This is the pic I'm trying to render: But when I hit the render button, everything gets loaded, objects, maps, lights, shadows, etc, but when it gets to the rendering stage, it loads the bg, and then stops rendering. I've tried redoing it from scratch, putting in one figure, then rendering, and everything works fine, until I put in the 5th figure. Then teh problems start up again. Even deleteing a figure (and all it's props, clothes, etc) doesn't solve the problem. Anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?

yes, you actually told how to do it. unless figure 5 is a bad figure, just render each one by itself, then composite in APS or PSP.

I  tested each  figure,  loading and rendering each one individualy, and had no problems, so hard to believe it's a bad figure.

I don't want to composite as then I'll loose the  shadows

Can you give us some more detail - what Poser version, what render settings, etc?

Poser 7
AMD  AThlon 64  Processor 3500+
1024 RAM
X1300 video card with 256RAM

I've used a few different  render settings. Mainly :
Min shading rate: 0.75
Cast Shadows
Pixel Samples: 3
Raytracing
Bounces 2
Irradience caching 69

I've locked up with one face and a hair prop using 2 gigs ram... Your settings seem fine. But,,, most cannot render this many figures at once. Not in Poser, anyway. As mentioned but, differently.. you can render the back 2 figures (all else ivisible), save as a tiff. Import tiff as the new background. Make all visible, then the back 2 invisible, render. Using an image map on a one sided square is better still. Less artifacting. Armies have been rendered this way.

I have a pic in my gallery of 5 Aikos with full hair & clothes....and I had to turn everything off but shadows and the go watch a movie or two (or more....I don't remember how long exactly...think I went to bed and it was still going the next morning) to get it to render.

If you have smooth polys turned on, try rendering with it off and see how that goes. That can make Poser go belly up sometimes if there's a lot in the scene.

A possible solution - go back to P6.

multiple undos and a sortable library means that won't happen

Lower your bucket size by half.

Just a thought.

In fact there is no harm in lowering bucket size to 8 or 4 as far as I can see, it only makes it safer and not perceptibly slower (not that I can tell anyhow).  P7 SR1 has been much better behaved while rendering, memory management is done very noticeably better.

SR1 was teh solution. I instaleld it and it rendered just fine.
Thanks!