I really loved using Poser 11, Firefly had served me well, but the team behind Poser 11 did such a good job making most Firefly materials render fine in Superfly that I was able to changeover. That would never have happened if it wasn't for EZSkin though, as that was what truly bridged the gap.

So that was my workflow for my game Brawler, Poser 11 Superfly, and EZSkin and SuperFly shader for skin and BB Hair shader by AP for hair.
That is how I made renders like this.

When Poser 12 came along I was so mesmerised by the increase in render speeds thanks to adaptive sampling. No change to my settings or anything, and these renders were now ready in a fraction of the time. I was so mesmerised that I didn't even notice that the above had now turned into this.

Then Poser 13 came and a lot changed. I could no longer use the render settings I had used up to this point as it would render slower than Poser 12. So with the render speed advantage gone and the render results having changed even more radically, I wasn't happy with the results. Not to mention the random transparencies tearing through my render. I felt I had made a big mistake upgrading. Below is the result.

I was pretty devastated by this. So my Poser 13 journey began, I got in contact with Poser support for Poser 13, more than I had ever used support before, but it really did help. 1st thing is the render speed. That was an easy fix, as the legacy settings I was still using had to go. Once I used Poser 13 presets and played around with them and created my own from them I now had Poser 13 rendering faster than 12! But still, what it was rendering wasn't going to do. With everything I was going to have to try and change or experiment with to get the right results. It did feel much easier to go back to Poser 11 and call it a day and I was very close to doing just that.

It wasn't just support helping though, as users on this forum know they too are a part of this journey as next up I had to do something about that almost glowing skin. The improvements to the Superfly engine in each release not only caused this but would provide the fix. The Superfly shader in EZSkin looked the best back in Poser 11/12, but by Poser 13 I found the EZ_CycleSkin (SF) shader was looking a lot better now. So we have our skin fix.

I had to replace the materials for the outfit, as that was what was causing the transparency bug. Not to mention it hadn't looked right since Poser 11. But I did eventually find a suitable fit.

Hair was another big thing for me (as seen in other posts). Ultimately what I went with was one of Ghostship Hair Shader System textures, and then applying the EZSkin Superfly shader to it.

The final step was to replace the EyeTrans with old V4 eye surface material and I got the result I was after in Poser 13.

I decided to write up this experience, as had I just tried the free trial period of Poser 13, I'd still be using Poser 11 or 12. This took a lot longer to get to, but with the help of support (Charles) & forum members here, I now have a result I'm happier with that renders a lot quicker than it did back in Poser 11.

thanks for posting this. It's good to see that some hurdles can be overcome with a bit of perseverance

It's great that you didn't give up.  I have enjoyed the faster rendering speeds with Optix in P13 and can't imagine going back to Poser 11. 

Where is the EZ_CycleSkin (SF) shader available?  I seem to have had it for an older version of EZSkin but it's not working in the latest one.

Thank you RedPhantom and Kalypso. With how long-winded that was, I appreciate you taking the time to read through it all.

As for the EZ_CycleSkin (SF) shader, when you download EZSkin 3.2 from Poser scripts by Snarlygribbly. Be sure to replace any existing shaders in your Custom shaders folder with the ones that come in this zip as they have been updated by Y-Phil to work with 12/13.

How I am close to give up on Poser 13:

Most of my P11/P12 scenes sooner or later ends up with an error message:

Rendering stops somwhere in the middle of the process. The error can be triggered by anything from adding a light, changing camera angle or any change in materials / shaders / textures. I can't spot  a pattern, have no idea what needs troubleshooting and how, tbh.

Rendering dialogue takes minutes to cancel, Poser cannot render the scene anymore, any later render attempt instantly produces a grey square. Software requires restart.

Poser 13.1.581.0, nVidia RTX 3070, all GRD/SD Win10 drivers, including the latest: 

You said this happens on renders from scenes built in P11 or p12? Have you tried changing your render settings or are you still using the ones from the older software?

You also said it's triggered by changing something in the scene. Are you doing background rendering? If so, have you tried standard rendering?

I can't say that I've had that particular error, but with the render errors I have gotten, it does seem to be that you need to restart the software to get it to render. (or try rendering)

Are you using the Nvidia studio driver? That seems to be the one of choice.

This might need a support ticket. https://support.posersoftware.com/

Thank you RedPhantom,

Yes, V4 characters built in P11/P12 , adjusted to P13, using Snarly's new EZSkin 3.2 for skin and hair and Ghost's P12 eye shaders. Thing is, at some moment one needs to render to see if all works properly. Just as I write the SuperFly/CUDA kicked the bucket for no apparent reason, after producing 6 good quality test renders.

I've tested several Studio and Game Ready drivers at different but usually medium-high settings. Standard mode only, I don't need to render in background. The scenes are very simple, one or two V4 characters plus  EZDome 1.7 with an IBL background and an Infinite light when needed. OPTIX renders take only 1 min when they work.

If no other advice I will fill a ticket (sigh).

Sounds like what I reported recently. So it sounds like you're rendering using your GPU.

If a render causes the GPU to crash or the OS resets it, GPU renders won't work until Poser is restarted. If that is what is happening, it's a known issue. So, it's up to you if you still want to file a ticket.

I vaguely recollect a similar topic, possibly yours (I searched though your 110 posts at the Rendo Forum, but cannot find it).

In my case SuperFly / CUDA crashes. Windows is fine. Poser needs to be restarted, otherwise SuperFly keeps producing a grey square.

It seems some of the shaders makes CUDA unhappy, but cannot nail it due to apparent randomness of the isuue.

Are you telling me you have encountered exactly same issues and have already filed a ticket? Did you get any response from Bondware yet?

I used CPU rendering prior to Poser 13 due to 13 being the 1st to support Apple’s GPU. So it wasn't me I'm afraid. I had no idea what was going on, so contacted Poser support. That's how I got the explanation above. Charles also said the most likely cause for the GPU crashing is if the GPU runs out of memory.

Thanks, I have filed a ticket. Will let you know if anything comes out from the Support guys.