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.
