The situation: I am tired of Poser telling me to reduce the size of the texture sample and the bucket size.I do this time and again and it still tells me to do it.- Not on every render but just enough to be agravating. I don't want to throw out poser- I've spent almost three years between P5 and P6 and I've got alot of money invested. What I want is a second program that can render when Poser won't. Now, Here are the choices: DAZ/Studio- which I have downloaded but not installed yet. Vue D'Esprit 3- on disc from 3d World magazine Maya 5 PLE- on disc from Computer Arts Magazine Both of these are full verisons of the programs. Shade 7- which came with Poser 6. I have the original download file on this one but again, I have not installed it yet. Opinions: Which one has the better render engine? Which one will accept Poser files? I know Vue will accept character and prop files. Will any of them accept Poser Scene Files? I'd appreciate any and all opinions on this.

Vue will easily import Poser scene files.

Maya PLE is fine for learning Maya, but IIRC the renders are watermarked.

DAZ Studio is roughly equivalent to ProPack, but as more plugins get added it may get closer to P6.

Shade7LE can import scenes from Poser, but you won't have displacement or other node based features. For better compatability with P6 you'd need to upgrade to Shade8.

Vue3 doesn't import Poser scenes directly, an exported OBJ file has to be used. To be able to read a PZ3 you'd need Vue4 or Vue5 and and add-on called Mover (which is built into Vue5 Infinite).

Thanks this clears alot of things up. It's starting to look like Vue might be the better option. I'll have to start looking at it closer.

Just took a look at Vue 5 Infinate. Couldn't get past the price of $599.00! Needless to say that is definately beyond me for the foreseeable future. Any other ideas out there? Please?

Look at getting Vue5 ProStudio as this has Mover5 built-in as well.

As for memory troubles take time to try the various things mentioned in many threads here and elsewhere to help avoid them.
(No texture filtering, downsizing textures, making OBJ files more Firefly friendly)

Attached Link: http://www.eovia.com/products/carrara5/carrara_new_features.asp

I may suggest looking into Carrara 5 - seems to handle Poser stuff better than Poser

Texture filtering was off- can't remeber ever using it. Downsized texture samples AND bucket size as much as possiable- had texture size down to 512 and bucket size down to 44- and still got "Problem during Rendering...". I will take a look at Vue5 ProStudio.

Just checked Carrara 5 and it sounds alot more approachable- at only $249- and it takes Posr 6 scene files. Sounds like a winner. Now I just have to wait till payday....

Oops Xposted with Mystic-Nights

Attached Link: http://www.eovia.com/purchase/store/prom/ww_c5_hexagon.asp

Just went and found out what Hexagon is. Sounds like something to seriously consider if I'm going to be doing more projects like my train.

...I'll throw in a vote for C5 and Hex as well.

The Carrara 5 Pro Companion License is extremely great value at $399 in my book....

You don't need Mover unless you want to import dynamic cloth and hair from Poser.

What about Poser scene files?

I find Vue very memory hungry. I believe some people have found that DAZ Studio will render scenes that Poser won't because of texture sizes.

Vue 4 and 5 will import Poser scene files. You do not need Mover unless you want to import dynamic cloth and hair, or Poser animations. E-on offers demos of all their products. You can try before you buy, to see if you like it. I haven't had memory issues with Vue. IME, it will easily render scenes that Poser never could. DAZ|Studio doesn't work well for me. Some people say D|S renders scenes that Poser chokes on, but some have the opposite experience. Like me. I've had D|S crash when I try to render a scene with just one V3. (Might be my video card. I have a Radeon, and I gather D|S prefers Nvidia.)

I really do appreciate everyone's comments on this. You've all been a big help info wise. I think the next step should be to try the demos and see for myself what works. Thanks again to everyone.

Hi mdbruffy,

There is one more possibility that I don't think has been mentioned. PoseRay and POV-Ray. These are free and POV-Ray produces some very nice renders. The POV-Ray site has some awesome artwork.

The good points are:

• Both tools are free.
• PoseRay will import P5 lights, camera and scene from a PZ3 and wavefront .obj + .mtl.
• POV-Ray handles full size textures without problems and is quite a fast renderer.
• Radiosity is supported.
• PoseRay has area (actually multi-point volume) lights that produce quite nice "jittered" shadows.
• You can get many Millenium figures rendered in a single scene (I have been informed that 12+ is possible) although I have only done 8 so far.
• PoseRay/POV-Ray have some nice standard materials for metals, glass, stone and water.

The bad points are:

• No built in materials for clothing textures in POV-Ray - so you need to used textured and bumped clothes.
• You need to be sure everything is where it needs to be and everyone is looking in the right direction because there is no easy way to change things after exporting from Poser.
• Poser 5 export to wavefront obj is a bit broken so textures get a bit messed up. P6 export is much better but "Preview" materials can get muddled up.
• Poser material shaders are not supported.
• Preview lights and rendered image have different (but somewhat predictable) illumination levels.
• This is a multi stage process, i.e.
  a) P6 export to wavefront obj.
  b) Save PZ3.
  c) Import these into PoseRay.
  d) Go through materials list to replace those that used complex P5 shader mats - simple textures, transparencies and bumps are mostly OK but reflections are handled differently.
  e) Use geometry/uv tool to weld vertices (and smooth) for any figures that need it - especially if the figures are nekkid.
  f) Check everything looks ok, and then
  g) Save and render using POV-Ray.

Example of P6 scene => PoseRay => POV-Ray at
http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1098936&Start=1&Artist=Jovial&ByArtist=Yes
I have a few more examples in my Gallery but they are mostly nekkid.

You can get PoseRay at:
http://mysite.verizon.net/sfg0000/

and POV-Ray at:
http://www.povray.org/

HTH,
Jovial.

I have Poseray- used it to translate a lightwave file into wavefront obj. I'm still looking it over. What's the difference between PoseRay and POV-Ray?

PoseRay is a format converter to change various 3d scene formats (e.g. Poser, D|S) into scenes and scripts for other rendering applications (e.g. POV-Ray). POV-Ray is a scripted renderer. You need both tools to get POV-Ray to render a poser scene. The preview mode in PoseRay is only really to check that the scene and materials were imported/set correctly and that the camera and light positions are correct. It is POV-Ray that creates a high quality render.

That poseray/pov-ray set up sounds an interesting option. I must look into it :)

One word of advice... if you try pov-ray, take some time to learn the scripting language before you make a final judgement. You can do some amazing things with it once you get used to using macros. Poseray does a really good job at exporting .pov's, but I find the scenes usually need some tweaking. Here's an older one I did using Poser, Poseray and POV-ray (nudity warning): http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=787510&Start=1&Artist=jtm%5F11&ByArtist=Yes