I want to use firefly as I use various shaders but I want to have the old good P4 sharp look! :biggrin:
In P6 I tryied turning texture filtering on/off without great results
Also in P7 texture filtering is on by default (why we don't have an option any more? :blink: )
I never understood why firefly blurs things up, antialising is too high!
Shouldn't it be faster to render without antialias?

Texture filtering always seems to produce fuzzy textures for me, so I just switch it off for the whole scene before rendering. SVDL does a free script for this. I turn it back on if anything needs it - which is almost never.

Did you try turning down the Minimum Shading Rate for your final renders? Most actors/props have the default shading rate of 0.2 (in properties), so making the render setting any less than 0.2 won't make any difference. Increase the Irradiance setting to maximum (which means maximum quality, or minimum cache size). And increase the pixel samples - I use 8 for final renders, as I see hardly any improvement at higher settings.

I now always leave the post-filter pixels at 1, because if it's 2 or higher I always get short horizontal lines of unrendered pixels at the bucket boundaries.

You may already know most of this, but just in case...

Izi
:bigsmile:

Thank you very much! :thumbupboth:

Minimum Shading Rate at 0.1
and maximum Irradiance
plus SVDL script made a big difference!
pixels samples didn't made any changes on sharpness
Still not as sharp as P4 but close however using shaders worth it :biggrin:

A big thanks goes also to SVDL for this wonderful utility! :thumbupboth:

 For sharp renders, set your filter type to "Sinc" and set your value to 4. Crispy.

Ooh, really? And no missing pixels at the bucket boundaries?
I must try that....

 I personally have never had problems with pixel boundaries (if displacements are disabled), but mileage varies. I think this may be an artifact of the weight the box filter applies the pixel. The gaussian and sinc filters are a great way to lend character to (one's) renders.

rep, I'm not seeing any images in yer gallery that might demonstrate the use of said filter.
unfortunately, the poser post filters (if that's what yer referring to) only degrade the render
IMVHO, similar to somebody trying to "improve" a photo by slapping some of the free
photoshop filters on it.

 Apologies if I should've set the nudity flag. Sorry for the delayed response; took a while to dust off the Runtime.

There is no attempt for artistic aesthetic, just a comparison between post render filters. All three images are P6 Firefly renders with no post work. Main cam focal length = 120mm on V3 with high res textures; shading rate = 0.2 (against my better judgement), rendered to 512x512 pixels, jpg files at 100% quality - pretty standard stuff.

The box render is...fair. Not bad, not great. The gaussian render is extremely blurry, but is consistent with the "film-look" and would work really well for motion blurred animation. The sinc render, as you can see, is extremely crisp and you'll notice that the poorly tuned bump maps almost jump off the screen.

The pixel values are the "default" values of the respective filters but I believe a variety of looks can be achieved with them. On the other hand, perhaps the difference is not worth the effort. I did note, as IsaoShi mentioned, lines at the bucket boundaries but only on the sinc render. While adjusting maxBucketSize to 1280 diminished the artifact slightly, you can still see it in the middle of the forehead.

Pitklad, I find many shader effects such as face_off's RealSkinShader do seem to function in Poser 7 even using the Poser 4 render option, just not raytracing effects such as reflections... Often I render the scene in with the Poser 4 option and then the FireFly and composit them in Photoshop... FireFly has better shadows and can do AO but the Poser 4 render does have that crispness. I have used the Poser 7 P4 render with fancy P7 lights as well as shaders and still gotten good results.

@ replicand - many thanks for that information and demo!

Having seen my renders go blurry using Gaussian at > 1 pixel, I rather stupidly assumed it was due to the higher pixel setting, rather than the type of filter used.

Btw, if you get those (semi-)transparent lines at the bucket boundaries using the sinc filter, a simple fix is to copy the image to a background layer (in whatever postwork program you use) and offset it by one pixel vertically. Then merge the two layers.

I'm totally gonna use the sinc filter, Thanks so much for the comparison images! :thumbupboth:

I force texture filtering off for all of my products because I can never tell when it will cause issues for the user. It should have been left off by default and used only as an option by the user to begin with.

As for artifacts with the sync filter, maybe my eyes are going bad, but seems hardly noticeable. At larger resoultuions perhaps it is more noticeable, but I would guess it is something that could be touched up simple enough in post if it's so minimal that it can be hardly visible at 512x512. Not to mention I need a new monitor, this one sucks (it's old and has seen it's better days) ! LOL

Can someone donate a screenshot of their material node map, so that I can see where the sinc filter node fits in ? 
thanks,
Andrew

Ok, on my monitor here at work I can see where the bucket artifacts are. They aren't too bad really, at least in a single render, they could be touched up in post quickly and easily enough. An animation may be more labor intensive, but then who really uses Poser's sub par animation tools? :o)

Yeah I see that. Hmm .. does changing bucket size have any effect?

Yes, it alters the position and frequency of the lines.

There doesn't seem to be any clear pattern to these lines; but two renders with the same settings will produce lines in exactly the same places.

I have learnt to live with it, I just use my "one pixel vertically offset background fix" to get rid of them!

rep, thx fr the examples of the post filters.  now I see yer right.

isao, re: the artifacts with the sync filter that appear to be along bucket edges: this
reminds me of a little-known artifact associated with FFRender variable MaxError
(undocumented AFAIK).  try increasing IC to 90, 99 and 100 respectively.
(increasing pixsamples, decreasing shading rate couldn't hurt)

Quote - I have learnt to live with it, I just use my "one pixel vertically offset background fix" to get rid of them!

Maybe a photoshop action for that would save you some steps

What are exactly the steps? I may do that for you :biggrin:

Miss Nancy: thanks for the tip. I usually do final renders with 8, 0.2, 100, and I'm fairly certain I still get these artifacts then... but Im going to check that in the scene for the above image.

Call me slow on the uptake (though my name is Izi), but it has just occurred to me that these lines only seem to appear on large background planes, such as on the sky dome here, or on backdrops.

pitklad: It's very kind of you to offer, but I have a feeling that Photoshop actions won't work in my Photoshop Elements.

Besides, it's so quick, it's probably not worth making an action for it: I just copy the image to a new layer, offset the background layer by 1 pixel vertically (up or down doesn't really matter), then merge the two layers.

Attached Link: How to Use Photoshop Actions in Photoshop Elements

While speaking of Photoshop, you can also sharpen the final render in Photoshop.
I have been doing so for years. Recommend it!

Yes I am using Photoshop sharpen also
I'm wondering does the sinc filter is applied on the render after it is done(for every block)? Like a Photoshop filter? Or does it make Firefly more sharp generally?
I want sharp textures but not sharp edges, especially for lower poly meshes (like P4 even with antialias)...