I'm aware that the black square around the ship isn't completely black, closeup it's actually small stars. That said, it is however layed over the solid black of the first layer.

What I'm most concerned about is the small square rendered area I've selected on the right arm/sleeve showing the kid's arm through the material. As marked in the above pic.(Sorry, I should have mentioned that the area I rendered was just a very small square to save time)

The render area is not part of the square containing the ship, the outside edges of the ship's square are marked in the next pic.
 
HTH!

I'm gonna hold off on installing the D3D render update until I know whether or not I need to change the file Firefly.py file to Firefly.p_, or if it's ok to just allow that file to be overwritten.

When I choose the path to extract the files to, should it be Smith MicroPoser Pro 2010  or *
Smith MicroPoser Pro 2010Runtime*  ?

I've still not found out which poser folder to unzip the four D3D upgrade files to, there's no documentation for installation on that website, just support links which mostly point here for help.

As for the VSS, I have my "other" runtimes setup on my external HD, so I assume I'll be setting up a separate runtime folder for VSS much the same as I've done for Kids 4 and V4. Then I unzip the files to that location in order as per the instructions? (See Pic)

Sorry about all the questions, surprisingly, I am understanding a good chunk of this, and I very much appreciate the help, it's just that some of this is waaaay over my head!  I'm hanging in here though because I do want to get all this to work, it's very important that I do. Don't know how soon I'll get it all figured out as tonight my pc time is going to be scattered, but will at least try to get the programs installed and the rest tomorrow & hopefully I'll be able to try out some renders at that point.

Thanks again

MM

Ok unfortunately I've gotta head out for awhile today, but for now I just downloaded the VSS files and the update file to the D3D.

At a quick glance it looks like the VSS has instructions on the website that says to unzip one to its own runtime, then unzip the other over that one.  Seems simple enough. 

But the D3D update is just a zip file that contains two "py" files and two "txt" files.  Couldn't seem to open the txt files to see if they were instructions on how to install...ie...which poser folder to unzip them to.

Will check the website again later.

Thanks hborre, (we posted at the same time). So you used the VSS on your render, didn't realize that.

I'll go download all that good stuff later today and try to see if I can install it correctly.

Thanks Laurie, I was leaving the VSS for last because I've got a plate full of work to do and I figured that learning how to use VSS would take me a bit of time.  I'm not great with this texture and render stuff. :-)  I will get to it soon though, it's looking like a good option and may well be my only option at this point.  Good to know it's not too difficult.

I'm getting ready to start a new thread soon because the jpeg textures I made for the Tshirts aren't working well. A black Tshirt I made with a Star Wars logo when rendered shows the kid's arm through it, and looks more like dark gray than black, lol.  So, must be something to do with the layers, or way I'm saving the texture jpeg file, or the way I'm setting up and pluggin in the image node in the materials room. Like I said, that's a different thread for a different day, I'm sure you'll see it get posted! :-)

I also noticed your "Pro Output" settings, (which are not shown on my D3D options), has the "gamma correction" option there.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

MM

I see, ok, will give this a try again. 

Why don't I have the "pro output" options on my settings window?

I guess I had to save the settings as a preset,  then hit the "apply" button because just closing the screen didn't save the settings, as it bounced back to default settings when I re-opened the script window. 

I also for some reason don't have the "pro output" options at the bottom as shown in your settings, here's a screengrab of mine.

I did an area render, and I had zoomed in with the main camera more on the face so it would be bigger and easier to see, but as soon as it began to render it automatically zoomed back out smaller to where I originally had the camera.

Kinda hard to tell with this small render. Let me know if I've got to change anything and I'll try a larger area tomorrow morning.

EDIT: Oops, just noticed I didn't have the "use own process" box checked. Ok, now the settings don't change when I load the preset I saved, something strange going on here. Will have to set it up and try it again manually in the AM.

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated

MM