Recently I have been experiencing problems rendering in Poser 5. I started rendering to a new window at 300dpi at 1600X1200, even at 1024x768...It starts the process, renders a few lines and then apparently freezes. The program itself doesn't freeze, just the process. It just started doing this a couple days ago. My runtime folder is completely crammed full of stuff (and whose isnt?), is this the problem perhaps? I tried all the options checked and unchecked and combinations of both. I can render the scene(s) in the program window at a smaller size, though. Absolutely no clue what to do, but it's definitely a problem. I'm running an Intel P4 512 mb Geforece 5200 machine if this helps. Any ideas would be great as I don't know what to do. Thanks!

I was getting something similar to this, you may have a bad .obj object somewhere, it was the case on mine. I removed the offending object and all was dandy. Just a thought

Why 300 dpi? Are you rendering for print? It's unnecessary otherwise and won't make the slightest difference to your render quality. It will, however, eat RAM like PacMan with munchies. That aside, P5 will hang if you throw too much at it. How complex is your scene, for starters. Even one figure with hair, clothing and a couple of Props will make P5 choke if you try hard enough. Example, I couldn't render V2 with a StefyZZ texture, Catsuit with texture, Mask-Da's Les Paul Guitar and a wall and ground prop. That is to say, the render stopped at approx 90%. I was, howvever, trying to render at 3000 x 4000, which is pretty damn big. Reducing the render to a less insane size did the trick. A workaround, if you absolutely must render at your chosen settings, is to render in sections then stitch it back together in Photoshop. A lot of people advocate saving in TIF format because it gives you an alpha channel which makes sticking it back together a lot easier. Personally, I prefer PNG because the alpha channel is already transparent when the image is loaded in Photoshop.

512 Md is borderline for P5. I strongly recommend more RAM. A defrag is good, too.

Acch..too much info. ...then shading rate down (0.300) or lower on closeups. ...then pixel sample up (5) ...avoid the filters. They're not what you may think. ...smooth polys off if it's not a closeup. Excuse if you know all this. Just don't want to confuse

I used to run into this problem all of the time.

I enjoy creating complex scenes with lots of background items, and several characters.

Unfortunately, with P5 renders this can prove to be somewhat problematic. P5 will regularly choke (hang up) on complex renders.

As has been mentioned already, this difficulty occasionally stems from a particular memory-eating object in the scene....such as a hair object. Delete that object, and the problem usually goes away. Unfortunately, this means that you can't use that particular object in your scene.

You can try setting the Bucket Size in your render options dialog box to a lower number. I think that the default size is 32. Keep in mind that lowering the Bucket Size can greatly increase the amount of time required for a render. And it might not even work.

However -- this is my real recommendation. If you don't have it, then get Vue 5, or the soon-to-come Vue Infinite.

I used to constantly deal with the frustration of P5's rendering limitations on complex scenes. All of the time.

So......I switched to Vue. Now, I do almost all of my rendering in Vue. It's not only faster by several orders of magnitude -- but it doesn't "freeze" in the middle of a render after waiting 15 min. to see if it'll work.

Man, was that annoying. And it's a major reason why I now render my P5 scenes in Vue.

In addition to which: Vue is a great software package in its own right.

Cross-posted on the bucket size issue.

I second the bucket and get more RAM suggestions above. Sometimes my render will bail out half way done. I drop the bucket and....solved. And oh by the way, watch out for those high-poly vickies and mikes. XENOPHONZ, can you honestly say that Vue renders a scene faster by several orders of magnitude? One order of magnitude is 10x as fast. I assume this is an exaggeration. However, you are certainly saying it is faster. Are you confident you are comparing apples to apples? I am not attacking you, I just want the facts because I am considering Vue. Vue does not have the shaders, so you can't set up your Poser5 scene dependant on shaders. When you go out from Poser to Vue not everything moves over, I have heard. You can't tweak an animation in Vue once you get started, the morphs are not there (for instance, if half way into an animation you notice your character is only blinking one eye, you can't set keyframes. Is that true? This and just the fact of staying in one app, are my withholds, but I am attracted to that speed thing. Can you give an example of two scenes exactly the same and the render times in both programs? ::::: Opera :::::

can you honestly say that Vue renders a scene faster by several orders of magnitude? One order of magnitude is 10x as fast. I assume this is an exaggeration.

This depends upon the particular scene in question. The more complicated the scene, the more noticeable that the render time difference will be. It's been a long time since I've intentionally made a comparison on Vue vs. P5 rendering times on the same scene.

I have to say that even on simple scenes, there is a noticable time difference. For an "easy" scene -- perhaps 2 min. 30 sec. on P5 vs. < 1 min. in Vue. I'd have to try a scene in order to compare exact numbers. I am not at my personal computer, so I can't do that at the moment. But rest assured, there is a significant difference, time-wise.

In addition to which, one could say that the "orders of magnitude" assertion is valid -- whenever P5 freezes completely, and then Vue spits out the same scene: no muss/no fuss.

As for texturing issues in Vue vs. P5......Vue can't handle P5-specific materials (such as transparencies) -- but this has never been a problem for me. I simply substitute Vue materials on the objects in question. They often look better, anyway.

As for "not everything moving over", I am not certain what you are referring to. Do you mean objects? Textures? Some of the "not move over" problems have easy fixes. But that's a technical question for the Vue forum.

As for animation issues.....I am not the guy that you need to ask about that. I don't do animations, so I really can't help you there. Once again, I would suggest posting your questions in the Vue forum. There are lots of experts there -- far more knowledgable on the subject of animations than I am.

Can you give an example of two scenes exactly the same and the render times in both programs?

Perhaps later tonight. But it will be several hours (at least) before I will be able to do so.

I'll tell you what -- the first time that I was able to successfully render a scene in Vue, a scene that had always choked in P5: I was sold.

I think that you will be, too.

Thank you all for the suggestions, I shall take into consideration each as it fits. My scene is very complex, and yes, I do need more ram. I had another stick of 512 installed, but it was slower than the DDR 400. I was told to take it out to speed up performance, but another friend tells me in this case 1 gig of non-matching memory is still fast than 512mb of one type. Also, I am aware of layering the scene and constructing it in PS, but there are elements that will be very tricky to redo. I did turn down dpi to 72, no filtering as I add gaussian blur in PS anyway, no raytracing, but I do have some objects in the close foreground so I have smooth polys and remove backface on. I will try this and render to a new window at 1024X768 again and see what happens. Hopefully something truly magical! I do have Vue 5, and I prefer that engine leaps and bounds over Poser, but it's a hog with big scenes, as well. One scene I did took over 20 hours with imported Poser figures and the like. Looks like either layering or buying a super computer is in order. Vue is terrific, but I tend to want all the bells and whistles with atmospherics, GI, and radiosity turned on - now that can take some time to render! I'll see what happens, and I appreciate your comments. Wish me luck and I'll post a follow up regardless of outcome. Thanks again!

As far as rendering in Vue5...times are greatly slower if you choose to use global radiosity/HDRI/global illumination, render times usually run all night, that said the renders come out looking a LOT better, so it's worth the wait. Now if you use a standard atmos...you are good to go. IMHO I would wait for V5 Infinite or go Pro. Vue5 is having difficulties at the moment handling complex scenes....A lot of people can't surpass3-7mil poly count at this point, some are locking up at 800K-1.4mil. OOM problems. That said...V5 is still in it's infancy...and be being upgraded/fixed constantly. So I look forward to it's final state :)

Shardz... Schmelt! I will regret this... ...displacement maps! If you have differing #'s (clothing vs skin) set it {the bounds] in each figure's (from figure) or each object's parameter box and leave Displacent map checked but at 0.000. I set each bound one fraction higher (displ 0.01= bound 0.011) The shell to hold the yoke...no "ripping" in the skin effects! Any # you type in [render option bounds] will auto-bound (lol) everything at that # (I think). A waste of power to set at 1.00 (if you are at the limit) Newbie info alert, so with a grain of salt And I'd snatch up Vue5i in an instant

My render worked by simply turning down the settings a bit. I believe the 300dpi was probably causing most of it. (Ack!) I can't imagine Vue doing it much faster, even with all the goodies off. But perhaps I'll try it for myself soon as I do prefer the engine in Vue. Thanks again for the tips!

I have been running into this too, and I thought it was the lights (custom Lights). Someone suggested I look into materials and though it killed the effect I was looking for in the render I removed some of the nodes in the material room and it rendered. Now, I do not think it was taxing my machine, but I do think something was/is funky with the materials/nodes. When I can get time to plug and remove each node one at a time or add them back one at a time I will let everyone know, but you might want to try disconnecting some nodes and see if it renders.

Reduce the "maximum texture resolution" setting in firefly (keep it powers of two - 512/1024/2048/4096) or reduce the texure resolutions of the objects themselfs (by hand) according to the distance to the camera. Remove unneccessary bumpmaps. Don't use displacement if you don't use it. Maybe the material setting of the object makes firefly go crazy (if you use P5 material setting). Try to change that.

dpi (in fact ppi, pixels per inch) has no effect at all on anything here. It only tells that, when printed, each inch will have 300 pixels. Or 72 and be a bit more than four times larges than at 300ppi). What counts is the file size. 1600x1200 is not large. I have rendered 4500x6000 pixels. When you're having trouble here: 1/ check for spyware 2/ see that all is closed that is not needed. 3/ run defrag 4/ get more ram. Poser renders horrendously slow, so you may think it has frozen, but it hasn't. Just take care when your uter goes into sleep mode as this can influence things.

well that's yet another extreme comment about Poser's render speed. I have no doubt Vue or Shade are possibly faster than Poser firefly. Are you people SURE it is that extreme? On a single cpu, quality for quality, single frame render? as dlk30341 hinted at above, since Vue, for instance, does not have depth shadow mapping (I have been told), you have to turn ray tracing on, right? or Radiosity or HDRI or GI of something to make up for the lack of depth shadow that renders so beautifully in Poser5, to arrive back at beautiful results. Are you saying that Poser is still HORENDOUSLY slow compared to Vue with Vue's slow-rendering effects turned on? Once again, I am not trying to pick a fight. I own both programs. I have not started working with Vue4Pro yet, it is sittling in a box on my desk. I am looking for clear comparisons and facts, because I prefer to stay in Poser, but am teased by these claims. Thank you, ::::: Opera :::::

Sorry, but I haven't had the time to sit down and render a benchmark scene in both Vue and Poser......and it looks unlikely that I will be able to find the time for a couple of days.

Yes....if you activate all of the bells & whistles that Vue offers for a render -- then you've got a long wait on a complex scene. However, there is no way for P5 to match such a render.

If you are satisfied with Vue's "final" quality render, then you usually shouldn't have very long to wait.

However, if you activate HDRI, etc., etc, etc.........then you are looking at considerably expanded render times.

Under these conditions, it's best to start your render, and then go to bed. Or read a novel.

But I would point out that such extended time periods for renders appear to be the case with nearly all super high-quality renders. At least with current technology.

Once again, I would point out that a successfully rendered scene in Vue beats a locked-up render of the same scene in P5 every time.

I own both programs. I have not started working with Vue4Pro yet, it is sittling in a box on my desk. I am looking for clear comparisons and facts, because I prefer to stay in Poser, but am teased by these claims.

I find this statement to be fascinating.

Personally, whenever I get a new software package delivered -- especially one like Vue 4 Pro -- then the software gets installed onto my PC literally within minutes of my opening the box. I certainly don't leave it sitting on my desk.

Vue 4 Pro is a rather expensive paperweight.

If you've already got the program, then I would strongly suggest giving it a test drive.

BTW -- I've got Vue 4 Pro. I don't have Vue 5. I am waiting on the release of Vue Infinite, the upgrade from Vue 4 Pro.

At some point in the near future, I might try out some benchmark time render tests -- Vue vs. P5.

At the moment, I'll have to request your kind indulgence.

no demand on your time was asked nor is required, of course. I just think people are not comparing oranges to oranges on this issue. As for the box sitting there...it was purchased in a burst of enthusiam about the renderfarm, the dual-cpu support, the support for DEM files, and yes, the radiosity/HDRI/GI features of Vue. However, in the interim, I have really gotten great results in Poser5, with face-off's Natural Skin Shader (and the exporation of other shader power it has led me into), for my specific purpose. I have grown to appreciate depth shadow mapping over ray-trace, it's more my style. Most of my scenes are at night, so GI or skylighting is not big for me. I don't need any of Vue's vegitation generation or scenery gen. So you can see, the Firefly engine is perfect for me. I will not open the box of Vue unless the probability of me going out of Poser becomes evident. It's not the cost of the package...it's the cost of the learning curve. I will probably not rest easy, however, despite what I just said, unless I do some time trials between the two packages. ::::: Opera :::::

So you can see, the Firefly engine is perfect for me.

That is the ultimate rule of this game.

If it works for you, and you are satisfied with the results -- then that's about all that's needed.

In my case, I needed something else/more. Vue provided it.

Just downloaded C4D. I know what you mean, opera. I've considered Vue and XSI. Hard to pick which hill...They all have strenths and weaknesses. And all require much homework.

richardson, with that C4D now you are the side of a decent size mountain! it's too bad shardz did not change one factor at a time, because after all this noise we still don't know what factor was bogging him down. I think the one he thinks, the "dpi", is the least likely candidate. I still think it was bucket and/or not enough RAM. Since I am on the hill of trueSpace as well as Poser, right now, I have no energy to tackle one of the big boys. TrueSpace7 later this year should be a cool upgrade. They are promising great things. ::::: Opera ::::

Actually, I just did a pretty huge rendered image in Poser 5, and only 512MB of RAM.... It was very slow, especially the pre-render phases such as textures and shadowmaps. But it was working. Unfortunately, there's nothing while loading textures to show whether anything is happening. 2400x1600, but I was using Posette-based characters, three of them. And that's still less than one Vicky 3. Anyway, try setting things running and leaving the machine for an hour or two. If you get past texture-loading, you might get something from an overnight run.

i can't imagine the scenes you guys must be loading up. just amazing. when I think 'overnight' its for a 300 frame animation! You can imagine the intensity with which animators obsess over render time. Here's my question. You must be rendering to a new window, right? And don't you get progress bars as each texture loads, as each shadow map is calculated, etc., to demonstrate progress? I get progress bars. And then, when actual rendering begins, don't you see each 'bucket' of image fill in a small portion of the window? Sure, it's in slow motion, but still you must get some progress every hour or so to reassure you it is chunking away..... ::::: Opera :::::

I got the scene to render at 1024x768 finally. I'm not really sure why I can't do the same at 1600x1200. Perhaps the bucket is moving, but an hour per line is not acceptable to me. And yes, I have had Vue slammed so bad that it took 20 plus hours for a 1.6 poly scene with no HDRI/GI/Radiosity...so it's all relative. I really want to give HDRI a try, but I'm afraid to unless I buy 512 more DDR 400...perhaps the IRS will help in a couple months. One thing is clear between both programs; at least I can tell there is progress in Vue even if it's slammed. Poser just sits there (with the progress meter) and a non-moving bucket for eternity with no indication with % to go, % done, etc. I tend to agree that Poser 5 has some problems even with the updates, and to which effect varies greatly on what's in your scene and the render settings. I have tried most of your suggestions, but I would like minimum renders to be at 1600x1200 in the future. Time will tell on this issue, and I don't have much of it right now. =)

I've been habitually rendering images at 1600x1600 (matches the width of my monitor) I've just started using face_off's Real Skin Shader and even node heavier shader variants with raytraced lights, displacement maps, reflection and refraction. Never had any rendering problems other than Firefly artifacts caused by floating point underflows due to scene scale. A few weeks ago I switched from using a bucket size of 128 up to 256 and noticed substantial render time improvements, but also render crashes on denser scenes. Going to a smaller resolution 1200x1200 allowed these renders to work, but I finally gave in and set the bucket size back to 128 and now I have no problem at the 1600x1600 resolution again.

Yeah, gwhicks, I have had to get moderate with the bucket when that happens, also. What you REALLY have to watch out for is on an animation, the first frames are no prob with the bucket at 256, so you go blissfully to bed and come back in the morning and find out that when the camera zoomed in close to a model with complex hair or something...SPLAT. Render crash. I am hoping more RAM will increase my ability to kick up the bucket safely. Isn't it great how the shader power does not incurr much of a rendertime hit! ::::: Opera :::::

It's a bit of a problem that the progess bar doesn't seem to do anything at some stages, such as Loading Textures -- it's hard to tell if things have hung at that point. That's why I suggested trying an overnight run. If that works, it's likely a shortage of physical RAM. I've suspicion that ray-traced shadows may sometimes be faster than shadowmaps. Probably depending on lighting, for one thing, and scene complexity. You don't have to generate the shadowmaps, and then you start seeing the picture sooner. It might even be just that you see something is being rendered.

AntoniaTiger, that's been exactly my observation. I switched to completely ray-traced lights just to avoid that protracted period of no progress reports or visible bucket outputs while the shadowmaps are loaded. This was particularly painful when using many shadow mapped lights to simulate GI.

I did a few tests. Ray-tracing is fast on background buckets (I was using a textured square prop as the background) and slowed noticeably on the character. The actual rendering is slower for a ray-trace, but the shadowmaps take a lot of time. It certainly seems worth paying attention to just how many lights cast shadows.

Attached Link: www.spaceformdesign.com

Poser doesn't, it seems, use the built-in graphics functions of the hardware. My own experience suggests that it is still worth using a graphics card with plenty of its own RAM. Last summer I replaced an old 32K-RAM card with a 128K-RAM card. Call is 1999-tech replaced by 2003-tech. I felt there was a definite improvement in system stability, but was that the extra RAM, or more recent drivers? I changed as much because my old card didn't get supported by current DirectX as because of any actual problems, and was pleasantly surprised by the effect on Poser.

now i get the correct answer. i m pretty new to poser world. i just got few day ago. look like i found the correct website for answer. thank you Antonia Tiger and everyone.