It could apply to most 3D programs, but a-since most of the people come to the poser forum, I thought it might be the good place to find a quick answer. How is the render of a 3D scene calculated ? I mean by that: If I put a certain amount of objects in a scene, all with different textures, but my production frame (or the view of my preferred camera) doesn't show them, are they going to be accounted for in the final render time (to be calculated) even though they won't show in the rendered image ? To make ot more clear: suppose I pose Victoria in a certain manner and I decide that a portrait shot is going to convey the feeling I want to show with the image, are her legs (or other body part not appearing in the intended image) going to slow the render time even though they won't show ? Really just a question of an ever inquiring mind... Thank you in advance to those who answer kindly. PH

I am not sure personally but the three things that I feel require the most calculating that are known to slow Poser renders are 1)Transparency 2)Bump 3)Shadows Personally I opt not to use bumps. Shadows and such are a must though. There are different types of calculations depending on the Renderer. Raytraced renders are well knows and slow to render. I always turn off anything that doesn't show just in case. But for the most part, only what is going to the render window is calculated. Or so I believe.

Depends on how the renderer removes objects not visible in the scene. If Poser considers the "parts" of Victoria as separate objects that can be removed because they are not within the view frustrum of the camera, then they will be removed early enough not to effect the rendering time much. Also, most renderers (hopefully all) do what is called polygon clipping at the view frustrum. Here, polygons that are completely outside the camera's view are removed from consideration. Still, there are times when this must occur later in the calculations - when shadows or reflections must be calculated - can't remove objects and polygons before doing these. If you want to do a head shot and definitely remove unnecessary geometry for quicker render calculations, you should make those areas hidden or not used in the render. BYS

i always thought it was calculating the patience of the person waiting, jk, :) like in the prev posts, trans,bump, shadow, and the more polys the longer the render because each surface"polygon" has those calculations done for it, raytracing adds reflection,refraction, and prob a few others, hence the longer render times, and i dont know if poser does,but a good renderer only renders whats in the cameras FOV, HTH's