Bonehead question of the day: Do objects in a scene that are not visible in the render affect rendering speed? I.e., if I delete all the props in a pre-made scene that aren't seen in the render, will it be faster? (I have the EV Victorian Library in mind, with all those books I added that are out of sight behind the camera.) Fetter

Um, .......... Why not try it ....... and find out? Just a thought. cheers, dr geep ;=]

Yes it should speed up...I do that many time with my images.

Thanks for the advice. Geez, Doc, that's too easy when I can bother other people for the answer! :-}> (Besides, there must be a hundred of those damned books, each of which has to be deleted separately, unless someone knows how to do a mass deletion?) Fetter

The other deal with out-of-scene objects is that they may make the default shadow maps too large, which will tend to screw up shadow edges.

i think if you turn them invisable it wont be so bad. if they are parented to an object i believe you can open your heirarchy and alt + click on the parent to turn them all off at once.

Ockham has recently made a python script to delete all children of a parent. so if they're parented they could be deleted in one go. And parenting is fairly quickly done in the hierachy editor if they aren't :o)

The only times you need to keep out-of-scene objects is if they will affect the image. Examples are Objects off-screen which cast shadows which you want (menacing monster approaching..), or possibly reflected objects. (there may be other reasons, but I can't think of one at the moment). Other than that, yup. Delete them. They're taking up valuable memory (and you KNOW how Poser loves memory...). Cheers, Diolma

I'm not sure if poser's rendering engine will cull all objects not in the camer viewport. As diolma states there are situations in which an object could be off camera but its shadow casts into the scene. There are camera settings that will effect visual distance both near and far from camera. Those items are not rendered (or clipped) if out of range. Your best bet is to hide things not seen if you don't care about their shadow interation with the scene. That WILL speed up your renders and also help gaurentee the render actually will not bomb out cause of too many items. I have a python hide/show actor script that lists all actors in the scene then lets you check off which will be visible. Faster than ctrl-h on everything. Its in the freestuff section.

plus,,, Cut off shadows on props not casting shadows in scene and make invisible every body part out of view. Especially under clothing. Then resave. Then render.

"or possibly reflected objects." no, you can delete these too, reflecting objects don't actually cast light back into the scene. Once you have deleted the objects you don't want in the render, save it as a PZ3. Exit Poser and start Poser again, and load the scene, that way you clear the memory of all the texture maps that have been loaded, but are no longer needed because their objects have been deleted.

That's a good idea Helgard....Especially if your doing a image that had alot of props..

There is an insane number of books in the Victorian Library if you load all shelves. The idea would be to fill only the shelves you need (that's why there is a book stack ready for each shelves, you just add those you want to see).
I would suggest setting up your scene without the books, then add thoses needed (shelves are numbered clockwise from left to right so you can select the right props from the library).
Hiding the books could help but won't free the memory they use .

< "or possibly reflected objects." no, you can delete these too, reflecting objects don't actually cast light back into the scene.> Actually I was referring to objects that are off scene but can be seen as a reflection (in a window or a mirror). A couple of years ago I did a scene of a couple in a cafe. There was a cupid, reflected in the windows, but not visible in the scene itself. (It was for a Valentine...) The cupid could not, obviously, be deleted.... Cheers, Diolma