Been playing with the idea since I read rrjacks post. But so far no luck it will only render the first material. I don't have enough knowledge to figure out why it will only render the first one But if I keep picking at it maybe I'll stumble onto a solution. :)

I couldn't get the extra Poser surfaces to work at all.  So I tried adding multiple groups and materials to the same geometry, with a single Poser surface, but I can only get the first material to render.

But can't we already multi layer with blend nodes?

You can blend colors, but you can't blend normals. That is the real thing I'm after. Imagine skin with soap bubbles on top, created by displacement and with a completely different material.

Or, imagine wood, with wood grain under a layer of transparent varnish, which has its own normals to simulate paint brush marks.

Now i am going OFF limits.

Displacement !
A Displacement map, makes objects "bigger". They are in themat room, and only "surface" when rendering; artificially incresing poly count, and putting a "skin" armund the origional obj surface.
Actually, poly count can become pixel count.
Greatly increasing render times (normal) and making transparance, and reflection calculations difficult; (normal, a lot more surfaces to count on and from)

Problem:
When using a cloth room, cloth is calculated around the origional obj.
Once the cloth is formed, and you render, the displacement map comes poking through the cloth. If it where cars, there would be many accidents.
Same for a close fitting skull cap (to put dynamic hair on).
The scull cap is on the head, OK, put the scul cap over a head with a displacement map, and  again, polygon interference and accidents.
Put collision "ON" and the result can be garbage.

How will a normal map in Poser react?

With multylayer we can imagine a real SSS !

*"...*adding multiple groups and materials to the same geometry"

Do you mean the technique that Staale used to create multi-layered textures? He created a multi-layered Posette figure many years ago - rather a neat trick. See 'BodyMorpher 1 mk.3 ProTex' at the link.

home.online.no/~kjellil/Index-AllStuff.htm

lmckenzie:   Yes that sounds like what I have been attempting, I will have to dig around in the files and see what has been done here.   Thanks.

This render has all lights turnd off . really like that it working better, im going to have fun ( smile

what figure is that? and is the armour with the figure? 

The figure is Freak4 , the armour is War Machiners For Freak 4 found at CP made by Dark Edge Design it's  on sale till 25th
In the exampled pic you can see that i'm makeing my own persenal texure for it . I like playing with textures, He He He 

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Every time? No matter what the content or settings? ...

Yes every time. I tried different settings. When I render the poser screen is black with tiny red dots. I'm assuming that when poser calculates the IDL. Depending on the scene it takes cca 30 minutes but when it actually starts the real render FFrender stops working.

No matter the content? You didn't answer that part.

I'm trying to get at the boundaries of the problem. Does it even lock up with just a couple primitives and a ground plane? If so, we go in one direction. If not we go in another.

Obviously there's something wrong with Poser if you can't render a sphere and a box with IDL. But if you can, then we need to understand the nature of the scene contents. For example, if you're using RDNA's Terradome with the big transparency sheets for atmospheric effects, this will appear to hang, but it is actually just incredibly complicated to render and could take hours before you see even one bucket show up.

In the absence of any data, I can't figure out what to suggest as the next step.

Sorry for the late reply, I was away for the weekend.
Seems that it was either Vista or driver problem because now that I installed windows7 poser8 works fine. 
I have just one more question. If I render my scene with IDL on should I see the black screen with the tiny red dots (calculating) before the actual render?  Because I dont see it. The renders turn out good, far better than what I'm used to in poser pro, but I'm not sure IDL is working.

Quote - I have just one more question. If I render my scene with IDL on should I see the black screen with the tiny red dots (calculating) before the actual render?  Because I dont see it. The renders turn out good, far better than what I'm used to in poser pro, but I'm not sure IDL is working.

Yes, you should see that. Do you have IDL enabled in the main render options dialogue (not the D3D script)? You need to enable it there, even if you use the script.

Quote - > Quote - I have just one more question. If I render my scene with IDL on should I see the black screen with the tiny red dots (calculating) before the actual render?  Because I dont see it. The renders turn out good, far better than what I'm used to in poser pro, but I'm not sure IDL is working.

Yes, you should see that. Do you have IDL enabled in the main render options dialogue (not the D3D script)? You need to enable it there, even if you use the script.

Um...no I didn't have it enabled. lol Thank you!
It works fine now but render time jumped from 30 minutes to 3+ hours. I'm not complaining! I'm just happy it works at last.

Seems like a big jump, what are your render settings?

Quote - Seems like a big jump, what are your render settings?

I still have no idea what tone mapping and HSV exponential is or what it does.

Here's a screenshot of my starting point.

I wouldn't worry about tone mapping until you've figured out what it does. This image from my gallery absolutely required it so as not to come out virtually pitch black.

This settings work fine for a test render !!!

@ mousso

Pixel sample dont need to be high, 3 is correct with 2 for the sync ... Same for Shading rate, generally 0.2 or 0.3 is correct.

I mostly use the normal render dialog.

Vink Cast Shadows
Vink Raytrace
Bounces 3
Irr Catch 0 ( yes zero ), and keep it there. => Later on, try 2, or 4, or 7, or 10

Vink Indirect Light
ILQ 7, can got to 10 or 20, or higher if needed, but only if needed.
Pixel Samples 3
MSR 0.5 for some nice detail, to 0.1 for very sharp
Bucket 32, can lower to 16, or even 8.

Vink Smooth Plygons
Vink Displacement maps

Some time i change the raytrace bounce and idl bounce when needed

If you are using displacement in D3D's script, do not keep it at 0.  Input a value, i.e., 0.2 or higher.  With SR3 installation, bump and displacement mapping will cause your render to quick prematurely if it remains at it's default setting.  It took me a better part of a day to narrow down my render problem on a basic scene with plenty of bump and displacement.  A lesson learned.

BTW, Tone mapping is P8's way of introducing gamma correction and controlling specular blowout in your render.  Use HSV Exponential.  Keep in mind, though, as you increase your HSV exponential, your render will subsequently become lighter.  HSV=2 is a good start.

Why did SR2 break my library when the library worked fine on the original installation? Is SR2 not compatible with the version of flash included on the Poser 8 installation disc? Some people say they get the "page not found" notice and refresh to load the library, but on my system the hourglass blinks and clicks. Once, after ten minutes, I got the "page not found" notice and was able to refresh and load the library, but when I attempted to wait another time the hour glass clicked for twenty minutes before I gave up. For me, SR2 isn't usable, which is unfortunate because it's supposed to fix a lot of problems.  

@Paloth: I experienced a similar problem. In my case I had to install Java ( http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp ) because it was missed somehow by the browser (IE, which is needed for Poser's library). I only found out because of IE. On the link you'll find the right thing for your OS. In my case, I'm on WinXP Prof 64bit, I had to restart after installing Java and suddenly the P8 library worked. Even though I did not find a hint about it in the forum, I hope it will solve your problem too.

And be aware If you use 32-bit and 64-bit browsers interchangeably, you will need to install both 32-bit and 64-bit Java in order to have the Java plug-in for both browsers.

Now I have a different problem. I have lots of poser pro scenes and so far they worked fine in P8. Not anymore.

this is the scene I want to render

and this is what I get after a few minutes

no matter if its a preview render only or higher render settings I get black scene as a result. Tried clearing cache, restarted computer...nothing works.

Did you try moving the camera? Looks like there's a wall between you and the figure.

I realize that sounds stupid.

But there are about 10,000 ways you can render blackness. I picked one.

You pick some more.

lol what the hell? Honestly, I unchecked the background board visibility and it still came out black. Now that I deleted it, it renders fine. Thank you for the help :)

I installed the java download and now I get the "page cannot be found" message more reliably, and that's an improvement. 

Why did the original Poser 8 installation library function perfectly on my system? Why doesn't  Poser SR2 know where to find its own library page?  

Quote - I installed the java download and now I get the "page cannot be found" message more reliably, and that's an improvement.

Do you have the free Flex on/ Flex off script to switch the library on or off? If you have it this can be another problem - in my case I changed the LSM_GUI.html one to LSMGUI_html without giving it a thought - that resulted in your IE display "page not found".

If that's not the case, I hope someone else finds a solution for you.

I think the free Flex on/ Flex off script is set to off. The library isn't expanded when it finally appears.

I did a search for the LSM_GUI page and came up empty. Where is that page located?

By the way, thanks for you help mackis3D. Poser is usable again after a quick refresh. 

Are you guys in contact with SM on these issues, particularly John (aka ratscloset)?

I found that supporting the GUI via this forum was a huge waste of my time so I'm not going to do it anymore.

Use the official people who's job is to support the app. He may not know the solution. On the other hand, he may know already instantly what is going on and you're spinning your wheels for nothing.

Quote - I think the free Flex on/ Flex off script is set to off. The library isn't expanded when it finally appears.

I did a search for the LSM_GUI page and came up empty. Where is that page located?

By the way, thanks for you help mackis3D. Poser is usable again after a quick refresh. 

So your library is now working again?

The LSM_GUI.htm has to be named by yourself if you use the free flex on/off script. It's not located in your runtime if you don't have the free Flex on/Flex off script. It would be in UI, FLEX, LSMGUI, BIN-RELEASE. Usually there is only the Poser 8's own LSMGUI.html file . In case you use the free flex on/ flex off, there is a new LSMGUI.html file and Poser 8's own has to be renamed to LSM_GUI.html, otherwise it does not work and the "page cannot open" appears instead. Many P8 users had this script because switching the library off helped to reduce the RAM usage ( I don't know if it's still needed after SR1 and SR2). But as I read in the German forum with SR2 some had problems to see the library after all because of this Flex on/ Flex off. But the problems seem to disappear after refresh in all cases. After having a problem myself with it in the beginning the library works with SR2 much faster now. Nevertheless I still miss the old one where everything was there the second Poser opened with no delays. Everytime I see the refresh circle I feel like I'm standing in the waiting line for something. That's also a reason why I won't use Windows 7 - I cannot stand the blue circle! I prefer the simple mouse pointer standing still.

Quote - My computer is connected to the Internet at all times, and P8 preferences are set to check for updates on launch. Yet I have not received notifications of the hot fix, SR1 or SR2. Come to think of it, P7 never found updates either. I always learned about them here.

So's mine. And I opened Poser today after a computer reboot - not a word about SR2. I only found out now when I saw this thread.

Hm .. I wonder why they keep it such a secret - I don't want to go checking SM's site every day just in CASE there's something crucial there I really OUGHT to download.

Getting SR2 now. If the comma has been fixed it will make me incredibly happy - no matter if something else is broken again LOL! I want my comma!

And an update. So far everything - including the comma - works beautifully! It seems like it also renders a little faster but I'm not sure about this, it's a fairly simple scen I'm working on and I didn't time it before SR2. But it renders. The library loads (not that I've even had problems with that) and the COMMA WORKS AGAIN! WEE! 

 Poser 8 sr 2 
on a
MacIntel 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
 RAM: 2 gig
OS 10.5.8

Installed SR2 a couple of days ago I remember it running quite well with some (as promised) improved performance in the IDL department. Yesterday is not the problem.

Today, it crashes on start-up Everytime!  : (

Anyone have a similar problem or can guess what could be causing this?

Thanks for any help.

 works okay on my 10.6.2 OS

When I run into issues of "Strangeness" like this, I usually find that a quick run of Disk Utility "Repair Permissions" helps.

I run on a iMac, same spec as yours. ;)

Quote -  Poser 8 sr 2 
on a
MacIntel 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
 RAM: 2 gig
OS 10.5.8

Installed SR2 a couple of days ago I remember it running quite well with some (as promised) improved performance in the IDL department. Yesterday is not the problem.

Today, it crashes on start-up Everytime!  : (

Anyone have a similar problem or can guess what could be causing this?

Thanks for any help.

 Thanks for the suggestions. Disk Utility had already been run.

So far, trashing the pref folder seemed to do the trick. Don't know what could have gone wrong in there then that now it is OK with. Time will tell.

Plus  P8.sr2 also ran OK with the old P8.sr1 prefs. 

Anyway, fresh new generated prefs, its running again...for now.

Thanks again.

5 months later and 2 service packs and it looks like nothing changed. i still need to use IC 100 to get even reflection in the IDL parts.

is this normal for a software in 2010?

i agree ice-boy, and now is there ppro 2010 and all the energy of the dev is for it now ...

we can run to have a real sr with all the bugs reported and fixed ... The  $$$$ €€€€ law ...