Hello, everyone. This is my first post to the forums at Renderosity. I started posting to my gallery a few days ago and thought it was time I quit lurking and got active in this great community.

As a newcomer to the Poser scene, I have a question: how do you work when you are composing and rendering a new image? I've been playing/working with Poser 5 on my Powerbook for a little less than three months, and I fear I've fallen into a rut, ignoring steps/tricks which could make me more productive and (more importantly, since this IS a hobby for me) more entertained. I spend a lot of time staring at a spinning cursor while Poser manipulates a 50-120 MB pz3. I think I could be working smarter, with less down time.

Usually, I start an image based around a particular figure(s) and outfit(s). I have a handful of prebuilt characters in my Figures directory. I drop one into the scene and then select and add a stage prop and/or a background. While in Texture Shaded mode, I flip through different poses until I find something I like. Then I switch to Hidden Line mode and position my figure(s) and tweak my pose(s). I do most of my posing using the dials, switching between the various preset cameras to get what I want. Next I spend what seems like forever (well, at least sometimes it does) moving my Main Camera around to set up the shot. Then I grit my teeth and start setting up the lighting. I usually work with 1-3 lights because I can't stand waiting for 30 global lights to process. A few final pose tweaks and a trip or two to the material room and it's time to grab the final image.

I have never used the Pose or Camera dots. I save my file frequently (and go surf the Marketplace while Poser churns away). I enjoy the heck out of what I'm doing. But could I do it better and enjoy it more? Thanks for your help.

The best way to work is on a minimum of the scene at any one time. I often start with the actual scenery unless I'm using a prebuilt room or something like the DAZ environments. I'll often do the lights at this point, since interior scenes often have the light positions set by whatever internal light fittings are present. The scene is then saved as a PZ3 without lights and the lights saved as a separate file in case I need to alter them later. Once that's done, I save it and work on the characters one at a time, saving them out to a "Custom Figures" folder in the Figures library. Next I'll work on the poses, often one figure at a time, only adding others if there is any interaction between them. The poses are saved to a "Custom Poses" folder. Once I have all the scene elements, I'll then build the whole scene, adding the characters, props and lights, making necessary adjustments on the fly. Next, I'll save the whole scene and do a test render in P4 mode. If that works I'll cross my fingers and hope Firefly doesn't choke on the scene and try a P5 render. Often I have to chop up the scene so P5 can handle it. I've had it happen in P4, too. Once the renders are done I composite them together in Photoshop. I rarely do any other postwork.

Addendum: My workflow is designed to make it easy to rebuild or adjust a scene without having to have the whole scene file in RAM. It also means I can start over if the PZ3 gets corrupted.

Use those camera and pose dots! They are your friends and will save you a lot of time you are spending saving your pz3 - not to mention hard drive space. (Have you taken a look at your pz3 files - their size will amaze you.) I also recommend rendering in draft mode, changing, rendering in draft mode again, etc. Until you get close to your final render, don't bother with shadows, raytracing, and that sort of thing. You can make adjustments to them last, and this will save you a lot of rendering time. I tend to pose my figure first, then add in my textures, clothing, and hair. I add in my backgrounds last because they take up so much screen space and slow down render times. I don't know if that addresses your question or not, but I hope so. :) Best Blessings, --Invidia

this is supposed to be work?..;)

SamTherapy: effective immediately, I try setting up all my scenes using Victoria 3 RR and Aiko 3 LE. That should speed things up. And I'm gonna go back to my recent pz3s and save out poses and a couple of light files. I really sympathise with crossing your fingers before you boot up Firefly - always an adventure for me. Thanks. Invidia: I'll try the camera and pose dots tonight. But often I save just because I'm afraid Poser 5 will crash and I'll lose all my changes. I tend to do a lot of renders with shadows because I like to work with dark and moody scenes. Maybe I can come up with a reasonable set of Draft mode options so things won't be so slow. Thanks.

Personally how I go about doing a scene is the following; 1. have an idea for and image and think of the cast I'll need. 2. load poser and wait (Poser 5 reading a 51 GB runtime folder. 3. load one character at a time and pose them as if the set was full of props. 4. load and pose each figure as needed for the idea. 4a. Set up the camera to my idea as the prime shot. Use the aux cam to pose and check spacing in the scene. 5. set the basic lighting for the figures. 6. Load in the props and move them into place as they need to be and parent them to the figure they are for. Incase after the shot i decide to move a figure. 7. Load the rest of the set in relation to the prime shot. 8. test render in poser4 engine to see where the lights are hitting and ajust as needed. 9. save PZ3. 10. switch to the fire fly on production mode and render. 11. pray it renders, and read a thick novel, scoop out all the cat litter boxes, mow th yard (I run w2K with 2.5 Ghz processor and 1GB memory)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=leather%2Dguy

My 2 cents worth - - - I tend to do fairly big scenes. I usually start with the landscape/terrain/set and select a tentative camera vantage. A couple of tricks I've used in the past are to assemble a big scene in smaller modules, storing them as PZ3's and later importing them one by one into a master scene. Another trick I've used, is to assemble a group of a few characters and their clothes, pose them, and once you've got them as you like, export the lot as a single OBJ - when you re-import them, save the group as a single prop. They'll no longer be posable, but they'll be much less memory-intensive. Useful for background figures especially. Also, when assembling a large scene with a lot of CR2's I use "stand-in" characters (I prefer the P3/4 Lo-Rez-Guy) to get the relative placements, then when it's mostly done, select each stand-in in turn and swap them out to the (previously constructed and saved) planned CR2's with the single-check-mark. Once the scene gets really large, you'll find position dials often start acting screwy, so figure on doing any fine-tuning by typing absolute values for the dial settings. Lights start going crazy in the later stages, so set up your basic lighting early and save it off to the lighting library. Re-loading a really big saved PZ3 has often played heck with light intensities (I've seen them sometimes double with each re-load - sometimes only some of them, sometimes no problem; best to be safe, 'cause adjusting lights in a Big PZ3 can be incredibly frustrating). I also tend to post comments in my gallery about how I did each pic in case anyone's curious how I did a specific scene. Save out PZ3's immediately prior to clicking render just in case.

i personally wouldn't leave the camera to the end. this is one of the first things i do - set the camera. then i can build the entire composition around it.

I actually did an entire scene in Poser from start to finish the last two days, which I don't normally do. What a chore. The experience has increased my admiration for the patience who use it all the time. The absence of properly functional orthogonal views is bad enough when posing a single figure, but when it comes to arranging lights as well, it's a nightmare. I particularly hate the clunky way the render engine works, by which for the first five minutes it just loads stuff, and you have to wait ages to see if, in fact, something is wrong because the tetxure or the lights are not quite what you intended and you have to go back and start again. With any decent renderer you get a first pass view immediately, which is often enough to detect problems. Believe me, use Poser as a posing tool and do the scene setting in Bryce or Vue and you'll save yourself a lot of pain.

I usually render a test of my scene with no shadows and no antialiasing for a fast test render. In P5 pixel samples set to 1 is roughly the equivalent of no antialiasing.

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I prefer arranging scenes in poser the bryce and vue way of rendering is very inefficient because it renders the same parts over and over again. Bryce and vue are ok but you would be better with a real 3d program.

"I prefer arranging scenes in poser" No accounting for taste. The crude selection ability in Poser and the wonky orthogonal views to name but two problems make anything other than very simple scene setting a pain. And find me one other 3D program with no duplicate function. Yes, you can duplicate in Poser by saving an item to a library, creating a new instance, and then deleting the now redundant library entry, but what a cumbersome way to do things. I don't know that you can even do it with single lights. I suppose you would have to create a new light, copy the settings of an existing light and then paste them to the new light. Scene setting is much easier when you can lassoo a bunch of stuff with the mouse, click Ctrl-G to group it all, Ctrl-D to duplicate it, and rotate and drag the new group to its position. A couple of key presses and mouse movements only. "the bryce and vue way of rendering is very inefficient because it renders the same parts over and over again" The render pass system is not inefficient at all - since Vue is faster rendering than Poser, how could it be? And as I said, you get an instant look at how the render is going to be, without having to go through the motions of turning off all the shadows, etc.

I have only used vue 3, so I can only comment on that, the renderer in it is very slow. The poser 4 renderer is usually quite fast but of course, it does depend on what you are rendering.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=rjbourc

lalverson: 51 GB Runtime? Mine is just under 7, and takes too long. Just curious: how long does Poser take to start up on your machine? It's just about 2 1/2 minutes on my 1.33 GHz Powerbook with 1 GB Ram running 10.3.6. Parenting props to figures sounds like a good idea. leather-guy: You're right - now that I've tried it, I can say that using low-res stand-ins is the way to go for big interactive scenes. Also, I totally agree - my Poser 5 dials start getting wonky just about the time I want to tweak for rendering. From there on out, it's all typing for me. A_: setting the camera early on is an interesting idea, but I don't think it would work for me. I always find myself searching around for the most interesting POV and generally I end up with something different than where I started. Phantast: I think that part of my problem is that I like to knock out an image in a single 2-3 hour session. I'd rather spend some of that time perfecting my image rather than just getting it done. xantor: That's the test render I start with, but I find I have to move lights frequently because I generally like to work dark and moody. I wish I could do a quick render with shadows, even a real lo-res one. I have a copy of Bryce, and I'm ashamed to say that I've barely used it. Can anyone point me to a good tutorial on setting up scenes using Poser characters and props in Bryce? Or should I try Vue first? By the way, this thread has been really helpful to me. Thanks, everyone.

Attached Link: http://www.petersharpe.com/Tutorials.htm

There are some good bryce tutorials at the link, some of them are for importing poser people into bryce.

My tutorials for importing Poser figures into Bryce are at http://phantast.actionbabecentral.com. I did start a tutorial on creating scenes in Bryce and using the interface to best effect, but it's not complete. Maybe I'll get time to do it over Christmas. I also like to spend the most time perfecting the picture rather than setting it up, and I find this much easier in either Bryce or Vue. Vue 4 has far and away the quickest renderer (I don't have Vue 5, and I hear it has instability problems). It's at least five times faster than Bryce 5, and because it's also multipass I don't waste ten minutes looking at a blank render window before deciding I have to cancel the render. However, a VERY nice feature in Bryce is the spray render. If you want to see what some little bit of your image will look like when rendered, you can just paint in that area with the mouse and it's rendered at once. Very handy for checking crucial details. Vue lacks any equivalent feature, which is a shame.