Are there any programs out there that will just straight out render a pz3 or some other Poser straight-export and do all the cool rendering stuff that the high-end render engines do?

I don't mind Poser's render engine while I'm trying to get to 90%, but getting to 100% in Poser 4 is, well, impossible.

When will Poser 5 be here, anyway?

6D

if you have the propack..there are plugins that let you host pz3's in 3DSMax,lightwave and i think now cinema4d, other than that tho i think poser4's renderer is the only game in town...

If you have vue 4 you can import a pz3 file as well, otherwise you can export as a wavefront object and render in most anything (I do that from time to time with an older version of vue from that magazine I can't think of now...computer something or other world...man, where is that copy now?). Otherwise, I think rodzilla covered the other options for direct import.

What I'm asking is about Poser 4, not Pro Pack, and I am asking about straight texture usage, not the stuff you have to go through when you export to an obj and have to convert the textures. It seemed as though MetaCreations was working on direct support for RDS, so I thought Carrara might support Poser 4. I also see people using Poser 4 stuff in the Bryce galleries, so I thought maybe Bryce did direct support. I'm sure most stuff would support UV mapping (I could be way off on that, though). Maybe the .bum file format is obscure, so some other bump map format would be expected, but I see a lot of jpg bump maps out there with Poser stuff, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm not in a position, like most people out here, to afford LightWave or 3D Studio Max, so I'm looking for some support from the less expensive stuff until Poser 5 makes all that unnecessary. Thanks! Hope someone can help! :-)

I think your best bet is Vue. It can import pz3 files with textures, transmaps and bumpmaps. The renders are very nice and it is cheaper then Bryce. You can als create landscapes and vegetation for your Poser people.

I would also recommend Vue d'Esprit for this. The pz3 import works very smoothly and you have access to a ray tracing render engine that beats Poser any day. The fact that it is a great landscape modeller as well is an added bonus ;-)

Am I reading this right? Vue dEsprit 4 will import a PZ3 file directly? No conversion, plug-ins, messing around with re-applying transmaps. Why doesnt everyone know this!! Wow, Im very glad I read this thread, now wheres my credit card. I`ve tried "Natural Pose" with "Bryce", and its works well, apart from needing more memory than my computer has. Thanks people B) Mark

Attached Link: http://user.txcyber.com/%7Esgalls/

There is a utility PoseRay which is supposed to export Poser to POVRay, an excellent renderer. Also, Poser can export RIB files which can be rendered in a RenderMan compliant renderer. BMRT is/was a freeware RenderMan renderer, there may be others. I haven't really worked with either of these but there are some alternatives. I suspect the best option for ease of use and least expense may be Vue 4. Other than that, wait for Poser 5. I think CL has gotten the message and will include a much improved render engine in the next release. When? Who knows. My completely uneducated guess 6-8 months at least.

You are reading it right, Routledge, it works like a charm :-) Sometimes you need to adjust the bumpmaps though, Vue misinterprets the scale of the bumps (I think they end up as 200% or something). But that's easy to fix in Vue's material editor. There was also an issue with pz3 trans maps when using volumetric lighting in Vue, it resulted in a milky white shine when rendering. This is resolved in the latest Vue patch (4.05), which can be downloaded from E-on Software.

Thanks very much for the extra info Kelderek. B) I`m off to the galleries and internet to investigate further.

Is Vue available for Mac? (note ironic laugh)

" Is Vue available for Mac? (note ironic laugh) "

if you have a modern MAC with OSX you can run Vue 4
but no poser import until poser 5.

Dang. Why's everything so complicated?

Vue is available for Mac, if I understand correctly, and Bryce also will render P4 models (just export them as wavefront objects) - however, it will mess up transparencies for hair, and eyes. The eyes are easy to fix, and it is possible to make the transmaps work too. I do all of my major renders in Bryce. Vue is easier though, I understand.

I tried the latest version of PoseRay. It works fine, easy to use and allows adjusting transparencies, etc. The resulting POVRay render didn't look a great deal better than Poser to me, but I didn't try to use any of that programs features. I've seen stunning POVRay renders so I know the capability is there and it's free.