I have a four figure scene in Poser 4 on a Mac Powerbook G3/500 with 164MB assigned to the program (default Poser window). I have a human Victoria with Allerleirauh's golden curls and three faery Victorias with Poser Ponytails (wings are not added yet, but will probably be Codeman's butterfly wings). My problem is two-fold: 1. I try to render and the computer tells me there is not enough memory to allocate a shadow map. At this point the program invariably (but not always) crashes). 2. I want the faery bodies with morphed faery proportions I have assigned thru various dials. If I bring in the faeries first, the human Victoria comes in with faery dimensions on her default size. If I do the human first, I can't affect the faeries. I've u/l a working image of the set-up to show what I am attempting. Is there an answer to one and, hopefully, both? Thank you in advance, Cris

Allie may be able to help you with the hair problem, I think she has a solution (the not enough memory problem) you could private message her and ask- If you are using morph targets for the faeries and scaling the whole body down- save your morph settings in the pose library (it will ask you when you save a pose whether to include the morphs) Bring all figures in all as human size- then apply the faerie pose to the faeries and scale the whole body down to 15% or whatever you are using. Don't have a clue why it would change the human size figure also, but then I don't use a MAC! Try and see if that works, though-

Thanks, Thorne...I am having some problems that are memory-related to Allie's hair. I know how to save a pose into the library..does it also save the morph settings?

Yes. it will ask you if you want to include them- at least it does in the updated version with the latest patch applied =};-}>

Hmmmm...will have to see if there was another patch after 4.02 for the Mac as it doesn't ask me that. :-( Thank you.

I have no idea, aside from a suspicion of memory problems, what's going wrong. I don't have a Mac, and that just adds to the mystery for me. Do you plan to render this in Poser or another program such as Bryce? If not in Poser, then why not pose each figure separately as I do, and then export them to the rendering program?

I have been unsuccessful in bringing in all the maps properly for Vicki in Bryce, ThralLord. Especially the transparency maps. I sure would like to do this in Bryce. I will probably do the separate figures as I cannot render the group now. Thanks for answering my plea in the night to you and Thorne. Very appreciated by this girl who just can't get to sleep when she is trying to conquer the monster..lol.

Then why not try rendering the background in Bryce, then importing that to Poser as a background, and rendering one figure, saving the results. Then repeat with the next figure, but use the previous rendering for the Poser background. Keep repeating for each figure. You can always add additional shadows in post. Would that work for the scene you're working on?

Yes, I think it would. I am certainly not opposed to post work as you can tell from my work (hopefully, anyway...smile). Thank you, Sir.

The old versions of Poser automatically included the morph settings without asking. I would say that is the default way it is done. Anyway, you could save a pose, change the morphs, the apply it back and see! Thorne =};-}> (WAY past my bedtime)

Sweet dreams...sprinkling a generous dose of faery dust

That image looks like it'll be a wonderful one!

What size is have you asked for the shadow map in the lights, I default to 1000 and sometimes I get the memory message. Also how many lights 3 or more? Also have had trouble with allies beautiful hair - not least the xyz coordinates. It may all be a mac thing, I run on Powerbook G3 300 alas which seems to eat most items. haven't had a problem with different size bodies, yet. Just downloaded 4.02. You could render he fairies seperately and paste to background? Nice work

I use a similar machine. Just allocate more memory to Poser (do a 'get info' on the application icon), and then bump up the Virtual Memory allocation in the Memory Control Panel. Things slow down, but it is the best way to render a complex image. The image I posted a few days ago 'Magnificant Millicent' was done with a Poser memory allocation of 240Mb, eventhough my G3 only has 192Mb of RAM.

elektra--did you check out the tutorial by Tony mentioned in the Bryce forum? It is specifically for bringing in the transmaps for Vicky so if you follow that, you should have no problems--unless they are specific to your own computer, I wouldn't think. I suspect this would be much easier in Bryce-I always find multiple characters easier in Bryce than Poser.

Great suggestions by all. I will check into all of them and I thank each of you for your time as well as for the nice comments about the work. Cris

Oh, and in answer to Oliver: 3 lights...at this point, everything in default size. I am going to read Tony's tutorial more carefully and may render each separately. Thanks.

Oh, and in answer to Oliver: 3 lights...at this point, everything in default size. I am going to read Tony's tutorial more carefully and may render each separately. Thanks.

Try using the 4.02 patch that is placed manually, not through an .exe file. I had trouble using the one off of the Metacreations site. The zipped version worked much better. I have it and could mail it to you if you cannot find it.

Thank you, bbascuba. I have the 4.02 patch. DianeB. Have just read all the posts again and you know how sometimes information doesn't make sense until you have other information and experiences that put things in place. I think I'm getting it. Just color coded my pieces and am about to try what you and Tony describe on bringing in the multiple maps. Will let you know if I am successful? Thanks to all of you for your generous time. I hope I can be of service, in return, sometime. Cris

One quick thing on Importing to Bryce. Open Bryce, create a sphere. Click the "M" to go to the materials requester. load in the first Victoria texture you want in the Pictures screen (Note Bryce 4 DOES accept jpegs). Click OK, go back main screen. Click the "M" to go to the materials requester again, load the next picture. Do this for ALL the textures used in Poser. Essentually what you're doing is pre-loading the picts so during the import proccess Bryce doesn't struggle to find them. The transparency maps are another story. You just need to load the correct map into the middle square in the Pictures requester. (I'm on G4 450 only 64 megs -- I just up my Virtual and set Poser to 90megs)I have had no problem with multiple figs. But I do get the occasional memory error. So what I do is set up the scene, make sure all the correct maps are loaded, AND make sure that no EXTRA textures are. Check every material and make sure that they're only using the textures that you need. Then save the file, and QUIT Poser (you might even want to re-boot). Open the pz3 file and render. Another note: The Victoria model with all the morphs is a MUCH larger file than without (Single all morph Vic is about an 8meg pz3 file--opposed to a 2 meg standard Vic morph pz3 file. $ figures can run upwards to 32 megs of figure information). A good thing to do is get the figure the way you want it (with all the dials/morphs) and save a full body morph. That way you can load in the much smaller Vic standard-morphs and apply the body morph, ending up with a still much smaller figure than with a lot of the morphs you don't need. Hope this helps and doesn'r confuse. James

Yes, Allie--that's what I thought (4 Vickies were a lot) which is why I thought it might be easier in Bryce--you're just importing .objs and maps there. I never get a memory error using lots of objects, but its a different situation. BTW, James, your tip about importing the maps first in Bryce is a great idea. I've never done that but sure will now G. Diane B

Thanks, James and Allie. I'm having a lot more success with all the info I've gotten in the last SEVERAL (lol) hours. I'm even thinking I may now be able to attempt to bring in some figures to Bryce (WoW). Thanks for all your help. One question, Allie, what do you mean by distant picture and halving the size of the maps on the hair? I have seen other color versions of your beautiful hair; are they available anywhere? Thank you all. Cris

Cris, hope you've got the answers to your problem by now. Sorry, I just got your private message tonight. All the suggestions made are right on and about what I would have said. The multiple renders and the Bryce suggestion both seem like logical solutions to your problem. 4 Vickies plus props are going to be very hard to render all at once, especially with large texture maps. You could take Allie's suggestion and use reduced size maps for the fairies themselves, too. You don't need highly detailed maps on figures that small. Your main figure might be able to use a smaller map, too. If you are using my freckles texture, definitely make it smaller. I made it extremely large for close up details. jschoen, wonderful suggestion about textures in Bryce. I have never been able to get my textures to load automatically in Bryce. What a pain! I will have to try your solution. Cris, remember that transparency maps in Bryce must be inverted. Bryce reads black as transparent and white as solidthe opposite of Poser. Can't wait to see your finished image!

I have never been able to run with Allies hair on my poor old 7300/180 mghtz mac even when I allocate 120 meg to poser ... I simply run with the normal until I take it to Bryce which can handle it fine ...

Oh ... DTHUREGRIF ... textures load fine normally. For me thay simply have to be in the main window of my hard drive witht the mtl and obj otherwise ti can't find it. For the longest time I thought they didn't work until I accidently had a file out there and it loaded in. Transparancies on the other hand are still a pain.

Thanks, Ghost! I knew there must be a secret to it, but just never took the time to find out. :-)