I am a happy owner of P5, and also P6. From the time I have used poser, I always encountered memory issues. For the min requirements it is written 500mhz (700 recommended), 256mb ram (512 recommended). For the system I have: Amd Althon (tm) XP 3200+, 2GB DDram (PC3200's set at 400mhz Duel Channel), Ati Radeon 9600 (128mb)....etc..etc. I have one character and a scene prop. When having two characters and same scene prop. I(We) encounter out of Memory issues. We may lower some of the render settings in poser to get the graphics. And still get out of memory message. How can Poser consider itself a character (Any characters and I am not stating Vic and Mic) animation program when all the time we get out of memory issues? I like to have at least two characters in my animations having a conversation. Heck, I(we), can not even use a large scene (Landscape) in poser. Poser (6) is all I have. And I would love to make the best of it.

How long has "Reboot" been out? Way before Pentium computers. I was young when the show came out. I was impressed at the lighting, graphics, scenes (large). What are they using? 4 programs, prob. I know it isn't poser. But that gives an example of what systems were then and what they are using now. Why is it so difficult for Poser even to get that much? Even with two Characters (low poly, textures), then large scenes. Maybe I am going over the top here. I am letting some fustration out.

Message edited on: 01/20/2006 09:40

Poser still uses the same old fashioned coding it had in version 1. If you read up on programming 3D software and rendering engines. You'll find that it's a fairly easy thing to write a program. But it's a very hard thing to make the software efficient at handeling resources. Reboot was produced by a Canadian company that used SoftImage. I loved that show too. SoftImage is an expensive program that has much better coding to handle a professional workload. They also used render farms. Not just one single computer. Something Poser still can't do. Poser is great for what it does. But it's long overdue for an entire re-write. If you use a program like C4D for example. You can visibly see how huge the difference is. The program sort of floats on your machine using almost no resources at all as you work in it. That's just due to good quality programming. -ScottA

Empaty for your frustration. You have to decide to go guerilla inside Poser, or look to a heavier-weight solution for rendering. I won't list the war-methods, they are all over this forum if you really really search. I'll just mention two: 1) open your textures in 2D and create a reduced size. Change to that texture for one render, and see if the quality has suffered. If not, reduce more textures. 2) don't consider Poser a final composition app. For instance....backgrounds. Yikes! And rooms? Yikes. Render separate passes and composite in another app. I use After Effects. Hope that helps a little. ::::: Opera :::::

The reboot characters were probably a lot less polygons than the daz figures.

Yes, I am sure about that. Even though the systems 386's, 486's then could handle the huges scenes, many props then. I was building a 486 DX2 100 at the time, and watching the show at the same time. Then that system was top of the line.

I have an Athlon 2500, 1 gig ram (not dual channel), Radeon 9800 pro. I routinely do illustrations with two (sometimes 3) characters, some articulated (figure) prop and many smaller props. I only encountered "Out of Memory" errors before latest SR patch, so I think the prob is not one of system specs, but of hardware and/or software incompatibilities...

Most of the time, textures are the cause of "out of memory" messages. Trust me, you can throw hundreds of thousands of polygons at Poser if you skip on textures. Last time I tried, I was up to 16 V3s or 100 P4 Lores Kids, could probably do a few more.

Even in bigger studios using Maya or XSI, scenes are split up in parts and later combined again in compositing programs like Shake. And usually there are huge renderfarms. At the studio that I work in (I'm a traditional animator myself, but there's a big 3d department), all computers are hooked up over a network, and render the scenes at night, when the machines aren't used for anything else. (And we're talking dual Xeons carrying gigs of RAM here..) That said, I think Poser is dead slow, especially when you compare the quality of the other render engines. And if I see what real time computer games are capable of doing, at multiple frames per second..

"Then that system was top of the line."

Top of the line consumer PC though. Even back then, the professional animation houses likely used Sun or Silicon Graphics workstations running SunOS, Solaris, Irix or some other Unix based OS. Unfortunately, Poser hasn't kept up with the advances in even PC hardware and operating systems :-)

Message edited on: 01/20/2006 14:50

Awesome replies.. :-)

Not only does Poser not handle resources, it doesn't handle errors well either, and Poser 6 is the worst in this area. When a texture can't be found, I get that lengthy catch-all message that leads you to believe you have memory problems when you do not. If their "developers" could at least tell us what causes each of the app's multitude of errors, I'd be happy.

To use a catch-all message like they have is nothing more than laziness. I can say that. I've have been a software developer for 19 years, and today I am the Software Development Manager for an international software company here in California.

Forgive me for venting, but I have grown tired of Curious Labs excuses for poor programming. Sure, all programmers would love to ignore the grunt work and concentrate on the cool stuff, but it just doesn't make good business sense for a company to let it happen.

Hmmm. When my Poser sys can't find a texture, it states exactly that, opens the file picker for browsing, and defaults the missing file into the filename field. ::::: Opera :::::

My Poser 5 does, but not 6. Weird.

I'm using Correct Reference (the free version) to make certain Poser doesn't have to search for textures. Makes loading characters and props a much faster experience, and keeps Poser 4 from having memory issues.

Cool. How can I get it? Thanks, HL

It seems to be a bit fuzzier than when I got it.

First go to http://www.hogsoft.com/index3d.htm

Scroll down to Tutorials, select PBoost.

On that page, click the Folder Locks - link

On that page, you can find a download link to the free version of Correct Reference.

On the site, there's also the more advanced commercial version for sale. (You may have to sign up to the site bedore you get access to the download)

Message edited on: 01/21/2006 03:20

Poser 6 is by far the slowest version... but it does have the most stuff lopped on top of the old code. Texture sizes are the biggest culprit I've found when doing animations. I render in C4D most of the time and I've found if I shrink most of the the figure textures down to 30% I still get good results and not to bad of render times. I really don't know why you'd want a 4000x3000 body texture on a figure that moving at 30 fps:) Ed

Just noticed that on the original site, the link to the free original Correct Reference does not work any more.

The Netherworks site hosts the Utility as well, and here the link still does work.

http://www.netherworks-studios.com/nws-utility.htm

Got it that time. Thanks!

Message edited on: 01/22/2006 13:18