Hi Mike,

I've lost track of the idea we're talking about here, with regard to bringing Poser "up to par".

If we're talking about the capabilities of the renderer, I'm with you. Much as I admire what Stefan has been able to do with Firefly, it doesn't do what I want it to do. Stefan has explained to me that the issues are largely technical. In a nutshell, Firefly internal architecture limits what you can do (both from an efficiency standpoint as well as certain capabilities.) The biggest problem is how transparency is handled. No need to go into the details, but everybody knows raytrace(for any reason)+transparency = SLOOOOW. Second, the material room actually allows too much freedom - resulting in the renderer unable to make any simplifying assumptions. If Poser shaders could only do basic realistic lighting, then it could be a lot faster. It's all the un-realistic options that cause trouble. Things like plugging Reflection into the Diffuse calculation - that means IDL can't do its job as quick as possible.

Practically every time I talk to them, I say "Go buy the rights to the Kerkythea render engine." There's quite a few business and technical challenges that interfere with that simple solution. When they explain them to me, my brain closes up, and next time I say to them "Go buy Kerkythea". I think they're getting tired of hearing it. :-)

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)