Hey! I'm rendering out my Poser animations as .tiff images so as to preserved the alpha matte (for an instant blue-screen type effect), and importing them into Final Cut Pro over top of a live action background. The live action is 720x480 and so are the Poser .tiffs, BUT the Poser .tiffs are squeezed looking when they are imported, while the live action background still looks the same. What gives???

Haven't done this for a while, but if I'm remembering correctly, I set up animations at 720x540 and render them as .tiffs to import into FCP. Actually, I'll have to check - may have also had to resize them to 720x480 in Photoshop, to squash them in the opposite direction. Set up a Photoshop Action to automate resizing the files. DV format uses non-square pixels. That's what makes square computer renderings look squished. HTH - Elisa/gryffnn

I have no idea what gives. I don't have Final Cut Pro, and my videos retain the alpha matte, so I don't need to work with still-image TIFFs. Some of my fellow videots over in the Director's Cut forum make use of the software, so maybe they'll know if it's a software-specific issue. Try asking wolf359 or intercept789. But if you can't figure it out, you can try importing the live-action into Poser as a background video, and effectively do the compositing while you render. Just make sure the frame-sizes/frame-rates match.

gryffnn is correct. DV, as well as other professional video formats, uses rectangular pixels instead ot the square ones used for computer work.

Therefore, unless you're using software that specifically compensates for that (like Lightwave) your best bet is to render at 720 x 540. You can take that into FCP and resize it to 720 x 480. It'll look funny but render correctly if you're outputting to DV.

If you use FCP to output one of the computer-sized movies (320 x 240 for example) it should compensate and render correctly.

Also, that 720 x 540 includes a "safe area" that's designed to compensate for TVs being offset (non-technical description). The safe area is actually 640 x 480 and centered within the 720 x 540 area. When you frame your shots it's good to keep this in mind.

I use something like the image above as a background image when setting up my shots in Poser. My safe area is inside the green. My visible screen is divided into thirds so I can follow the thirds rule when setting up the shot. I change the color to suit my convenience but you can see the general principal.

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

Thanks -- everyone! I worked it out just as you all said and it's doing great!