My understanding is those special sizes are needed for game engines and don't really matter in 3D render/animation apps, unless the work in the 3D app is for a game.

Dialyn nailed it. The manual tells you what the dials and buttons do, but not why you might want to use/not use or increase/decrease them. I'm very happy with the results I've gotten from the above settings, but if I can make better renders, why not? :O) And perhaps Niles or someone else could explain what the production render quality button does differently than the draft quality button? All the real options seem to be down below.

Blender is FREEWARE! You'll need to buy one of the books, about $50. The best deal in 3D. Best advice I can give to a novice.

I have an AMD Duron 600 Mhz, and things run slow but fine. I also have Memturbo, a memory management tool that lets you defrag your RAM on the fly. That has saved me from freezes many times. P5 is a huge RAM hog. I think that is the basis for most of the post patch problems folks are having.

Not specifically, but I did find out that the film Road to Perdition was bsed on a graphic novel (glorified comic book). You might want to take a look at that for some ideas.

http://www.textures.dk/ http://home.zonnet.nl/textures01/index.htm Check these two out. Lots of good stuff for objects and structures.

3D Total is a great site, with lots of good resources and links. But don't be disheartened. Some folks who have posted character stuff there use Poser and we don't know how durable or flexible those Maya-built characters are. They look great in one render, but . . . . . . . . . Also there's one pic in the scenes gallery there that is barely 3D work at all. I know, because I've seen the original photo that was essentially just manipped a bit. My plug for a great site I found out about thru 3D Total: http://www.amazonsoul.com/

Oh, and finally, if you have a P5 face room question, make your title "Another Dumb P5 Face Room Question." It was dumb luck I even looked at this thread. :O)

A couple suggestions. I don't know how good you are in your photo app, but you should clone over the teeth in the pic you're using. Also, the face room tends to generate its' textures a bit dark, so adjust to more European in the texture variation section. That is provided the hoped for character is white. :O) You might have to create a few textures before getting a good final result. So save the best effort in a folder elsewhere and use that. I clean out my textures/faceroom folder because I have so many rough drafts in there. If you're applying shape from the texture setup window, spin the caricature morph dial into the negative.

Geez, I started in 3D with Blender, which is total freeware. I did spend about $100 on a couple books about the app, then I got Poser, which is cheap for what it does with character meshes. All told, I've spent less than $400 on a hobby that has kept me amused and made me some good friends, which you can't put a price tag on. It's been the cheapest hobby I've ever had. :O)

Nice job. It can be done!

Well, Don has exactly the same geometry as Judy, so how one can have more mileage than the other is beyond me. That's why they both work in the face room. The clothes are irrelevant. You just have to adjust the joint parameters on clothes for other characters, along with some scaling, to make them conform to D&J. Yeah, it's easy to spot renders using the P5s. They're the ones where the characters don't like P4s or anything by DAZ.

I think they're great. The bodies do need some better 3rd party morphs, but so did P4 and the Mils. Of course that's only an issue if the figures are unclothed. :O) The face room is great. It's a shame people haven't made better use of it, but too many Poserheads would rather spend money than experiment and develop skills. With a couple exceptions made for specialized characters, that were based on P4, I've used P5s exclusively since I got it.