I have been trying to make a painless migration from Poser 4 to poser 7 these several months but am getting frustrated doing so.

I got an Apple i7 MacBook Pro with 8 gigs of RAM whis in a sense is MAXED out.

Having so much process power I assumed I would have no problem rendering in Poser7.

I have found though, as my scenes have gotted more complex, that in the midle of rendering a scene, I get an error message it can not contione and that I should reduce buckett size or a few other set-up options to facilitate rendering. One of the other options, though i can't remember the exact words used is something like "render in other winfow, or aplication or location.

I am therefore forced to render these nice scenes in the older and crappier P4 render engine. I am really frustrated partly because of the problem but mostly, as usual that I can't find help in the damn Poser User Manual.

I can see it taking longer to render...I expected that that the more you add the more complex shadows and lighting effects it needs to calculate the longer the render tim. But I did not expect it to stop mid render and give me these error messes.

Any help I can get from anyone here better versed in dealing with these problems especially on a Mac would be greatly appreciated. I have come some distance from the user Ball and Chain of Poser 4 and do not want to go back to rendering with it but I am getting sick of these probems with poser7.

In your P7 preferences you should check the Render to separate process checkbox. If you keep your bucket size smaller it should work better for you. I normally keep mine at about 32 or less. 64 is too much. Keep the amount of threads to the amount of cores you have in your processor, though I've seen people differ on this.

Laurie

OK cool thanks.

Now can you or someone else kindly explain what Bucket Size actually means and what the differences are between a 64 bucket size and a 32 bucket size? I tried using the 32 and saw a marked difference in the image quality rendered. Somehow th smalle bucket size lost some color and tone qualities while actually gaining sharpness!

I am not sure what rendering in seperate processor actually means though there is a niggling thought in the back of my dead head it just doesn't come forward far enough for me to grasp. Is it the notion of when you work in multi processors systems, say one is working on Poser set up while using another for example is addressing the rendering stuff?

If that is the case it makes sense. If not then I am more confused now than before. I assume the older Poser4 renderd in only one processor then?

Now I need someone on a Mac to explain this CORE thing. If your system is designated as a multi-core processor configuration how do you find out how many CORES are there for you to work with?

8-(

In rude words.
You have a spade. for Poser a bucket.
You can lift the spade; Poser can render the bucket.
Take too large a spade, and you can not lift it any more.
too large a bucket, and Poser gets "saturated"n stops rendering.

high poly meshes, and big textures take a lot of RAM.
leaves little to work with.

So, reduce your "spade", and Poser will "normally" continue.

Render is a separate process, makes your OS believe that it is another program.
So it gets the full resources again. (limited by your OS of cource.)

Also, having a high performance system is a trap.. (can be a trap)
OK, i have, and you install, and remove and install, and so on.

C lean your system.
Run as little is anything in background.
Use
Ccleaner free
Advanced system care free
Glary utilites, also free, to clean and optimise your system.

Sorry,
just changing bucket size does nothing to final quality.
Well, not visible anyway.

oeps, sorry, forget the above post.... it is a MAC....

Before I explain, I want to know if the explanations of bucket size numerously already posted in this forum were read and found wanting. If so, I can hope to clarify whatever was not clearly explained before. If not, it would be a good idea to search for posts by me, using words or phrases that interest you, and don't forget to look back more than the last 45 days.

Bucket size does not affect image quality at all. It affects render time and whether or not you run out of memory.

Sounds like you're experiencing memory leak, which makes me wonder did you make sure to get SR3 for Poser 7?

Recent advice about cores doesn't apply to you. Poser 7 cannot use 8+ cores like Poser 8 can. You have 8 cores, though.

@baginsbill , do you have an opinion on "adaptive bucket size" ?

I use 32 most of the time.

bagginsbill:

** **Might be so but i still have to believe what i actually saw in the render.

there was definitely a change in tonal value and color and sharpness in the final render. granted in 64 bucket size the render process was interrupted but i still exported it albeit as a partial image and when i figured the bucket size reduction and rerendered i compared them. both renders were set up at quarter final size. when i got it done i unfortunately saved over the lower sized one and deleted the partial so no longer have a comparrison to show now.

Does the SR also apply to P7 for Macs?

The SRs apply to ALL versions of Poser on any OS, as far as I know.

Laurie

Well, I am like you.
No math genious, and I only believe my 2 MarkII eyeballs.

But there is NO render quality difference due to bucket size only.
Poser does exactlky the same calculations, it just does it in smaller parts at a time.
Delivers them to screen and starts the next part, thus being less memory hungry.

As far as bucket size goes, I have gone as low as 1 for complex scenes using the Global Illumination Python script for Poser 7. It seems to keep me from getting those error messages, which can get quite frusterating if it's been rendering a few hours then crashes on you.

But generally, I'll keep it at 32, 16, 8, and 4, depending on the scene.

There are bugs in earlier versions of Poser 7 that appear as artifacts at bucket boundaries, if and only if you are running light-based AO, and at certain specific settings. If you are using an old, buggy, release of Poser 7, then you may see a change in the artifacts. Thus it is possible to "see" a change in something when changing bucket size. But this is only in the broken versions. This is not worth explaining, really. If you're not at SR3, get there.

Not to get off subject, but I rarely render in poser anymore. I purchased Octane and been having a blast playing with GPU rendering...  :o)

Well that might expalin my problem. I will change the Bucket sizes accordingly from now n to see what happens and try and reset the processor rendering functions....if I can remember where that preference was....:(

Not only have I been seeing strange artifact which i can only define as chunky pixelation even using the P4 render engine as well as those changes in tonal quality differences I mentioned adjusting the Bucket size. What is funny is that stuff that worked just fine in Poser4 on a very old 8600 Mac almost 15 years old is giving me problems now on a system that is 10 times more powerful processor wise, graphic card wise and RAM wise. Go figure!  :(

I do have the first boxed version of Poser 7 released when it came out at the special early user buy price. I better go get the new SR release.

The question here is I really don't want to reinstall all my content....been renaming a lot of my uncritical library stuff for better ease of use. Upgrading the application won't overwrite the Runtime Folder and/or change any of what I already have set up will it?

Quote - The question here is I really don't want to reinstall all my content....been renaming a lot of my uncritical library stuff for better ease of use. Upgrading the application won't overwrite the Runtime Folder and/or change any of what I already have set up will it?

Nope, it won't.

Laurie

Attached Link: download Poser service pack updates

Quote - What is funny is that stuff that worked just fine in Poser4 on a very old 8600 Mac almost 15 years old is giving me problems now on a system that is 10 times more powerful...

     That's because the P4 render engine is much simpler then the P7 Firefly.  You can do soooo many neat effects in P7 that P4 just can't do.

     The hotlink takes you to the updates.  Just download the SR3 (service release) for Poser 7 for Mac OS and run it.  It only overwrites particular files which have had improvements/corrections made.  These improvements are a good thing.  You want them.

     As I recall, P7 will render a maximum of four threads.

     While your machine is 64bit, P7 is 32bit, so it can't take full advantage of all the memory which you have.  Tick the render in separate process option so that the render engine gets its own allocation of memory.  I'd try a bucket size of 8 pixels to reduce the memory load. 

     To get the full benefit of a 64bit system, you might consider Poser Pro 2010.  Both the program and the render engine run in 64bit, so you can build complex scenes, and you can render them, because Firefly can access as much RAM as you have available.

OK

Got it.

THank you all for the valued help on this. You should all put a user manual together to replace the dredge that came with the application.

God bless!

OK I think I did everything that you all suggested I do but I keep having these weird recurring from time to time problem.

Still having problems with Poser 7 timing out. I am getting sick of it.

What causes a scene to be rendered FUZZY?

See included image.

Poser renders scenes in chunks.  Bucket Size is what tells Poser how big each chunk should be.  It has zero effect on render quality.  The higher the Bucket Size, the bigger the chunk, and thus more RAM is needed to process each chunk.

I have 24 GB of RAM - I maxed out my motherboard's memory capacity just because I could - but I keep the Bucket Size at 32.  That way, if I need to cancel a render, Poser doesn't have to think too much before responding, and I minimize the risk of Poser crashing altogether.

As for what's causing the blury renders, I've no idea.  I started with Poser 8 last June, and sidegraded to PPro 2010 a week later.

Since you said that you have an i7, you should slide number of threads rightward to 4.  This will render much faster, with no sacrifice in quality.  :D

I'd set irradiance caching higher, maybe 65.

Try sliding post filter size leftward to 1?  Who has experienced knowledge of this?  Please chime in!

Generally, if I have raytracing engaged, then I also have Cast Shadows ticked, but maybe you have a reason for that combination. 

Select the hair figure, and look for the "control" body part.  Move the right bang outward so that it doesn't cut through the doll's breast and thigh.

if I would render this I would:

Render Proces:
Number of treats = equal to number of CPU cores and Vink Separate process.
In your current setting, U are only using one core of your CPU.

Cast shadows ON
Raytracing ON
Raytray bounces at least 2-3
Irradance catching is the one to play with, I would start at 0 and work my way up.
Pixel samples : start at 3 and work up to 5, then 7
Min shading rate is causing part of the blur: put at .2 (point 2) For very sharp goto .1 but render time will increase.
Bucket size with your RAM at 32
Min Displacement bounds can stay at 0

On the right side
I would Vink Smooth Polygons ON
Vink use Displacement maps ON (If you use any?)
Post filter size 1 (one)
Post filter type sinc
Save and render.

have a nice day.

PS, you did install SR3, right?

The fuzziness is because of post filter size = 4. You told it to blur 4 pixels together.

Thank you for clearing that up, both literally and figuratively, BB.  ^^  I had simply never noticed that setting before.

Using box at 4 is not the best. 

Using sinc at 1 is not the best.

The best filter size depends on which filter you're using.

If you really want to know how all these work, read this thread thoroughly:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3559882

Quote - The fuzziness is because of post filter size = 4. You told it to blur 4 pixels together.

Exactly! I noticed that first thing...lol. I use sync at 2.

Laurie

Blur 4 pixels together?

Why would that option even be offered?

Yes I did install the SR3 update and the content fix update (First) just in cSE THOUGH I NEVER use any of the Poser 7 native figures except the animals. They are ugly.  :(

Thanks alll I will try these tips later.

I guess it payed off doing screen captures of my settings to get clarity on my P7 hack use huh? :)

If it makes you feel any better, a lot of this we all needed help with when Poser 6 and 7 came out. I remember getting Poser 6 (from Poser 4). I was so totally confused with the render settings and the materials...lol. Seemed like it took forever to learn it all, but in reality it all comes pretty quickly ;). It's a bit of a shock from Poser 4 to Poser 7.

Laurie

Quote - Blur 4 pixels together?

Why would that option even be offered?

If you would just read the thread I show where 4-pixel filter is great - with sinc.

The author did not "offer" 4-pixel box filter, as if this is something you need. He offered a setting to choose filter type, and filter size, and he did not bother trying to promote or deny one combination versus another. It's up to you to make your choices.

Also, I can think of some scenarios where I'd want the blurry soft-focus rendering as part of a workflow involving down-sampling the image later. But this is beyond obscure for you.

Quote - There are bugs in earlier versions of Poser 7 that appear as artifacts at bucket boundaries, if and only if you are running light-based AO, and at certain specific settings. If you are using an old, buggy, release of Poser 7, then you may see a change in the artifacts. Thus it is possible to "see" a change in something when changing bucket size. But this is only in the broken versions. This is not worth explaining, really. If you're not at SR3, get there.

Also, displacement isn't calculated very far from the bucket boundary (or possibly not at all), so if you have an item with a lot of displacement (as is used for fur sometimes) near a bucket boundary then it can get cut off.

Quote - Using box at 4 is not the best. 

Using sinc at 1 is not the best.

The best filter size depends on which filter you're using.

If you really want to know how all these work, read this thread thoroughly:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3559882

What I've found very useful for post filter is to not use it when I first render a scene, and then create a new scene where I plug the render into the background's alternate diffuse channel, remove all the lights, and then render at the same size. In this second render, which takens about twenty seconds, I use the post filter. (I also make sure to not use hsv or anything which changes the brightness of objects.)

Quote - > Quote - Blur 4 pixels together?

Why would that option even be offered?

If you would just read the thread I show where 4-pixel filter is great - with sinc.

The author did not "offer" 4-pixel box filter, as if this is something you need. He offered a setting to choose filter type, and filter size, and he did not bother trying to promote or deny one combination versus another. It's up to you to make your choices.

Also, I can think of some scenarios where I'd want the blurry soft-focus rendering as part of a workflow involving down-sampling the image later. But this is beyond obscure for you.

BagginsBill:

I have always appreciate your help though is is the case too often I do not grasp much of it. It isn't from lack of desire to wrap my brain around all the tech stuff you discuss in your posts/threads but more from just my own limitations retaining info. I will be using ths and other threads you mentioned to try and grunt through this.

I also appreciate everyone elses input here and on the other thread mentioned. Now I just gotta wade through all this nofo and hpe I glean some worthwhile help from it all before my old brain explodes!  :(

OK
I am going over this and yes BagginsBill, I did read the other threads you suggested to me. Whether i have properly digested the info is another matter altogether. I will try to apply all this info in a new render and see if there is any improvement.

Thanks all.

Another question I have is this:

I have been using a simple square Poser prop to texture and use in scenes say as a cobble stone floor or wall or stucco floor or wall etc.

Sometimes I have used a bump map sometimes not.

I am noticing that when I use these simple textured squares in renders I get so god awful pixelation I never got in Poser4. Sometimes even if I render with the Poser 4 render engibe in P the strange noise persists. Drives me nuts.

Any ideas what might be causing that?

I have also gotten it in a set of Fallen Wings and and a DAZ Parsaol umbrella so far with no recourse or fix found no matter what I have tried.

I would have included the images but in my out of control frustration I tossed everything just giving up on the whole idea and went onto something else.  :(

And another Question:

I have found using the Firefly render instead of P4 some simple props seem to explode or bloat.

Say a simple PP2 hat or the Zygote Creature Pak forked tongue will turn into a pileon in final render. What might cause this kind of mesh distortion in a final render where it does not appear in the stage at set-up?

Problem 1: Two-sided polygon props. Poser used to make no distinction between front and back. Now it does. And when both appear coincident, all hell breaks loose. Sometimes turning on "Normals Forward" in the material room will get back to the old behavior.

Use the "One sided square", not the "Hi Res Square".

Problem 2: Bloat is from geometry not designed for Firefly "Smooth Polygons". Disable smoothing.

The top and bottom images are obviously in FireFly mode with slightly different options checked. The setting I used I tried gleaning from everything I could make sense of, from all the advice I got here and at the other threads.

The Center image, a simple P4 Render with all boxes check, is the control to show what everything was supposed to look like.

The cobblestone textured squares worked out with Normals Forward checked. Thanks!!

with normals forward clicked, as you can see became a bit hairy in Firefly.

The tail of the creature exploded or bloated depending on what you want to call it.

THe pillar in the firefly renders went a bit avanta garde architecturally. What would cause that pinching in the column?

I hope I am being thorough enough with all this.

Pinching/bloating is polygon smoothing gone bad. It's not because smoothing sucks - it's because polygon smoothing is a kind of polygon language that is different, where a single bent polygon joint implies a whole curve. There's nothing wrong with turning it off for most things.

I know you think you turned it off in the third image, but I simply don't believe you. I think you had to be confused and missed it. I say this not because I have any bad impression of your mind, but rather because I know the program really really well and that is the reason - end of story.

The only other thing that moves geometry is displacement, which you have enabled. But since you're working with older content that predates that feature, I exclude that from possible factors here. Of course, to completely rule it out, I'd look at the materials. If nothing is connected to the displacement channel, then displacement is not possible, even if enabled.

You can also turn off smoothing per object. The checkbox is in the objects properties panel and is checked by defaut with most things. IIRC, that feature was in Poser 7 (I use Poser 8 now and rarely open P7 for much ;)).

Laurie

Shante,

As an aside, since you are using raytracing, make sure under the Properties tab of your lights, you have depth map shadows unticked and ray trace shadows ticked (assuming you want that light to cast a shadow, of course!) I often forget to do that with older light sets, including the default Poser light set, which uses depth mapped shadows...

Jesus!

I have to remember to do this for every item and for every render? What a nightmare. I got into Poser to do a few escapism images to relax by. Oh well. Goes to show:

Man proposes and God indisposes.

Moving forward at a crawl but moving forward..........

I will try these addendum ideas and keep all of youinformed as to my progress...or lack of it.

Thanks for the help!  :)

You'll remember it all eventually...lol.

Laurie

Quote - Pinching/bloating is polygon smoothing gone bad. It's not because smoothing sucks - it's because polygon smoothing is a kind of polygon language that is different, where a single bent polygon joint implies a whole curve. There's nothing wrong with turning it off for most things.

I know you think you turned it off in the third image, but I simply don't believe you. I think you had to be confused and missed it. I say this not because I have any bad impression of your mind, but rather because I know the program really really well and that is the reason - end of story.

The only other thing that moves geometry is displacement, which you have enabled. But since you're working with older content that predates that feature, I exclude that from possible factors here. Of course, to completely rule it out, I'd look at the materials. If nothing is connected to the displacement channel, then displacement is not possible, even if enabled.

Well you can or not believe me sir but I did in fact do what I claimed. The settings show were for the image with the pinched column. But, I could not post that original image the column appeared pinched in due to subject uber adult subject matter. I had to do some serious editing of the content to be able to get something to post. Unfortunately, though the setting were exactly the same, apparently removing a V1 based character with attached props and another smaller figure parented th the remaining creature in this image, all else was the same set-up wise. Maybe it was one of the other figures removed that caused P7 to act the way it did with the column (memory/file size wise?).

But I did notice when the other figures were removed the column did NOT Pinch as is evident in the accompanying render.

One of those cases where you bring your troubled car to the shop and the mechanic finds no problem and though he believes you he tells you he can't fix what he can't find and to retun the car when it is 'COMPLETELY BROKEN". Hrmf!

TC, I'm surprised you are having render errors with 8 gb of RAM. I only have 2 gb in my MacMini 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo and I have my bucket set to 512.  It's kinda fun to sit and watch PoserPro 2010 plop out a big render chunk all at once! ^ ^ 

Regarding this thread, Please read the specs of the thread before commenting uselessly.  I am having enough of a problem dealing with the real helpful comments I really don't need to wade through the useless ones. It is  really annoying getting no help from comments like yours.

As far as the original problem of this thread goes, It seems to be getting worse. I can't get the damn application to even render at desired pixel size now w/o crashing. I tried rendering another figure alone w/o the other stuff causing problems in the previous render and it crashes. The file is a whimpy 5.2 megs and I used the same Render settings Minus displacement maps (see attached image).

I closed all other apps and rebooted the computer to reconfigure the OS etc. Poser could play nice alone.

Any "valid" ides would be appreciated.

Oh, sorry to offend you shante, that was not my intention. I had in mind to stick up for Macs' since it seemed someone before implied that was the problem. Anyway I had Poser 7 before and it also ran like a dream.

Not sure what is going on. Got no helpful responses on my last post.

You said you didn't want useless comments - that means unless somebody is sure they know what to do, it might be useless, so should not be posted.

If it were me, I would not be rendering complex figures. I'd render a box or ball at ever larger resolutions, just to demonstrate that it has everything or nothing to do with content vesus size.

shante, if wolf had poser 7 he could confirm this for ye: recommend intel mac, ~3 GHZ quad core, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.5.6 or later. YMMV.

Quote - You said you didn't want useless comments - that means unless somebody is sure they know what to do, it might be useless, so should not be posted.

Hey I was NOT refering to you I was refering to another poster who gave absolutely NO assistance or commentary that would help with my problem. What kind of help can his telling me that he can get his equipment to render in an application version I am not using on a system i am not using? I consider thst comment useless to the requested help of this thread but then what do i know. 

There was absolutely NOTHING  offered I could even read between the lines on there BB. I am just not sure why some post comments that just add to thread bloat and make finding the needed help more difficult.

All your help has been appreciated as I have found on other threads I have read through the years. Sometimes they go a bit over my head or WAYYYYY over my head but I do read the suggested posts and try desperately to glean from them what I can.

As I have done with this problem but as I say it seems to get worse.

I just tried rendering another image in AUTO mode at 1 preference and 2 preference and it seemed to work ok. Not sure what will happen if the scene gets more complex.

I tried rendering a MilPT (DAZ Millenium 2 figure) on a balance beam and with  the smooth polygons It bloated the beam again so I will NEVER use that function gain.

THe last posted image was just a simple critter on white background. Not too big at all which surprised me when the render crashed.

Quote - If it were me, I would not be rendering complex figures. I'd render a box or ball at ever larger resolutions, just to demonstrate that it has everything or nothing to do with content vesus size.

What is frustrating is that i have used this figure many times with more complex scenes and with other figures and it worked ok. But it crashed rendering with some of the advanced Firefly settings suggested earlier in this thread. I just thought it was strange.

You honestly think rendering a simple ball in Firefly settings at increasing resolutions would help solve this problem? How so?

Quote - shante, if wolf had poser 7 he could confirm this for ye: recommend intel mac, ~3 GHZ quad core, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.5.6 or later. YMMV.

I am sorry I am a bit confused by your post.

Who is Wolf?

Are you suggesting I get a new system?

I have the next to last i7 2.66GHz Intel Core Porcessor MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM.

It is maxed out, so not sure what you are suggesting. I believe it was BsgginsBill who said here that Poser 7 does not play nicer with all that power and that I would have to get PoserPro 2010= to take advantage of it all. I don't have that I have Poser7 as I said at the beginning of this thread.  :(

bill has some experience with poser 8 and later on his macbook. there are prefs for OS X that allow setting of threads.  they may have already told ye to set bucket size at 32.  I found poser 7 to be unstable until the last update (SR3 IIRC).  wolf359 - he uses poser6.