okay, the first thing is, what version of poser are you using? if you are trying to import a poser 4 figure into ray dream, it's not going to happen. The poser import plugin doesn't work for poser 4. But it sounds like you are using poser3. if this is the case, i'd suggest upgrading to poser 4, and doing in poser4 what you needed ray dream to do. (that is, of course unless it involves animated textures, volumetric effects, or lighting effects. although there are ways around those, too.) purchasing lightwave is always a good idea, if you have the funds, but I've played around with it, and i think it'll take quite a while to get the hang of. Another option is to have someone else import the figure for you, and then send you the rds file... but it's hard for me to give any more advice than that without knowing what it is you're trying to do... are you importing the poser figure as an obj, or a pz3? How much ram do you have? maybe the poser figure is using up more vitrual memory than your scratch disk can handle... is this the only instance where this happens, or do you have to defrag a lot to get other programs to work right as well? if so, you may need a new hard drive.... Hope I've been of some help, TheBrain