OK... have I missed something? I'm havibng real problems rendering at a decent size from Poser 5. The renderer just locks up half-way-through. So it's a fairly complex image, Steph in Netherworks Star-vixen outfit in Antares bridge prop scene... but this is driving me MAD!!! I'm sure i've missed hundreds of threads on this, but how do I get around it? XP Pro, 1GB RAM 240GB HD 2Ghz CPU Athlon... where's the missing link there?!?!?!?!? Can't these people write programs which actually RUN in windows? (LOL. Mickmca... what's your default text editor?) LOL!! (still... just...) Howard:)

Your system is quite larger than mine (Win98SE, 850MHz, 512Meg) and the only issue I have had was when trying to render large hair props like RDNA's wizard hair/beard. I too tend to make complex images with several charaters, clothes, props, transparancies, etc. You might try finding if it's a particular light or maybe stage that is causing the freeze. Are you using complex Light Gels? Do you have something with massive transparancy to it? Are you using a large hair prop from the Hair Room? Does it freeze when rending a 'shadow map' (if so, which light), or 'adding props', or 'rendering scene'?

No. This is Poser 5 Firefly under XP which I believe is a totally different fish! Win 98's bad memory management was a pretty darn good excuse for the old renderer crashing... but... It freezes at a different spot every time I render... but usually about half way through rendering the scene. It doesn't seem to be choking on a particularly complex section either... but it's different evey time. I've tried just about everything... I am trying to render at 4096x5700. Even rendering in layers (to composite in PSP) gives me grief... To get the results I want I need to render the whole scene in FireFly with a little atmosphere. Compositing don't cut the mustard as I get no shadows. Even when I reduce the Res to 2048x2850 I get lock-ups. I've checked all my texture and obj references (Imagine Hogwarden having bad texture reference... no way!! Hell, I wrote the program LOL!) Well... I've got the SR3 update and so I'll try it again. Poo. Howard:)

PS... I', using P5 complex hair of my own creation Mwuhahahaha... ... but it always gets well past the hair before it crashes. I'm using displacement maps also... same as. H:)

What little I worked with XP at work I know it has a lot of hidden garbage/bagage that runs random in the background, could there be something 'kicking in' at random intervals and locking the system (taking the cpu away from P5) or dose it actually seem to be just P5 that freezes?

I've had this happen lots. Always with a complex hair prop in a scene, but (as you said) not alway on the hair prop. Easy test? Hide your hair prop (every hair group). Try to render. $50 bucks its the hair prop. Are you using SR3? They made changes (may be too early to call them fixes) with the hair logic. If you haven't upgraded, you may want to.

Hmmm, not always the hair prop--- I had massive lock ups with the bone hair and thought that was it-- nope it was the Gargoyle dog. H! Have you ever been able to render 4096x5700 in Firefly?? I never have. I start having probs at 2500 by 2500. And at 4 figures-- count complex hair as a figure, also complex set. Like I say, sometimes it's fine, but otherwise--it's random city!!! Did you boot out and completely reboot your machine?? Did that help or change things at all? Try--I know you are not gonna want to hear this--1200 by whatever and see if it will render. I got the Bone hair one to come across at 1260 by something or other-- not optimum but better than display window. Otherwise, if you really need a dynamic hair piece, use Rdna's. They have always rendered for me-- so far. Emily

Oh count special effects like volumetrics as a figure too. I think the general conscenus is No they don't know how to write a program that works in Windows-- not if your pushing the envelope at all. Emily

Ah, but did you try it without the hair prop!?! Just kidding; I spend a lot of time with hair props; I tend to get fixated. :-)

ANd Zenman-- he makes good hair too-- renders fast. Didn't want to leave you out. Emily

This probably doesn't relate, but you might consider verifying all bump maps referenced are actually present, or try de-applying them for a test-render. I once had a major problem when a file loaded without error despite a missing bump map, until it was about 3/4 way thru a 4-hour render. Locked up at various points thereafter with various error messages or no message at all until I tracked it to a missing bump map.

Thanks, queri, I wasn't feeling left out but I appreciate the thought. :-)

Howard, Check your memory as it nears lock up. P5 seems to go unstable (well goes even more unstable if that's poss.) when it starts to get near the 2GB limit. You've 1GB real memory, so how big is you virtual RAM? I keep my swap at 960MB to stay under 2GB total. Not sure if it helps. Poser does slow as it reaches the limited (?) 1.9GB (I do wish CL would move into the 21st century with it's programming methods), but my hope is that forcing it under 2GBs I can at least keep Win2K stable enough to try to help Poser through its designed-to-fail memory managment woes. Still hoping that CL have to rewrite memory management in the port to OSX - and that they then port it back to Windows... Otherwise, it's Poser 5 to the bit bucket!

Have you got 2 copies of any bitmap image in your image list in the Material Room? If yes check that all body parts are using the same copy of the bitmap image. I have yet to discover how to remove an image from the that list. Has anyone else found a way?

I know I've said this before in another thread, but at the risk of boring regular readers... If you think it's a memory problem, try lowering the bucket size. Start at 4 and if that works try again adding 4 each time till you find what is best for your system.

So many ideas to help... ...thanks all. The problem seems to be with the Antares Bridge props. I can successfully render Steph clothed with hair at 4096x5700. But the set is still having problems. Poser is running at about 700-800Mb memory useage max so my sway-file's not coming into play. I'll try reducing bucket size. Oh... and what is it with displacement maps breaking up at the bottom of the bucket? That's odd! Howard:)

do you have a swap file on the rartition you're rendering on? I seem to remember a CL technote on the subject some time ago, only affects people with lots of memory. I think it was a P4 issue, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was still a P5 issue too. Can they write a program that works? I guess that depends on Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Clinton. Meaning, it depends on what you mean by "works" :P later jb

LOL! Hmmm... no. My swapfile is on a seperate drive all to itself! I tried reducing the bucket size, but that seems to seriously increase the render time! H:)

If your machine can't handle large buckets, something has to give.

hogwarden, where you able to have a complete render after reducing your bucket size? Smiller's suggestion worked for me. 2 is horribly slow but a size as small as 8 was bearable in my P4 2.53 GHZ with 1Gig of 1066 Rambus memory.

hogwarden: Can you render the scene at all if you reduced the res to say 200x400 just for a test? One thing you could do is systematically remove items and see if that's the issue. For example try rendering without atmosphere or try rendering only the figures and not the background and sets. Or turn of shadows, ray trace etc. Also see if this will render in the older P4 renderer. I coincidently have a sci fi scene that will render in P4 renderer but not in fire fly and I don't know why. I gets to the rendering scene busy bar they locks indefinitly. One thing that's a real killer are morph targets. I have had a great deal of success culling my figures down to one body MT for their entire figure, one face MT and the expression MTs. If I have 4 V2 figures with all stock MTs in place then fire fly won't handle the render too well. I think poser's memory management system is nearly non-existant judging by their lack of instancing.

Mason, I was having your exact problem, tried all your recommendations eliminating features from Firefly until I stayed with my minimum requirements for that particular scene, didn't have shadows, raytracing, just displacement, even had to eliminate a couple of characters I wanted to have. The only thing that allowed me to render my scene was setting the bucket size ridiculously low to 8.

I haven't tried any serious work with SR3 yet so I can't really provide much help, except: * Oh... and what is it with displacement maps breaking up at the bottom of the bucket? That's odd!* ...sounds like you need to increase the size of your displacement bounds. Bill

Had the same issue over and over again. What I found that works evertime is the lights. Try your render with only the standard lights. Work? Now Place the lights you want to use. Save them and then re-add them. (best to use the python scrip reset lights between) Work? There seems to be (before SP3) issues with some lights, that have been designed.

OK, I'm rendering my whole scene at 200xsomething...
(Thx for the displacement bounds tip williamsheil!)

Oh! It's rendering! after a long pause...

OK... the renderer has crashed in the fifth bucket!
Not even the end of the top row. In fact, it's behaving just as if it had finished rendering and Poser hasn't crashed out.

Standard lights crashes out at the same place, but I don't have the remove lights python script.

Hmmm... well, I just ran the scene list py and...
screenshot attached... I don't think Poser ir going to render this image.

H:)

OK... the renderer has crashed in the fifth bucket!>> What do you mean by this? That your bucket size in Firefly is 5? Could you post a screen of your rendering settings in Firefly?