolete...

I hope so. That would be awesome. Its been on my Poser wishlist for over a decade.   Even if its only Playstation 2 particles I'll take it.

ShaneNewville posted at 1:18 PM Tue, 2 May 2023 - #4464024

nerd posted at 3:02 PM Mon, 1 May 2023 - #4463958

...Someday poser will get real particles and make this stuff obsolete...

I hope so. That would be awesome. Its been on my Poser wishlist for over a decade.   Even if its only Playstation 2 particles I'll take it.

Yeah, my wishlist, too.  Every time they put out a request for new features, I mention "something like MetaForm". Particles are incredibly powerful. Combining them with nurbs, for that brief, shining period gave me some marvelous capabilities.