I make some renders in Poser and I allways choose P4 Render because its more clear and more precise then FireFly. Even using the highest quality of FireFly the skin textures, the hair textures and others textures get all blured. Do you prefer P4 Render or FireFly render? Thank you

Firefly by far. Never even touch P4's renderer, because it lacks raytracing and displacement, which are things I use very often in my renders.

Maxxxmodelz, can you tell me if there is a way to remove the strange effect (blured) on skin textures and hair textures? The texture are very visible in P4 render, but they are strange in FireFly. Thank you.

Are you rendering with texture filtering on? If so turn it off. Rendering in FF I've never seen blury items.

Message edited on: 06/07/2005 12:18

Peter, off hand, I would suggest lowering the shading rate in Firefly to around 0.4 to 0.2, increase pixel samples to about 4, and use gaussian post filter (not box) set to a size of 2. I often reduce bucket size to around 32 (from the default 64) to ensure the render doesn't choke up, but that doesn't have an effect on quality. Some people like to turn on texture filtering for hair, but that can slow the render quite dramatically and cause other complications with skin textures.

WOW!!! Thank you. Its complex, but I will try. I can see in Galleries that many people have the same problem as I have (blur effect in skin and hair textures) in FireFly renders, especially in hair textures get really strange. Managing all options of a Firefly render is hard for a begineer like me, but I will try. Thank you a lot.

I still prefer the P4 renderer. Much faster and gives me more of the comic look that I'm looking for.

Firefly render. With raytraced reflections and new materials, it adds an all-new level of realism to the images.

Heres a question for Firefly users; using all those suggestions, will my image be restricted to a smaller size or will I still have my full range of size like I do with P4 rendering?

"will my image be restricted to a smaller size or will I still have my full range of size like I do with P4 rendering?" There's no doubt that Firefly demands a bit more from your system than the P4 renderer. P4 may also be faster, but that's primarily because it's "doing less". I rarely need to render something beyond 2400x1800, but I have successfully completed a couple renders in Firefly that were over 3000x3000 each. It really depends on your system and how much geometry is in the scene you are trying to render. If you find you're having trouble completing a very big render, try to lower the bucket size, which will require less memory to be used, but will also take longer to complete.

I like them... They're crunchy when roasted. Cover them with chocolate and sprinkle them on ice cream. :o)~

...and now they are making a movie? it was slow, wandering plotlines wth little point... arrgh don't get me started! Praise be to His Shadow for Lexx...

Thanks "maxxxmodelz" I'll give firefly another try.

Jumping straight to P6 from P4PP, and having gotten used to using C4D for rendering, I initially gave Firefly only a few faint-hearted attempts.

At first, I got these bizarre empty areas, especially around the eyes or other areas of high detail, but then I noticed those went away when I turned off 3D Motion Blur (does that really work at all, or is it just my particular models and/or scenes?).

Gave it a couple more tries, but wound up crashing alot, until I saw the tip elsewhere about lowering the bucket size. Finally got a complete render but still didn't think it was any better than P4 Renderer or C4D.

BUT....

then I tried the IBL lights with Ambient Occlusion plus two to four strategically placed spotlights, and was stunned to see a huge upward leap in the realism of my characters (realism being an objective of MINE anyway).

So I, for one, am going to try to learn how to make Firefly work. Key obstacles that remain for me include --

(1) how to save IBL plus spotlight sets to the library, or at least a PZ3 template, so I don't have to reconstruct them every time

(2) figure out whether and how to successfully incorporate (3D?) motion blur for my animations

(3) figure out optimal bucket size (I currently default to 16)

(4) whether I can get a hybrid between the regular shadow mapping (shadows a little too fuzzy for my scenes) and raytracing (shadows a little too sharp-edged for my scenes).

So I'm still trying to tweak and learn, and hold out hope that Firefly will work for me.

Best of luck to all who search for the perfect renders!

No one mentioned the infamous P4 lockup and hence, reboot from desktop. There was a price attached to those quick and pretty renders.

"...and now they are making a movie? it was slow, wandering plotlines wth little point... arrgh don't get me started! Praise be to His Shadow for Lexx..." NOOOOO!!!!!! It was the best damned TV show never viewed! The only tragedy is it only lasted 1/2 season. Thank God for DVD's Not only are they making a movie, but it is going to be SO popular, it is going to be a TRILOGY! Remember, you heard it here first! :) (sorry for the OT)

I haven't done a P4 render since the coming of P5. So it's been a few years.

P4 renders better than P6 firefly with IBL AO lighting.....?

No.......I don't think so.........

As others have already mentioned -- my renders using raytracing are much closer to being realistic than anything that I had ever attempted with P4. They don't even compare.

Let's all remember though, not everyone is going after realism. Like someone mentioned above they were going for a comic book look. Personally I prefer a smooth hyper-reality look to the skin and hair, etc. I guess more stylized. If I wanted real life renders I'd have taken up photography

"If I wanted real life renders I'd have taken up photography" Hmmm. I guess they should have simply "photographed" Gollum for the LOTR movie instead of doing him in CG? That is, assuming they could find him somewhere on the planet. ;-P

To get the blurring of the hair texture to go away you must get the new service pack from curious labs.

I HATE FIREFLY. I use it only if I want any special effect as a reflect, an IBL, etc. But is too much difficult, too much slow, crashes a lot. With Poser4 render you check four ticks and you obtain excellent renders. With Poser5/6 Firefly you need to use a mess of settings. I do 3 renders in the same time of a Firefly one (the most of the times I push RENDER, go to bed and I see the results at the next morning). Oh, and the memory bug; I was sure SR1 would correct this, but still here is it

Message edited on: 06/08/2005 12:38

DRICCI, Hey jerk, did you notice the part of my message where I said if I wanted to go for realism? Not my intention to impose MY preference of CG on anyone else! Now quit being sarcastic for no reason - its obnoxious when I was just sharing my own opinion like everyone else.

I think you are getting mad at the wrong person. Please check my post. Thanks

If I wanted real life renders I'd have taken up photography If you think Poser models are expensive, try getting real people to pose for you...and cloth them... and provide props....cars...space ships...swords... :-)

WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA :D

Tyger, I don't think Poser is expensive =)

Dricci, you are correct I meant to respond to maxxxmodelz. Definitely not you!