Does anyone know if Poser stores multiple copies of a texture because of the material zones , or does it reference one copy.

Example , a figures skin , skinhead, skinface, arm 3 sections, leg 3 sections, etc .

Would Poser use less memory if material zones were merged to conform to the uv map used ?

It references one copy, so far as I'm aware.

Quote - Would Poser use less memory if material zones were merged to conform to the uv map used ?

Poser uses less memory if there are fewer maps - but I don't think I understand that part of your question fully. Could you elaborate?

OK. Take a figure, say Mike3

skinhip, skintorso, skinneck ,skinarm, forearm and hand , leg and feet all use the same map
So is Poser holding 8 copies of that in memory or only 1 ?

I have a scene with only two characters and some props and I am not able to render it on a dual core 3gb system , it seems to run out of memory when loading textures.

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2228908

Are you using a 32 or 64 bit OS - and what version of Poser? These factors will all have a bearing on how much memory is available to the application. Have you tried using Task Manager to check on the process's memory usage? Finally, stalling during the Adding Objects phase can often be fixed by re-sorting the geometries' facets - see the linked thread.

HTH...

Thanks Bob, I am going to have to render it out in layers.

I am running Poser 7 sp2 on win xp. The process is blowing the 2gb limit during the loading textures phase.  I  suspect the props are the problem but I have not inspected the maps except that there are 62 image maps referenced in the scene :(

Quote - ...there are 62 image maps referenced in the scene :(

Oops. Each image map will take up an amount of memory equal to 32bits x the number of pixels, if I remember rightly - so a typical 2048 x 2048 image would occupy 16MB of RAM. 62 of them, assuming they're all that size would hit 1GB easily.

Have you tried reducing the maximum texture resolution in the Firefly settings? It beats manually resizing each one, anyway...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3548474&ebot_calc_page#message_3548474