I have created several fully-clothed, modestly-morphed M3, V3 and D3 characters whose PZ3 file size ranges from 100MB to 150MB each. Manipulating several of them in a scene, not to mention generating an animated video, is crushing the capacity of even my souped up dual-processor G5 Mac. Slow doesn't begin to describe the difficulty of managing 5 characters in a 3D scene, complete with Mimic dialogue. Is there a way to create new, lower-resolution (smaller file size) characters using the PZ3 files I've already created -- i.e., characters that cannot be altered other than by adding poses and speech phenomes -- or would it help to remove all of the unused injection morphs from them (I think I loaded in just about every M3/V3 face and body morph available for them)? I feel like I'm hauling around a cement truck full of gravel when all I need is an empty pickup to create the cartoon animation I'm seeking. Any resulting performance improvement would be much welcomed. Thanks SS

Yes, it would definitely help to inject only the morphs you need. 

DAZ also has reduced resolution versions of V3 and M3 that many animators prefer over the regular versions.

Making the textures smaller may help, too.  A lot of the Poser textures are meant for still image closeups.  You don't really need to see every pore in an animation.

taking randyms suggestion a bit further: delete (or REM) all unused morphs from main figure, clothes and hair. and in addition to what randym says about textures: in most cases bump-, displacement- and transparency-maps come in RGB-mode (i wonder why..). reduce them to grayscale.

Recently someone (svdl?) posted a python script here that could consolidate all used morphs into one, and make it injectable.

It severely cuts down the file size. It's called SpawnCharacter or something. Try a search, either here or in the Poser Pythnon forum, I can't remember where it was posted :o)

I had thought that Poser translated all textures to .bmp internally so .jpg and channel issues only had to do with disc storage. I have had success sampling down my textures quite small for foot-to-head image figures and props. Now I think just setting the max texture size in Poser 6 does the same as down sampling the actuall texture on your drive.

Somewhere here on the forum is a script for consolodating the morphs from a figure into a single morph and then REM the ones used to build it by svdl (I hope I spelled that right). Also ockham has a mag-to-morph script that if you made a mag set to all major body parts but with no deformation the script might spawn your character as a full body morph allowing you to REM the INJ channels you used but I have not tried it this way.  I use the V3RR and M3RR which used to be cheaper then as sold individually when they were contained in the $29 3D Starter Content product... Then there is free MorphManager for stripping unused morphs from clothes. The MorphManager saves the files large but open and re-saved in Poser the files are much smaller than the original.

Poser Tool Box by PhilC has a tool for rationaling morph data which if I rember can shave %30 of a .cr2 but with a little loss of resolution. His kit also alows you to save out a morphed figure and bring it back in as a full body morph to a stripped down or un-INJ figure in a couple of different ways.

If the bodies are not morphed then you can just export the morphed head as an .obj, REM the head channels and load back in the .obj as a morph target with conventional Poser commands. I have exported the fully morphed figure as an .obj and edited the .cr2 to point to this new .obj and it has always worked though I think if there was serious morphing like to make it fat there would be problems. Obviously to export the figure this way you would need to zero it out pose wise with the joint editor and make sure there was no scalling to mess up the fall off zones.

Then there are of course the Poser native figures and the DAZ Millenium 2 reduced resolution figures and maybe you can cloth those with PhilC's Wardrobe Wizard.

EDIT: CROSS POST TG

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2788648

You can also run your .obj files through STOMP

There is a short tutorial in this thread that shows how to use it. Very easy. Basically what it does is defrag the geometry file or something like that.

Also, as someone else suggested, reduce the size of your texture files.  I use "Bicubic Resample" when I resized mine.  I am working on an older desktop and the texture sizes of so many files were so huge that I ran out of memory sometimes before ever having loaded something. I was stunned to see some files 5000 x 6000 !!!!   And some of those only had a small pair of lips in the middle surrounded by white.  I've been resizing all my texture files as I use an item to 1024 on the longest side and noticed a huge increase in my computer's performance.  I save the originals to another folder in case I ever need them again.  I'm a hobbiest so I don't need the huge detail that a texture of that large a size affords. If I had a better computer I probably wouldn't care so much about texture size, but for the time being resizing works.  Make sure to use "Bicubic Resample" so the image isn't blurred after resizing.

Another thing is the lights.  If you have Poser 6, really start working on getting used to IBL lighting.  That combined with one or two other lights will really help you.

These are all terrific tips -- you can bet that I'll try all of them, because working with a moving scene with nearly 2 GB worth of ever-changing data will probably be easy -- in 2012. Thank, folks. Perhaps I'll share the finished product in few weeks. SS

Another tip: turn off the body parts that are covered by clothing.  (Do this after you have run the cloth sims if you're using dynamic clothes.)

This I don't understand or I'm just missing something some where.

1. Save a copy of your .obj file in another directory.
2. Open Stomp
3. Open the .obj file in your geometries folder
4. Save it back out into the same folder, using the same name.

Here is the picture of the settings you save with.

Where does this box appear in S.T.O.M.P. When hit file all that is in the drop down box is Import .obj and export .obj. I see no place for these setting listed in the box above.

Thanks,
Micheál

Heh..never mind I found it. Shakes head mumbling at self  "tick' headed Irishmen"

Ummm, randym77, thanks very much for the good advice, but can we better observe web etiquette and keep Renderosity a politics-free zone? There are other forums for that sort of thing where politics, of whatever persuasion, might be more welcomed. SS