Hi all.
Does anyone know how V5I deals with duplicated texture maps?

In other words, if I have two or more characters sharing the same set of textures maps, does V5I load a separate copy of each texture for each character?

Or is it clever enough to realise that it already has that specific map in memory?

The reason I ask is 'cos I'm doing a scene with several characters, all of which share the same texture maps (although they are modified differently in the Function editor, but the base maps are the same for each character). I want to cram as many characters as I can into the scene, but if the maps aren't consolidated then I'm rapidly going to run out of memory and so will have to use function-only textures. It'd help me a lot to know in advance whether or not to load textures in Poser before saving the PZ3...

Cheers,
Diolma

When you import - you can check collapse identical materials.  But if I'm reading you requirement correctly each figure will have to retain it's map.  Since they are indeed separate items.  The collapse works for example if you import V3 & the same material(map) is being for multiple body parts ie legs/arms/torso.

Hmmm...

What would happen if I imported untextured characters, then loaded the bit-maps in Vue?
And what about vegetation? Separate bit-maps for each "branch"? Of each duplicate tree/shrub?

sigh I wish I knew more about the inner workings of Vue...

Cheers,
Diolma

You could try as an experiment(I've never tried this with multiple characters).

Load 2 characters with the same map then just drag the duplicated maps onto each other. Drag until you get down to 1.  See what happens.

"then just drag the duplicated maps onto each other. Drag until you get down to 1."

I have absolutely no idea how to do that. I don't know how to show both maps at the same time, since they are on different characters/character-parts (objects) and I can only open one at a time in the function editor (as far as I know). I'd love to know how to do it:-)

NB - I'm on Vue 5 I, so that may be a Vue 6 thing..

Cheers,
Diolma

You see ALL your materials if you click on the material summary up top - 3 little balls to the right of the word python.

Once you see them you can drag the materails or copy & paste.

I can do a quick screen grab if you like :)

For this and memory issues I would copy/paste..that way there is less for Vue to have to store on memory.

Many thanks to you both. I will try, and see what happens:-)

Although I've had V5I for nearly 2 years now, I still haven't done much more than scratch the surface of it...

Cheers,
Diolma