So as not to hijack the thread on the CPU speed vs render speed thread, here is a related thread.

So many people in these forums badmouth Firefly. "What could be worse?" they say.

OK. Fine. Although I think Firefly does a perfectly acceptable job in most situations, I'd be very interested in the opinions of those who actually do their renders (posed in Poser) in another render engine. 

A few ground rules:

To qualify as an attractive alternate to Firefly, the render engine must:

1. ...be currently available on the open market. In-development and vaporware don't help right now.

2. ...have as extant, non-technical exporter that deals with Poser shaders and textures natively.

3. ...not require further tweaking once the tableau is imported into the host program.

4. ...not require the purchase or creation of external support textures.

If these conditions cannot be met, then you're not "rendering" somewhere else... it seems to me that you are doing the job twice... setting it up once in Poser, then doing it again elsewhere.

I suspect I know the answer to my question, but I don't know a lot about the other contenders and would like to hear what would really be helpful to a person like me who does a lot of renders, but does not have the expertise to do a ton of trans-plotform translations.

Vue...
opens poser files(PZ3's) Directly
and renders WAY better/Faster than Firefly
especial outdoor stuff.

Cheers

Attached Link: http://www.pose2lux.com/

quick ,very simple Example:
Loaded Figure in poser  and saved PZ3

Opened Pz3 in vue  chose Atmosphere  and rendered  in 1 minute 17 seconds.

could have renderd an animation if the poser scen was animated.

no rebuilding of textures

no Conversion of anything

Just a much BETTER&FASTER RENDER.

Any Questions??

Cheers

Are you refering to the current 9.5 release with the $1500 pricetag?

Does the current Pose2Lux system require changes to materials after you leave Poser? Last I heard it did not handle many of the Poser shaders, etc. But then, that was some time ago. I have also heard rendering in Lux can take many hours even on a fast machine. What is the current state of the project?

Quote - Does the current Pose2Lux system require changes to materials after you leave Poser? Last I heard it did not handle many of the Poser shaders, etc. But then, that was some time ago. I have also heard rendering in Lux can take many hours even on a fast machine. What is the current state of the project?

By project, you mean? Pose2Lux or LuxRender?

Per your terms, Pose2Lux and LuxRender don't really meet your requirements: both the exporter and the renderer are still in active development. However, both are also stable, usable products. Pose2Lux will use P4-shader settings - it's those more elaborate post-P4 shaders that require a bit of tweaking.

few applications handle poser shaders, actually I think the only one other than Poser is Vue, so you should keep that in mind. P2L makes some intelligent guesses on what Lux Shader matches the Poser Shader in question. there's some adjustments you'll need to make - all done in the exporter, nice and neatly.

as to the rendering speed, Lux can take sometime yes. but balance that with it's cost, the ability to use GPU Hybrid rendering, network rendering and being able to pause, save the render state, then reload it later and then coming back and restarting the render from where you left off, it balances out somewhat.

I'm learning more here tonight than I have in months!

The status of the Luxrender system is about where I had been lead to believe it was.

As to Vue, is the $1500 version the cheapest one out there, or are there more affordable options?

Quote - If these conditions cannot be met, then you're not "rendering" somewhere else... it seems to me that you are doing the job twice... setting it up once in Poser, then doing it again elsewhere.

Note that FF does a bad job because it lacks several important features in its lighting and materials. There is no way to 'set' these up in Poser because they don't exist here, nor are there any merchants making content to take advantage of them. So using your conditions, you'll just end up getting the same sort of bad renders in whatever other renderer you try. If you don't care to put some work into this, stick with FF.

ghonma,

This was the final answer I suspected I would get.

wolf359,

I just saw The enthusiest Vue for $99. Does this still import poser files, or must we go with a more expensive version?

basicwiz, there is a free version of Vue 9 available, it's very cut down of course, Infinite is the way to go really. The cost is high initially, upgrade costs after that are reasonable..

One thing about Vue that should be noted is that it doesn't automatically set bump maps or displacement maps to a correct level. Also, Vue won't know what to do with a normal map or a specular map that is included with the Poser import. You will need to set this stuff up inside of Vue.

You can choose to have Vue use Poser shaders, but in my experience, this doesn’t work properly either. These are all minor issues but they could be deal breakers for those spoiled by the relative ease of applying prefab content in Poser.

My art might not be the best, but I have always used Poser shaders inside Vue and have nver had to adjust anything.

I accept there are some people that do, I'm just saying I've never had to.

All my gallery is Poser imports into Vue, take a look if you've a mind to, not one of those images in my gallery have had the shaders or textures tweaked inside Vue.

The biggest plus for Vue is the lighting is way better than anything Poser can do and also the water effects are far superior, all IMVHO of course..

Paloth,

Thanks for the clarifications. Again, it was the answer I really expected.

It sounds as though, at this juncture, one must either learn the ins and outs of another program or be satisfied with the current incarnation of firefly. As I said at the beginning of the discussion, Firefly serves my needs. I guarantee that there is far more in Poser as it sits than I will ever be literate enough to take advantage of.

My sincere thanks to those who shared their knowlege and experience. At least I shan't spend a great deal of time worrying about making a change as things stand, and this is a place I'm comfortable to be.

Thanks again to all.

*Thank you all for this forum, just out of curiosity,*using a Mac - if price was not an issue, can somebody tell me of a programme that will import PZ3 files? 

Quote - If these conditions cannot be met, then you're not "rendering" somewhere else... it seems to me that you are doing the job twice... setting it up once in Poser, then doing it again elsewhere.

You are not doing twice the same thing. First at all you need to load your characters and props, pose them apply morphs, dress with clothes conforming or dynamic. This only can be done in Poser, the only alternative that I know is DazStudio

The second step is set the lights, camera, set the ambient effects and maybe change the materials. This you can do it in Poser or other app. If you want to render in Poser do it in Poser. If you want to render in other app then do it in other app.

LuxRender is very limited, it only render the scene nothing more. Kerkythea is more friendly and you can setup all there.

"Thank you all for this forum, just out of curiosity,using a Mac - if price was not an issue, can somebody tell me of a programme that will import PZ3 files? "

Hi  I use Maxon Cinema4D along with THIS Third party plugin
that not only opens PZ3 files but lets you access you poser runtimes from within C4D and Load Content into Cinema including  , poses.morphs do conforming etc.

Cheers

no one said Carrara ??

it opens poser files and works well for posing adding clothes etc right in the program

the render engine is pretty good (not that I'm that good with it ) and does caustics, indirect lighting, particles,clouds and a lot of stuff I dunno how to use lol

cost is a lot less then Vue and it has been a giveaway on 3d mags in last yr or so (older versions) so with a bit of luck and back issues you can try it for the price of a dinner

ps there might be a demo of the newest one

Hi  I use Maxon Cinema4D along with THIS Third party plugin
that not only opens PZ3 files but lets you access you poser runtimes from within C4D and Load Content into Cinema including  , poses.morphs do conforming etc.

Cheers

Great I will have a look at this, working on the new Motion editing from Mac at the moment trying to get the old Brain Cell around editing.