Is it possible to "blur" certain figures/props in poser? I imagine it might be possible in an animation, but I am talking about stills. Basically, I have an image in which the background needs to appear blurry. My original instinct was to render the backround and foreground seperately and then do the postwork in Photoshop. Just wondering if there's a way to save a step and do this right in Poser. Thanks all!

I can't speak for P5, but in P4 or P4/PP,you'd need to composite, as you describe. You could try importing an already-blurred background image and rendering your foreground models against that. Sometimes it works very well. Traveler's blurred backgrounds (free at RuntimeDNA) for use with his "poor man's HDRI" lights are great, for example. If you need to use your own background, though, you'll probably want to render it separately, blur in Photoshop, then combine with the non-blurred elements also in Photoshop. I'm not crazy about Poser's simulated motion blur, so I wouldn't recommend trying a one-frame animation technique for your background.

I've written a "walk thru" which included a fake "depth of field". If you are interested you can visit this link: Fake Depth of Field Warning: Mild Nudity JV

Poser 5 (firefly rendering) has F-stop and focal distance. I haven't figured them out, but I know that bluring the background is what those settings are used for in photography.

Attached Link: http://brian.curiouslabs.com

Dunno if this answers your question but there is a motion blur document under the Render menu in Poser 5 (sorry, I don't user Poser 4 anymore). After you complete your render, you can use this feature to create 2D motion blur on a still image. I don't think it will create a blurred background. You must use depth of field for that or F-stop, focal distance as mentioned above. All mentioned are worthy suggestions. -Brian

You can always enable motion blur, and move your background props slightly, resulting in an out-of focus effect. It will require more processing time, however. The layered render technique you have in mind is much faster.

One other alternative is volumetric lighting which is only available in Poser 5 as Atmosphere. I'll post an imagine soon.

here it is

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1643671&Form.sess_id=4430506&

Here is the tutorial if you are interested. -Brian

Wow! Thanks for all the help. You've all given me a couple of choices on this procedure. Thanks for taking the time!

You could also try enabling depth-cue too, which is in Poser4 and up, and gives a similar effect to Brian's pics above.