I used to use Max Texture size all the time in P5 and I am thinking I may need to re-install it for just that. Is there a hack to access this function in P7?

I bought an app for 'down rezing' textures but it is finicky and doesn't work most times. I have gone through my texture folders down rezing textures 'individually' but that is just not a good solution, especially in that finding specific textures isn't always fun. I have not found a way to just max image size my textures folder wholesale.

So I know there was a hack to set texture filtering on/off in P7... is there a way to get texture max in P7? It is the only way I can do multi figure scenes on my old cheap PC.

Wow, I never noticed that P7 no longer has Max texture size!

Couple side suggestions that may be of some help - if you have Photosop, IIRC you can create a resize action then run it as a batch function.

If not, there is a thumbnail proggie that I use a lot, it;s called Thumbs Plus, it has all kinds of batch functions - especially resizing. I use it often to proces a whole folder full of 8 megapixel photos into a web-friendly size.
If I remember right, the program has a fully functional 30 day trial.
http://www.cerious.com/

Irfanview also has a nice batch mode.  Does resizing, renaming, sharpening,
everything except make coffee, and it's absolutely free.  

Max texture size was removed  (and texture filtering moved) because of a change in how the textures are handled in the rendering.

I don't remember the full explanation but it basically became obsolete.

Quote -
everything except make coffee, and it's absolutely free.  

Free or not, I want my coffee!

I'm sure Irfan will add coffee to his next version.

Updated old joke:

In heaven:
The chefs are French,
The police are English,
The cars are made by Germans,
The bankers are Swiss,
The lovers are Italian,
The programmers are Croatian.
.

In hell:
The chefs are English,
The police are German,
The mechanics are French,
The bankers are Italian,
The lovers are Swiss,
The cars are made by Croatians.

If you like it smaller, I just wrote a little script to resize selected files from a directory. It's available from the link at the bottom of this msg. 

Hi all.

Thanks, Connie. It never occured to me to look at a thumbnailer for 1024ish images but it makes sense.

Tyger, I have read that also but all I know is with P5 if I could not render a scene the Max Texture setting put at 1024 or 512 let me go ahead and render no problem. My final renders are very small, around 1024 max, usually 600x800 but going through my textures folder down sizing all the images, skins at least, has proved too difficult plus I don't like altering my textures in case the install archives are lost. right now I am resorting to unpleasent options like using procedural textures as opposed to maps for background ellements.

ockham, I use IrfanView a lot but I have not figured out how to get it to deal with sub-directories. I'll have to check.

ADP, that sounds very interessting. The link isn't showing though.

The link is on my footer, "Python Scripts" :) 

or: http://www.poserprofis.de/python

Sorry, I have signatures and all that hidden from me. It is an optional forum setting. Big thank you :)

My understanding of how P7 handles texture files is as follows:

1. it copies all texture files used into a temporary directory that you, the user have defined
2. it figures out what resolution you're rendering at and resamples the texture files as required on the fly

I haven't figured out whether temporary files are created for each texture on disk, or whether it's stored in RAM, but I'm guessing the latter.

I'm also guessing that textures are resampled for the Pose Room and held in RAM: the only reason to do any batch resampling would be if your PC or Mac was really  really old  and couldn't handle a 4000x4000 jpeg.

I used to routinely downsample texture files when using P5 and P6 - this just isn't necessary with P7 and a halfway decent, younger than 3 years old computer.

Try XP's Power toys Image resizer. It can do all files in a folder. We use this at work.

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*I'm also guessing that textures are resampled for the Pose Room and held in RAM: the only reason to do any batch resampling would be if your PC or Mac was really  really old  and couldn't handle a 4000x4000 jpeg.

I used to routinely downsample texture files when using P5 and P6 - this just isn't necessary with P7 and a halfway decent, younger than 3 years old computer.*

Try twice as old as that and the cheapest PC available at that time! I am a cripple with no disability pension, what money I make from freelancing and royalties goes to my family not my toys :( Still, I try to use Poser as much as I am able since I have had to relocate away from all my wonderful friends in New York who would strip down and pose for me. I miss the soul those painting had but I still keep trying with Poser...

 The max texture size parameter was necessary in versions before 7 to make sure all textures would fit into memory simultaneously during rendering. Poser 7 and Pro divide all textures in small tiles, load only the tiles that are currently necessary into memory and purge old unused ones. Therefore the memory footprint of P7/Pro rendering is largely independent of the number and size of textures and a max texture size parameter is obsolete.

It must be something though, when I try a render with standard and then down sized textures in Poser 7 the speed difference is dramatic. I also avoid stalled renders. Could it be something about the amount the textures must be  resampled for those individual tiles? How much map area must be sampled to how much render area? I would think that sampling say 500x500 area of texture down to a 10x10 area on the render would take more time if not memory than sampling a 50x50 area of map to a 10x10 area of render?

Yup. With a lot of figures in a scene, texturesize IS an issue here with P7 on a powerful machine.

Quote - Yup. With a lot of figures in a scene, texturesize IS an issue here with P7 on a powerful machine.

Indeed, and P7 SR3 seems to take forever to load the textures used... obviously the greater the size and number of texture files, the longer it's going to take. However, using the same scene and figures for a second render is much faster as it only has to 'load' the textures once.

Quote - Indeed, and P7 SR3 seems to take forever to load the textures used... obviously the greater the size and number of texture files, the longer it's going to take. However, using the same scene and figures for a second render is much faster as it only has to 'load' the textures once.

The first "loading textures" stage is creating the temporary files for the texture cache. Since common file formats like JPG or PNG are not optimal for a tiled texture cache, Poser converts the textures to tiled OpenEXR files with downsampled MIP representations (you can find those files in Poser's temp folder). Any following renders then use the converted copies from the first pass and therefore the "loading textures" stage then only verifies their file dates to make sure to keep them up to date.

Quote - I would think that sampling say 500x500 area of texture down to a 10x10 area on the render would take more time if not memory than sampling a 50x50 area of map to a 10x10 area of render?

It does not if you use texture filtering (MIP mapping). Turning filtering off means that the renderer has to always lookup in the most detailed texture representation and thus causing much more disk activity.

Stewer, how do I use this texture sampling? Is it the FireFly default in P7 or must I do something to implement it? Really, my computer is a six year old "entry level" laptop, I have to work with all Reduced Resolution characters. I so wish I could get a new machine!! This one will die soon and I will have to somehow. I would work with Poser 4 if I could but I am addicted to the library sub-folders and some shader stuff now.

This is making me think the trouble is disc space. I defragment with the standard WinXP disc tool maybe too often and I try to keep a third my drive clear. How much memory do I need?

Really though, if I could I would sample down every texture in my runtime to a long side of 1024 pixels since I never render larger than that. I have a tiny screen. I just have not found anything that will run through the whole folder down sampling. I have done a bunch individually with IrfanView. I appreciate ADP's script but the python involved scares me. I went to get the Python tools called on and I did not understand them or how to get the downloads.

I will try that thumbnailer as soon as I have time and can start the evaluation count down. Now that I think of it, down sizing my textures wholesale might free up some disc space for Poser to use.

Stewer, should I run a tiny render without lights to load my textures and then do the real render?

 Leaving everything at the defaults should usually be the best strategy. If you're willing to trade a little quality for speed, you can change the texture filtering from "quality" to "fast". Don't set it to "none", that is in many cases the slowest option.

"Stewer, should I run a tiny render without lights to load my textures and then do the real render?"

No, just render when you need to render. Anything else is just using extra time.

Quote - Since common file formats like JPG or PNG are not optimal for a tiled texture cache, Poser converts the textures to tiled OpenEXR files with downsampled MIP representations (you can find those files in Poser's temp folder).

Thanks for this info. Here is the project-page for OpenEXR (source code, tools, etc):
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/openexr 

@momodot: I've made a Windows executable. It's 3MB to download. Nothing to install, just save the included EXE-file in any folder you like and start it.

http://www.poserprofis.de/python/

There's another thing you could try (has nothing to do with texture caching for final rendering, but can help if you're short on RAM and your textures are large): Poser 7 allows you to adjust the texture preview size. Regardless of the actual size of the texture, the maximum resolution Poser 7 will load it at for previewing a scene is specified on the Preview tab of the Render Settings dialog. So lowering that value will leave more room for other data while posing, animating, etc.