I am working on an aerospace fighter mesh. It is imported from Lightwave and is already 120 000 polys. It has several low to medium res maps. It won't have many morphs, but I'll make a good number of JCMs for it. I'm refining the mesh with a hi-res cockpit, weaponry, etc... So far, I have added 30 000 polys. Is a 200 000 polys prop acceptable in Poser ? (my system handles it quite easily, but it's not a low end system).

That's probably pushing it, for most users. Especially if they're going to include anything else in the scene, like Michael 3 and an outfit. The Unimesh figures alone are ~74000 polys. Have you considered making the cockpit interior a parentable prop that can be removed for exterior renders? Since you mention JCMs, I assume you're turning it into a posable figure ... perhaps the interior could be a separate body part that can be toggled off.

That is a bit big for most users. A prop should be no more then 75000-100000 Polys(IMHO), to be pratical. Little_Dragon has a good suggestion make the Cockpit a "Smart Prop" that you can load when requiring those "Close Shots". Also, consider this: A mesh is as good as it's "Dressing". Meaning, good shaders & textures will make even "Low-Poly" meshes look good. And if it's the Fighter i'm thinking about, then it's got an "Organic Form". Poser "Smooths" surfaces a lot by default. So, you would require less polys for the "Curvatures"... As an example you can see my image WIP of a Sword modeled in C4D: "Joan of Arc Sword". It shows 3 stages: Low-Poly(3000), HyperNurbed(9000) & Rendered(12000). Of course the rendered one looks Great. But, i could easily have rendered with half the Polys & still get a decent render. Of course, i did the opposite of you. I started from scratch & increased the Polycount gradually. But, C4D has all the tools neccessary to do the reverse & reduce the Polycount of an existing mesh in a judicious manner. One such tool is a little Plug called "Merge Quads". I use it all the time. ;-) It's a question of compromise & priorities. Most users are Hobbyists like me(IMHO). And are not looking to make a render for a 3D mag. Just to visualise what's in their minds... ;-) Marco

And on that, Marco ... you given any thought to creating several LOD versions? A low-poly of the same sword for background figures, a med-poly for general use, and a high-poly for "hero" shots? I've been toying with this concept, but unless there's some elegant way of swapping obj files it would lead to folder bloat.

Indeed, Nomuse! I did give it some thought. I have to test this of course. But, maybe using Poser's "Swapping Geometry" feature would solve this. One CR2 for all 3 Sword Resolutions & just turn the Dial... Well, in theory anyway... I'll try it & let you know! Marco

Shoot. Time for that cup of coffee I've been putting off. Yah, geometry swapping would work pretty well for keeping the folder count down, and the initial footprint down. I'd not bet on Poser ever giving you RAM back once you'd used it for a high-poly object, though, so the default would be best as the lo-poly version. And...sigh...you'd then get a flood of emails from newbies who wouldn't realize you had to turn the dial to get the good stuff. But this sounds very plausible for those sort of props that are normally back in a scene but might find themselves starring in a close-up head-shot (like, say, a telephone).

Well, i can't open Poser right now, cause i'm doing a very important render for a client in C4D. But, as soon as i can, i'll try it. Cause, "geometry swapping" works in figures. As to props, well that remains to be seen... ;-) Yes, the down-side of swapping is that once you swap to the Hi-Res version, it's stays in memory... Well, To tell the truth, i've been less "enthousiastic" lately about "Poserizing" my stuff. I myself never render in Poser anymore. I only use it to pose my characters with "Low versions" of whatever i've modeled in C4D. Then import it to C4D. Yes, "Newbie emails" are a scary thing. LOL As it happens, have had requests for the sword. So i guess, i'll have to "Poserize" it. And give 2 resolutions. Marco

Geom swapping does work with props (see Jeff Howarth's Dial-a-prop from Poser Tech), but it has weird problems and isn't generally considered to be reliable. Another issue would be the size of the obj file (and consequently, the accompanying .rsr). It would be pretty big as it would contain the geometry for all 3 versions. Re the # of polys - 150,000+ is pretty big, but there are ways to cut down the Poser obj size. Mainly, by exporting from UV Mapper without normals. That usually slices off 20% or more. But I'd still consider spiltting it up into sections, if it's possible. Throw in a couple of pilots (M3) with uniforms, and most users are dead in the water mac

I've been quietly shifting from using props at all. The technique of a conforming-figure prop with phantom limbs for the "conforming parts" seems to work very nicely. I've a couple hats done that way now. Advantage is, of course, that they take MAT poses and can have posable bits. Has the boat drifted completely from the pier yet? By the way, you can split into multiple obj files, but it is my impression Poser does something silly with the rsr when you have AltGeom dials in the cr2. Oh, I've never worried much about thinning out the size of the obj file (as opposed to the size of the obj); I've done some looking at my own Runtime and discovered that once Poser is done importing the file has bloated up to the same as it was before I stripped the normals.