Wayne I was worried about that for sure. So, I loaded many V4s into Max (just the mesh) see image attached.

I then loaded in the fully rigged figure I purchased. Viewport response was smooth. No hesitation grabbing the direct manipulation widgets and rotating/translating. Now, I can't say that this littel test is the equivelent to two V4s with BiPed, texture maps, hair and cloth. Finding that out will be part of this proof of concept.

Strides have been made along these lines in the last two upgrades to Max, 2008 and 2009. The 2008 release specifically was mostly about viewport response, due to feedback from production facilities having lag with a lot of assets in the viewport.

The combination of Autodesk attacking the viewport response (you can get shadows in the viewport in real time), my computer upgrade, and my light burden requirements -- says to me that with all due respect to the strategies of the past that centered around lo-res figures (at least until render time), my situation lets me operate with impunity. Pretty much as if I were in Poser!

I know that might sound like a deliberate attempt to insult. I assure you it is not. I have sincere respect for those strategies and proven production methods.

It happens that I am not in a "production" situation with this paradigm. It is more like a kid artist struggling along with beginner tools who sneaks into the master's workroom and gets to turn on the big toys.

Anyway.........I am intesely determined to get my base tools established for my project and get on with the movie making.

I'm running XPPro-64 with 8GIG RAM, Core2 Quad Q6600 with fast hard drives, Nvidia 8800 video card.

::::: Opera :::::