Also, the problems I have are with 0.05 Shading Rate. If I use 0.20, I have no problems but the earth ground texture won't look as sharp as 0.05.

I am using Vista 64-bits, Poser 8 SR1, have 4GB of RAM, and I always try to leave task manager open with the Performance tab selected where it shows RAM and CPUs usage. Thats actually how I know it crashes sometimes: all CPUs are steady at 0% activity (because when rendering using "Make Movie", you cant see whats being rendered).

The RAM usage starts usually at 2.7GB total, and goes up, up, up... until it gets to 3.81GB. Then it oscillates there between 3.81 and 3.75, and eventually it'll crash.

Btw, mostly it will only crash on scenes where the camera is poiting to the horizon, where you can see the ground fade away (even though the ground isnt that big, its usually the actual size the GROUND object comes in Poser). So the same scene that crashes, if I just move the camera to an angle where less ground is showing, it will not crash. I do believe this is indeed related to RAM usage, as it many times crashed with that window saying its out of RAM, and also in the past I got rid of this problem by putting more RAM (from 2GB to 4GB).

Quote - RAM does not matter. Poser is restricted to 4GB address space as any 32 bit application, so only the 64 bit firefly of Poser Pro is able to access more memory. And that virtual memory can come from RAM or swap file.

Well my crashes are only when rendering anyways. Poser 8 itself doesn't crash at all. So I'd assume Firefly would be able to address 16GB of RAM as a 64-bit application? And if not, rendering in 4 different processes would then make each process able to address 4GB?

About displacement maps, I just disabled my displacement maps and tried to render, and it crashed the same. All frames of the scene renders just fine, but just that one that views the ground as it fades on the horizon crashes. If I move the camera so that it can't see the horizon, it won't crash.

By the way, how much RAM you guys have?

Well, theres the textures, but there's also the geometry, materials calculated at runtime, Poser's routines and Firefly's routines... so you take a 4000x4000 pixels texture and lay it over a 100 thousand polygon mesh, add smooth on top of it and turn on raytracing... only god knows what might happen to your RAM. So I wouldn't blame Poser for not using just a bit more RAM than the area of my textures combined.

But I was able to realize a very direct connection between the number (and size) of textures and Poser running out of RAM and crashing on my face. I also noticed a very dramatic improvement when I went from 2GB of RAM to 4GB. But before I go about putting 16GB of RAM on my PC, I'd like to hear the thoughts of people that had similar RAM issues.

Right now I was able to render my scene by lowering the bucket size from 64 to 16. Took longer, but it all went very smooth. I was even able to browse the internet while it was rendering.

I got some success by using 3D Studio. As in... I know how to export an OBJ off 3D Studio with all polygon groups in place, which solves the problem I was having with Poser's OBJ exporter. Now I'm on my way to attach the new head.

*** Puts mask on ***

• Pass me the stitches please.

I got rid of the :2's that were on the 1st exported OBJ file, and unchecked all the boxes when importing again. Once imported, I checked on the Group Editor, and all body parts were there except the ones I didn't export, and all the polygon groups were correct.

But when I export for the 2nd time, the OBJ file has only 1 object, called Apollo-NewNeckAndHead. There are no other polygon groups. I tried several combinations of the checkboxes for the Exporting Options when exporting the 2nd time, and it always give me only 1 polygon group. It does export all the material groups though. So this explains why I was getting an invisible figure at the end. Though I'm still troubleshooting this and not sure whats wrong. I'm trying 3D Studio again now and editing the OBJ file on Notepad++ to see whats going on.

JoePublic, I followed your tutorial and tried several variations of it. It gave some promising results but at the end it did not fully work.

Before it all, I checked on Poser that my new head has a polygon group called neck and another called head, and they were in the correct place. Though a problem with my new head doesn't really matter as I also tried without it just to troubleshoot.

Here's what I did:

1- Started Poser Pro.

2- Deleted the starting figure off the scene. Scene is now clean.

3- Under the Figures tab, clicked the figure !ApolloMaximus.cr2 to load a fresh Apollo.

4- Under the Poses tab, clicked Apollo_Poses01/!Default Zero Pose. Apollo is now zeroed.

5- Clicked File/Export/Wavefront OBJ/Single Frame.

6- Unchecked GROUND, then Neck, Head, Line_of_Sight, rEyeTarget, lEyeTarget, lEye, rEye, lEar, rEar, upperTeeth, lowerTeeth, tongue1, tongue2, tongue3, tongue4.

7- Export Options: Only checked "Include body part names in polygon groups."

8- Saved as D:/Apollo-Headless.obj

9- Started a brand new scene (File/New), and deleted the starting figure off the scene.

10- Clicked File/Import/Wavefront OBJ. Import Options: [X] Centered, [X] Percent of standard figure size=100.0, [X] Make polygon normals consistent. All the other options are unchecked. Selected file. D:/Apollo-Headless.obj.

11- Then again File/Import/Wavefront OBJ, same Import Options, selected file D:/Apollo-NewNeckAndHead.obj.

12- Moved the Apollo-NewNeckAndHead (1 object) in place on the headless body. It's a near perfect match. Did not move the Apollo-Headless object (the body). So far so good.

13- Clicked File/Export/Wavefront OBJ/Single Frame, unchecked GROUND.
13a- Checked Apollo-Headless. (There was no subobjects)
13b- Checked Apollo-NewNeckAndHead. (There was no subobjects)

14- Export Options: Only checked "Include body part names in polygon groups."

15- Exported to: C:Program Files (x86)Smith MicroPoser ProRuntimeGeometriesAnton'sApolloMaximusApolloMaximus2005-NewHead.obj

16- Under C:Program Files (x86)Smith MicroPoser ProRuntimeLibrariesCharacterApolloMaximus, copied !ApolloMaximus.cr2 to !Apollo New Head.cr2. Then edited !Apollo New Head.cr2 and replace 2 entries of ApolloMaximus2005.obj to ApolloMaximus2005-NewHead.obj.

17- Started a brand new scene (File/New), and deleted the starting figure off the scene.

18- Under the Figures tab, clicked the figure !Apollo New Head.cr2. It loaded an invisible figure. It has all body parts, but nothing is visible or cast shadows, on all cameras.

Now, one of the things I tried was simply to skip the importing of my custom head and neck. (Skipped steps 11, 12, and 13b). Same results: It loads an invisible figure at step 18.

If I just take the 1st exported file (Apollo-Headless.obj) and save as C:Program Files (x86)Smith MicroPoser ProRuntimeGeometriesAnton'sApolloMaximusApolloMaximus2005-NewHead.obj, and edit the copied CR2 file to use that file, it works. I can load the headless Apollo as a new figure and its fully poseable.

So I assumed the problem was on the 2nd export to OBJ. So I tried to take the Apollo-Headless.obj (1st export) into 3D Studio and attach the new head there and then export it again, and it also loads an invisible figure on Poser at the end. I also tried to just load Apollo-Headless.obj into 3D Studio and simply export it to OBJ again to C:Program Files (x86)Smith MicroPoser ProRuntimeGeometriesAnton'sApolloMaximusApolloMaximus2005-NewHead.obj, but it again loads an invisible figure.

Looks to me that when exporting from a fully posable CR2 file, it works as in the figure does not loads invisible. When exporting from an imported OBJ, the problem happens.

I did try them all out. Tried editing the CR2 like he sugested, tried editing the scene's PZ3 file... I got results, but it didnt work...

Now I'm reading a book on Google about it... 
http://books.google.com/books?id=ePPfj8bHZVQC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94

I'll post images when he has a head...
and a neck...

The UVW seam of my new neck runs along the same vertexes as the original neck. Is this the seam you're mentioning? If it is, yes, it goes right thru the chest/neck weld point just like the original neck.

But how will Poser know which vertices attach to which? Will it just attach the closest ones?
And I assume that all pivots must be in reference to the figure's origin, right? (the head's 0,0,0 should be the same as the foot's 0,0,0 and the hip's 0,0,0) 

Quote - Though I don't know the exact reason why they are broken up this way, I can say that it's relatively easy within Poser to apply pants and a t-shirt to a Mil 3 figure with the material zones laid out the way they are, without actually purchasing pants and shirt.

I thought clothing didn't interact with the UV's or the materials of a figure. I was under the impresison they only interact with the mesh, even if they didn't have mapping coordinates at all.

Well I just merged all the skin into 3 maps: 2 for body, 1 for face. So it's not that bad anymore. Just 1 more than apollo.  Except for the genital that would be another map but I'm not using it anyways...

I just don't get why they break the maps into so many subdivisions. I know I asked this here before but I believe the final word on the issue was: It's not clear why.

Yes, that could be one rea.... HOLY CRAP YOU HAVE 12k POSTS!

I dont think that'll make a diference on SreeD.