So it doesn't get lost quite so readily, I've posted my summary of how to use the Dimension 3D IDL control panel to my personal blog here on Renderosity. I know this announcement will fall off the page pretty fast, but I don't know how else to announce it to you folks.

Note that the summary is subject to change, of course.

Whichway

Got a link, Whichway? ;)

Quote - Got a link, Whichway? ;)

** THE BLOG**

Cheers

What is this utility? I have not run across it yet, but if it has D3D's name on it, I probably want it.

I assume you are looking for scripts / partners / Dimension3D / RenderFireFly  it came with the p8 install.

You may want to put a link on your "homepage", as it isn't all that obvious to find the blogs link (not your fault).
http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=1&userid=566264

Thanks for the suggestion, pjz99. Done.

For those reading here, my blog is at:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/blog/display.php?member=Whichway

Whichway

which, thx fr yr work on the blog/dummies thread. I think what is happening with bill's room lit by a glowing plane:  GIbounces occur even in the absence of directional lites, but it appears that a low-poly-density flat posersurface requires higher numSamples and lower ISS than a curved posersurface with hi-poly-density. 

thus they either hafta fix it so the flat surface and the curved surface get assigned different variables somehow, or they hafta fix it so that the flat surface doesn't generate such large errors in their calculations. 

to increase samples to 100K and to decrease ISS to 4 might give fewer and smaller blotches, but it shouldn't be necessary when a curved posersurface can have an artifact-free surface at much less extreme values, in the case where the only illumination is a glowing posersurface.

Miss Nancy - The discussion here - http://www.except.nl/lightwave/RadiosityGuide96/ - indicates that LightWave has a separate treatment of curved surfaces since they have their own Angular Tolerance parameter.

which, in doing a scene with no lites and a glowing posersurface, what I'm finding is that FFRender is interpolating wrong (or not interpolating at all) when doing GI bounces. this means that, as one adds more and more GIbounces, the splotchies keep increasing and getting worse. it was the same in poser 7, unfortunately. adding directional lites and limiting GIbounces to 3 (hard-coded into the first release of poser 7) makes the effect much less noticeable.

Miss Nancy - My guess here is that it's not the Bounces that's too low, but the Samples. With no directional lights, the final random sample has to be very high to get an accurate, stable result. As the evaluation point gets farther from the area light source, or more bounces are needed to hit that source, the fraction of the sampling hemisphere the area light takes up - its solid angle - drops and most of the random samples will miss it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it until somebody tells me the right answer.

Whichway

That's what this scene does for me with 1 point light and IL turned on.