I ask the question because it suddenly dawned on me how much I use the Area Render tool now and how much it has speeded up my work.

For me it's the Python script support

Area render is nice. I also really like Ambient Occlusion and the point lights.

The detachable and expandable library window. Now if I could just get it to stop corrupting files on my other partitions I'd be able to actually use it. sigh

Area Render, hands down.

"I've made one small change to the iris material ... let's do a quick check to see how it looks before spending twenty minutes to render the entire scene again. In fact, forget rendering the entire scene again ... I'll just cut-n-paste the newly-rendered eye onto the old render in post."

However, the ability to save material collections directly from within Poser (and they can even be applied to unparented props) ranks up there, along with render wipe and OpenGL acceleration.

I've had Python support since Pro Pack, so I don't really consider that a P6 feature, myself. This has definitely been a banner year for Python, though, with the release of helpful plugins like ShaderSpider, Wardrobe Wizard, PuppetMaster, and Physics.

Yes, area render for me too. A huge time saver.

ShaderSpider. Okay, it's not really part of P6. But it only runs in P6, and boy, has it made my life easier.

Yep area render, No question. Make an adjustment, render just that bit to see if the adjustment looks right, Terrific!

Chalk another one up for Area Render. It saves me going "Arse! All that damn time rendering and I forgot to move the eyes/hand/gun/whatever." Now I can make the adjustment, render that bit and slot it in place with Photoshop.

Hey Sam, Now that's a good tip, hadn't actually thought of doing that, thanx! [rofl].

Hmm I hadn't though of patching stuff with the area render either. That IS a neat tip! Thanks! I love the point lights. I love the Shader Spider. I think I'm going to love GlowWorm (only had it for a day LOL) and I like the added stability compared to Poser 5. Oh and don't forget the nifty depth guide thingie.

The new render with oclusion, very realistic. I like very much the cloth and hair rooms, but they need to improve these ones.

The subtle improvements to the lighting engine

"The subtle improvements to the lighting engine" Such as the one that makes Poser go bugfuck with more than 6 infinite lights? Or the one that means pre-P6 lights don't preview properly? :D I like the Point Lights, though. Even if they are sloooooooow to render.

lol I was thinking of the improvements, not the set backs, LOL Actually, it's some little things in the overall way they handle shadows -- directly related to some of the other functions, no doubt -- that I like the most. But also, IBL, AO, points, and so forth. And I've long found the use of toomany infinite lights to be a waste akin to using a shadow map in excess of 1024 -- which, as usual, I'm a tad on the ynsaen side with, LOL

new lights, hands down: ibl & point.

Area render! Once I rendered an image and it took a few hours to render then I noticed there was something wrong with it. Fixed it and area rendered (which took only minutes) and then patched it in PSP. In fact, I like Poser 6 for many reasons, the main reason being that I can now make passable renders in Poser which is something I never was able to achieve in Poser 5. Don't ask the specific reason, I don't know. ;o) The best thing that happened to me in 2005 regarding Poser however is the PRPC script with P3dO! Geez! It's fast! It takes me seconds to load something into a scene instead of minutes! It saves me at least 80% of my time. (I know it's not part of Poser 6 but it sure deserves to be mentioned here).

The "Out of Memory" message...... :(