Dear members, I had a big animation in render process and I decided to stop the render. However Poser is still working but not responding. The cancel screen is there but the programs main interface is not usable. Any idea how I can trigger Poser to wakeup? I didn't save the final stage of the animation and I don't want to loose it. :) Best regards, Umut.

A) Did you render to image sequence? B) How long did you wait for Poser to respond? Did you check your Windows task manager (assuming you have Windows) to see if there's any activity? It could very well be frozen. If you rendered to image sequence, just CTL-ALT-DEL out of the app, restart it, and begin rendering again at the last frame that was saved. If you did NOT render to image sequence, and instead rendered directly to a movie file format, you might end up losing all that render time.

I usually open the task manager (ctrl-alt-delete), select the application & hit 'switch to',this should open the main screen.

I was rendrering an image sequence. The was 99% usage of CPU and total of 4gb pagefile usage. Ram uasge was however jsut 10mb. I hate this Fire-Fly renderer. It is the slowet render engine I have ever and ever used. With my 3DS Brazil renderer I use all photons and all sorts of effects and it stil renders a 5 time bigger scene 5 times faster without freezing like this. ctrl-alt-delete was my usual methot for still renders but I think animation is a bit over the top for this lame renderer. :) Any ideas? Best regards, Umut.

"Any ideas?" Well, since you do have 3dsmax already with the Brazil rendering system plugin, I'm assuming you're capable of investing some money in apps. What I would suggest is to look into the BodyStudio plugin for 3ds (roughly $200+ I think), and port the entire animation over there for rendering. It will bring over all dynamic simulations you might have too. Is there any particular reason you MUST use Firefly for this (ie., fast micro-poly displacement, etc.)? If you have Max v6, then you have Mental Ray, which does do micropoly displacement as well, but it's not as fast as the Firefly renderer for such things. If you must stick with Firefly, then you might try rendering the animation in "layers" to save on processing burden (render the background elements first, etc., then the figures, and composite shadows in an FX editor). Also try hiding some objects that may not be visible by the camera, like body parts hidden by clothing, etc.

I have seen some work done with BodyStudio (My friend has it) but just looked like the envelopes didn't work very accurate to me. Of course it can be the animators poor animation but would you recommend it without question marks, is it any better than pzrto3ds (Pro pack)? I use Max 6 and love the Mental Ray, however I hve fallen in love with Brazils Photon speed. :) Thanks for your advise about the Hiding Body parts which is not seen. Look you learn a new thing everyday. I would have never thought about it. I am very thankful for these kind of tips. This is why i love this community.

Best regards,
Umut

Message edited on: 01/15/2005 07:30

Attached Link: http://www.reiss-studio.com/

***"the envelopes didn't work very accurate to me"*** Bodystudio is not the same application (plugin)) as GestureMax, which is what I think you're thinking of. BodyStudio is just a plugin which will host the Poser .PZ3 file within the 3dsMax environment. All animation on the figure must be done within Poser, then saved as a PZ3 scene, and then you can open the scene within Max. It does not apply envelopes or physique within Max. Basically, what you see when animating the figure in Poser (bending, joints, etc.) is what you see in Max when you import the PZ3. It will bring over all the props, dynamic hair, and cloth, and most of the materials (including transparency) from P5. It will not bring over raytraced materials or displacment, however, and if you need to re-pose or adjust animation, it needs to be done in Poser. It's like the Poser2Max conversion utility that's in Propack, only this one allows you to bring dynamic hair and cloth from P5 over as well. Gesturemax (available at Digimation), on the other hand, attempts to convert a figure's rig from Poser bones to standard Max bones or CS Biped. That program is the one that uses envelope conversion, etc. I'm happy with Bodystudio for what it does, but i don't know if you will be. That's up to you to find out I guess.

Thanks a lot for the information my friend.