Hello, and thank you in advance to anyone who is able to offer me any guidance.

I've had Poser 6 for all of about two weeks now. While working on my first project, I've been rendering every so often in order to see what's "really" going on in the scene I'm creating. As of a few hours ago, though, something has gone terribly wrong.

Now when I render I don't get a render of what's in the Preview window. What I get is what you see in the picture above - a coloured but otherwise blank screen in the Render window. All I've done since my last successful render was adjust the character's pose and move the camera around - I've made no changes to the rendering settings at all.  I'm using the default render settings in FireFly.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on and why how to fix it? I can't find a reference anywhere for why a render would be for something other than what's in the Preview window.

Thank you in advance for any help...

You may have moved your camera into something, like a wall for example, so the view from the camera will be blocked even though it doesn't look like it is in the preview window.

D'oh! In placing the Main Camera I watched it with the Aux Camera and was pretty sure that I didn't place it inside a building. I checked again, and it didn't look like it, but I made all of the surrounding buildings in the set (other than the one that forms the background of the scene) invisible, and now the render is not of a blank area - so thank you! I never would have guessed that one, but now it is part of my ever-growing Poser knowledge (I'm finding this software has quite a learning curve).

However, if I can trouble you again, the render is still not quite correct. In the Preview window, my character is centred in the screen.. In the render, you can kind of make part of her out on the far right, there. Is there an explanation for this? In "Preview Dimensions", I set Width 600 and Height 300. In "Render Dimensions" I had clicked "Match Preview Window". Is there a similarly simple reason for this new disparity that I'm missing again?

ARGH! In an attempt to fix the fact that Poser was rendering from a completely different angle than what as shown in the Preview window, I started moving the camera around to try to get it to render the right area, and now I'm back at the original problem, again: the renders are just of blank space.

I can't figure out how to attach more than one file at a time to these posts, so I'm going to post a few pictures to give you all an idea of my camera placement and the contents of the Preview and Render windows, so hopefully someone can assist me, here. I'd really appreciate it. I've been up all night (morning, I guess, really, since I started around 4 a.m.) and I don't know why I've hit this snag or what to do about it.

First, here's what shows in the Preview window.

Next, here's what I get when I render it.

Here's one view showing where the main camera is.

And here's another view to show that the main camera is NOT inside a building (at least, as far as I can tell).

And here's a final view to show the main camera floating out in space, unobstructed by any walls or anything.

Again, any assistance that anyone might provide in explaining how to fix this is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

I've been working on this one issue for 12 hours now and I'm still unable to reach a resolution. I've scoured all of the documentation I can find, and I am completely lost. I'm not sure if the lack of response here (84 thread views, but only 1 response) indicates that everyone else is stumped or that I'm an idiot and whatever the issue is is beneath being addressed.... but it's driving me bonkers.

I've made practically everything in the scene not visible except the character (and her props and what-not) and the building behind her, and still that same, blank render. I don't see how the issue could possibly be that the camera is inside a building or behind a wall. I am throwing myself at the mercy of all of you. I have a short window of time to get this project completed, and picked up Poser because the ease of having human figures ready-made and easily-modified was too good to pass up, but I'm starting to wonder if I wouldn't have been better off sculpting a character in full in Blender (or whatever).

I've never had this problem (except for when placing the camera inside a wall or other object, as you already encountered).

It's not that it's beneath addressing, I just don't know the answer (but I'm somewhat of a novice myself) :)

One way to determine what's causing the problem is to make each object in turn invisible (using either the properties panel or the hierarchy window) then render.
Once you know which object is the problem it may be more obvious why it's a problem.

Ok .. I'll have a stab. When you say you've made stuff 'invisible', do you mean you've used the Visible option in the toolbar Object > Properties window, or have you gone into the Material room and turned Transparency up to 1? If the former, are you 'raytracing' the render? If you are, have you removed the 'Visible in Raytracing' option in the Object > Properties window? How about the 'Remove Backfacing Polys' in the Render Settings window?

Sorry for all the questions instead of a direct answer, but I think raven is right and your camera's view is obscured by a wall. It'll show in a render but not in Preview, depending on the combination of options you're using. A way to check would be to try a render using the P4 settings (in Render Settings). If that shows your character ok, but raytracing doesn't, then that'll just about prove it.

Try this to see if that works. One tip, once you have your camera set, click on a camera dot. That way, if you move the camera and make a mistake, clicking the dot will return your camera to that position you had it in when the dot was clicked. You can set up to 9 camera positions that way. click the triangle next to UI Dots to select the camera dots.

With regards to the render size, goto Render->Render dimensions and in the dialog box select Fit in preview window, then click the Match Document Window button. That should give you the correct render area.

I've also just had a thought. As you have been using the dolly camera view to position the main camera, have you reselected the main camera view to render from? As you show, there shouldn't be anything in the main camera view, but from where the dolly camera is looks prime for being in a wall.

Thank you very much everyone for your feedback!

I'll respond here to your suggestions, and then offer a partial possible cause of the problem that I think I've located at the end, here. If what I think is happening makes any sense and anyone knows how to correct it, I'd be most grateful! If what I'm saying makes no sense, I'd also appreciate being told, to save me even more time barking up the wrong tree!

I apologize for any lack of clarity in explaining my issue: being somewhat new to Poser means that maybe I don't know exactly what need to be specified when explaining what's going on. I've made every object in the scene "invisible" by clicking all of the "visibility" options in the "Properties" of the Parameters window.so that they are unchecked ("Visible", "Visible In Raytracing", "Casts Shadows", all not checked). This makes them disappear from the Preview window (and, as far as I can tell, from the possibility of being rendered).

I've tried rendering in both Poser 4 and FireFly modes, and the problem is the same in each.

When rendering, I am looking at the scene through the Main Camera, and not one of the other ones (although none of the other cameras are obstructed by buildings, either, because I've made all of the other buildings other than the one I need for the scene invisible, as explained above).

The wall that raven has suggested I make invisible is part of the same Object as the building the figure is standing in front of, so when I make it invisible, she winds up standing in front of nothing - removing it DOES solve the problem of the blank wall render, but my figure is now rendered almost entirely off-screen again, as in my second post above.

I have had a little insight, I think, but I have no idea how to correct it. Hopefully one of you helpful folks can point me in the right direction:

At this time, I think that the issue has something to do with the camera's focal settings. In trying to rectify the problem, I've been playing around with just about everything, and it seems like the initial problem of the blank wall and the second problem of the central object of the Preview window being rendered off-screen are the same problem. Poser seems to be rendering things to the LEFT of what I'm actually looking at in the Preview screen (so the blank wall being rendered isn't something directly between the camera and the central figure - it's the wall to the left of the camera.). If I re-set the Main Camera's focal length to 38, then I get a render fairly close to what I'm seeing in the Preview screen (except for that stupid "fish-eye" effect). When I increase the Focal Length, my figure gets rendered to the right of screen.

I'll post 2 examples, with the building behind the figure made invisible and the Focal Length at 70, and we can see the problem.

I'm not sure why changing the Focal Length would make Poser render as if the camera was at a different angle... if that is the problem, is there a fix?

Thank you to anyone who has applied any of their time to helping me with this one. If I'm right, then hopefully the answer is close....

Here's the Preview...

And here's the Render, with the central character for some reason off to the right...

And by changing only the Focal Length to 40 and the camera position and everything else exactly the same, I get this as a render...

I don't know if this may help or not, but you can set the camera to point at the figure. Select the camera, then Object->Point At and select the figure (or part of the figure that you want the camera to aim at) from the hierarchy window that appears.

Thank you for all of your suggestions today, raven.

As it happens, I do already have the camera pointed to the figure's head - I found it helpful while positioning the camera to have it always pointed at her head. I just confirmed that it is still set up that way, and it is, and I am still getting her rendered off to the right of the screen (despite the fact that she appears in the centre of the Preview screen.

Are there any other possible fixes? Am I the only one that Poser has ever picked on in this way?

Another idea then, as it seems to be a head and shoulder shot, instead of using the main camera for the shot, how about trying the face camera and zooming back using the camera controls instead of the dials? It might be worth a shot.

EUREKA!

Thank you raven: you have saved my project! I still have no idea why the Main Camera was being such a pain in the arse, mind you, so some day I'll probably still need to figure this out, but using the Face Camera works just fine!

thank you thank you thank you

If anyone has any insight as to why the Main Camera woud alter the angle of the render depending on it's Focal Length (and in an entirely different way than the way the image is affected in the Preview window) I'm still all ears.

But thank you for the suggestion, raven! A more than adequate "band aid".

I'm glad we've found a solution for you :)

You'll soon get used to the follies and foibles of Poser, and if not, we'll all still be around to help :)

Now that you are sorted, if you'll excuse me, as it's 3am for me, I'm going to say goodnight :)

Happy rendering!

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