Well... call me stupid for this question,but:

Since now i only did scenes with a max of 3 Characters.

Now i thought about a Ballettscene... with 6 Characters inside.

The Scene looks like this:

I own an Athlon 3500 with 1 Giga RAM

Here are the Firefly-Settings i used:

Raytracing: NO

Cast shadows:YES

Texture filtering: NO

Min shading rate: 1,00

Pixel Samples: 1

Max Texturesize: 1280

Max Bucketsize: 32

I`ve choosed 1280x960 Pixel with 100DPI for my Render.

OK,,,, it rendered the scene. BUT: here is a crop out of the rendered Image.

As you can see..... this is unacceptable!!!!!

So here are my questions:

1. Is it because of too much characters?

2. Can you advise me what Rendersettings will make clean edges on the characters?

I DON`T want to reduce the Numbers of Dancers!!

Thank you so much!

Ray

The number of pixel samples seems to low for me

To my knowledge Poser can handle as many figures as your computer can render.

Here is a screenshot of my render settings for Poser 6.

I agree that it looks like pixel samples is the problem. I have mine at 3, while you have yours at 1

And don't forget to check "smooth polygons"

If for some reason you find your computer coughing and wheezing while trying to render large scenes like the one you have, you can always hide figures and render others until they are all rendered, and then assemble them in a graphic program.  That's what I have to do with my computer.

Nope Pixel samples need to go up. Try 5+(instead of 1)

Yeah, try Pixel Samples 3 or 4 (I lean towards 4)

Might want to also try Min Shading Rate 0.02 (is that 0,02 for your version?)

1 Gig RAM? - Increase your Bucket Size to 64 or 96 to speed up rendering.

Thank you all !!!!!

Question in return:

Does that mean.... when i HIDE characters (for rendering in multiple passes) that its EASYER for the Processor and the Memory then??

And.... i have to save those single Renders as PNGs then, hmm?

Ray

I don't know what you mean by "multiple passes". 

When you hide/make invisible a figure or prop, Poser doesn't have to process the item during the render, so less memory is involved and rendering is quite often faster.

My computer is old and only has 384 MB of RAM so I have to hide parts of whatever I'm rendering and reassemble it in Paint Shop Pro. I save as a .png file so that there is no background.  Your image for example would take me at least 6 renders to do, maybe 12 because depending on the texture sizes, I sometimes have to render a figure by top half and then bottom half.  I sure miss my laptop :(

Hey Acadia!

With "multiple Passes" i simply mean:

1st Render - Dancer 1 (Pass 1)

2nd Render - Dancer 2 (Pass 2)

3rd Render - Dancer 3 (Pass 3) ...... and so on.

But i am german. May be the word "Pass" is the wrong word for such Method.

Thank you anyway!!! I am just doing what you told me.... and it works!

Takes lots of time mow... but i get my Image!!!!

Hugs, Ray

Pixel samples are really better if you use an "odd" number rather than an "even" one. The reason is because the engine takes a sample on either side of the centre one, so obviously an "odd" number is more efficent.

Also your minimum shading is way too high, should always be below 1, usually anywhre between 0.5 to 0.1

thefixer - Nice tip about the odd number for the pixel samples, I'm starting to increase this number with my renders, I'll keep in mind what you said.

This ALL helped a LOT!

One last question:

Even if i`ve hided all characters except ONE.... the Render takes a long time with your recommended Settings.

The badest Effect is:

I`ve mimimised Poser while it is rendering. Now i tried to maximise it....and get a "Whitescreen".

Yes, sounds rediculous. But i cant see The workspace anymore.

Because the lightset has 28 lights its rendering the shadowmaps, adds objects etc.

But i wonder if i see the Mainwindow again.... or ..... is Poser hanging????

Has anybody EVER had such "Whitescreen" i talk about???

Thanx People!

Ray

That happens quite regularly when you try to bring it back from a minimized window.

One thing is the amount of lights you have, I know it's a personal thing but since P6 you can get away with a lot less lights than in previous versions, maybe think about using less lights more effectively.

Also sometimes it's better to render the image and shadows seperately and then composite it together in photoshop or similar afterwards, this method saves an awful lot of 'puter resource!

It's overloaded.  I see whitescreen all the time.  You probably have to many lights.  Three is almost as much as my machine can handle.  28?!?!  Wow.....you could fry eggs on your CPU with that!

You need as FEW lights as you can possibly get by with, otherwise render times skyrocket.

On one topic mentioned in this thread, I have a dumb question--How do you hide figures for renders?  I usually just delete them once the file loads (which is time intensive), render the part I need, reload and delete the other figures.  Is there a quicker method?

Joelglaine: You hide them by going into the Hierarchy editor and unchecking the eye next to the figure you want to hide!

@ JOELGLAINE:

Hey.... you DON`T have to delete Clothes or Characters to HIDE them!!!

In the Propertypalette you have that checkmark "VISIBLE"

Just UNCHECK this!

This will HIDE the Character or Prop, and saves Computerpower then!

Ray

Hierachy editor!  Jeez!  That simple?  I never used it, except exports, and setting parents!  I'll have to check that puppy out!  Thankies!  ^__^ V,,

@ thefixer:

***"*One thing is the amount of lights you have"

Well Mate... as you saw on most of my Pix.... I don`t use this much lights usually!

But i`ve tried RGUS-Lightset. And he has implented this much lights, to get this "White-Effect".

May be it works better for HIM, cause he always uses ONE Character.

After i have done this "Monster" now (its not hard to imagine what this means for the CPU) i`ll try to delete half of the Lightcount in several angles. Hope this "White-Effect" will still be there.

In the end its just playing arround with it.... Normally i want to create my own lights.... cause THIS light is kinda "Trademark" that belongs to Deane....

We`ll see whats happen. In the very moment now i am at the 3rd Dancer.... rendering in passes.

And it takes long rendertime too..... cause of the huge amount of lights.

Greetz, Ray

YES, Yoelglaine:

BOTH Methodes are possible!

I forgot the Hirachy-Editor.

I prefer the Property-Palette...cause its always fast reachable.....

Ray

As far as multi-pass rendering goes...

If you haven't already, perhaps might want to check out PoseWorks's GlowWorm @ DAZ

Just a few things: - RAM still doesn't matter. It's virtual memory, so RAM+Swap file. And the standard Win32 limit is 2GB here, if those are full you cannot render. - dropping min shading rate below 0.2 is mostly useless as poser uses the maximum shading rate of the render and object settings. Objects usually have a shading rate of 0.2, so unless that is changed it doesn't matter - Poser's interface is only refreshed after a bucket is rendered, so higher bucket size = less responsive UI = more memory used, but faster renders

I always change my bucket size depending on what I have in my scene. If there are lots of  figures, props etc, I will lower the buckets. Render time is slower but it's worth it if you want the render to be completed without any problem message coming up that you need to change render settings etc.

28 Lights?!!! Holly crap!!!!!!!!

Check these lighting tutorials out. With Poser 6 you only need 2 to 4 lights for any one scene. And should be able to get excellent lighting with only 1 IBL and 1 Infinite light no matter what the scene. I haven't been able to do it with 2 lights, but I have with 3.

Ins and Out of IBL /a>
Lighting Tutorial
Gel Map Tutorial
Advanced IBL

Attached Link: Stefan's 3GB Trick

Performed at your own risk, the link is attached.

Quote - This ALL helped a LOT!

One last question:

Even if i`ve hided all characters except ONE.... the Render takes a long time with your recommended Settings.

The badest Effect is:

I`ve mimimised Poser while it is rendering. Now i tried to maximise it....and get a "Whitescreen".

Yes, sounds rediculous. But i cant see The workspace anymore.

Because the lightset has 28 lights its rendering the shadowmaps, adds objects etc.

But i wonder if i see the Mainwindow again.... or ..... is Poser hanging????

Has anybody EVER had such "Whitescreen" i talk about???

Thanx People!

Ray

I'm in agreement with the rest.  28 lights is about 26 lights too many. I didn't
catch if you have Poser 6, but if you do, all you really need is one set to
Ambient Occlusion and on set for casting shadows.
I suspect what you have is some old light set that was intended to be used
on Poser 4, and they were trying to fake global illumination with lots of
lights surrounding the character.

Also your texture resolution is a rather odd value.  Try setting it to 1024 or 2048 or 4096.
It might not show up in the render, but Poser can deal with it better and it might
speed up your render.

The white screen happens when you minimize Poser while it is doing a render
and then maximize it again.  The image will come back as soon as it is finished
rendering the block it is working on and gets ready to render the next block.

Quote - I always change my bucket size depending on what I have in my scene. If there are lots of  figures, props etc, I will lower the buckets. Render time is slower but it's worth it if you want the render to be completed without any problem message coming up that you need to change render settings etc.

If you have Poser 6, it will change your bucket size for you if you have it set too big.
I usually set mine for 256 and let Poser decide if it likes that value or not.
It makes for a faster render even if Poser does drop it down to 16, because at
least the first part gets rendered with a large block. Unfortunately once it drops
the block size down, it doesn't increase it again.  Usually it is the head and hair
that cause the block size to go down, at that is usually at the top of the scene.
While the rest is easier and could use a large block size again.

I've just checked out the finished article in the gallery. Great stuff!!

I have the images and setup from this thread

http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/forum/messages.php?ShowMessage=184683

with that and one other light (for shadows) i feel i get really good lighting.

that setup allows me to adjust the ambiant light from diffrent directions so i dont get it washed out like it would be if you just added an IBL without any image.

.

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1281128

Maybe clicking here might help?   :biggrin:

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

i think you're image proves that art can be created in poser. nicely done. i love the composition of it.

the difference of the initial image in this thread and the one in the gallery is great...that said it still could be improved if someone can tell you how. i haven't got a clue , (unless you postwork it and paste an area of skin that matches on another layer etc). but if the back of thigh were cleaned up just a little more it would make a great image an excellently spectactular image. well done. i don't comment in the galleries but thought it was worth a mntion here where it was first shown. nicely done

billy

I hadn't tried using the Hierarchy Editor for hiding elements in a scene, but I gave it a go.   I think a better approach is a Python script called visActors in the Free Stuff.   It's by Mason and is called "Hide/Show Figure Python Script".   I found it again by searching on "visible".   It's just like the "Hide Figure" option in the Figure pull-down, except that you can go down the list of figures, ticking the ones you want to make invisible, which is much more convenient than repetitively selecting "Hide Figure".   If you tick a wrong box, you can correct the mistake there and then, without needing to use the global "Show All Figures" option.   The Hierarchy Editor is fine for making things invisible, but a bit of a pain, when you need to make them visible again.   One thing with visActors, though, if you do try it:  remember to close it before trying to do anything else with Poser, or you'll wonder why everything has suddenly stopped working.

Hey Doc GEEP: THIS is a really fine TUT!!!! Humorous....and technical understandable!!!

Thanx for the Tip!

Ray Factor

Yes, six figures will probably overload Poser if you're using high-res textures. Rendering them one at a time at the settings the folks have mentioned should take care of it.

I almost never use more that four lights. Usually three. Cuts rendering time substantially! Also, don't render at higher resolutions than you actually need. It hammers performance.

I use the hierarchy editor to hide stuff all the time. Very handy!

Gordon