This may be a silly question coming at the end of this thread, but exactly what kind of performance improvements --in what areas of Poser use-- could I expect by upgrading my video card? Currently I have an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (in a Mac Pro Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz machine with 4 gigs of RAM)? SS

I learned quickly that making movies in Poser -- or any 3D animation program when you're the only one doing it and you have one computer -- is all about compromise, and being able to finish them is all about "efficiency planning". You can't have 30fps and expect to get it done in this century. You can't have full-boat highest-resolution rendering and expect your computer to do it any other way than one frame at a time and then export it to a video editor. Etc., etc. My biggest mistakes have been in not spending enough time thinking about their video flow in advance and not concentrating on script, dialogue, sound, etc.; i.e., I need to spend more time thinking as a director and less time as an animator. For example, there are some pretty good 2D "cartoons" out there that tell great stories and are both very entertaining and visually striking. They use simple scenes, lots of closeups, quick cuts and savvy editing --and save +/-75 percent of the workload they would have had without them. I've been learning these lessons the hard way, and have been having to go back to my cinema and directing texts rather than the 3D technical sources when I've run into insurmountable (time-wise) tasks. It is NOT instinctive for me, but until I get my own personal render farm and some illegal aliens as animation assistants, I'm having to learn a little art.

Wait -- I was under the impression that a large runtime will take more time for Poser to start up, but once you're up there is no noticeable difference in anything you do except maybe locating and loading content. Is that not true? It's not clear from the replies in this thread. SS

A very nice quickie. Your little animiation shows quite well that DAZ was about 80 percent right about what they said about her.

Someone said she looked like a tall version of Jessi with a character-morphed head, which is fine because V3's torso was a bit too, umm, middle-aged for my tastes, and her head looked a few cc's shy of a full brain case. The thighs on V4 are an improvement, but I would agree that they still could use some work. Overall, she is much more interestingly -- if not altogether realistically -- proportioned (aside from the Wonder Woman height) than V3. She's a buy -- that is, after PhilC finishes his WW add-on to save the day.

I think a key question is why none of the zillions of Poser users have produced anything longer, or more in number than they probably have. I think the answer to THAT question is four-fold: 1. A one-hour, smooth-playing animation would require between 50,000 and 100,000 frames. Assuming that each 720 x 480 (Quicktime format, at a minimum) medium-content frame would require, say, 5 minutes to render in decent quality, it would take about A YEAR just for the rendering (assuming you were doing it on a single computer). 2. In my view, Poser has a relatively crude and cumbersome animation interface -- nothing like a good 2D video editor -- you cannot see all of the important editing functions at the same time and in the same control window, nor can you easily animate (let alone your result) in the animation editing windows. Some of this is by necessity, since the computing power required to model, control, edit, affect and view real-time, frame-by-frame movement in three dimensions in the same fashion as a non-linear video editor, is simply beyond most Poser-host PCs right now. This adds enormously to the time it takes to produce and edit. Faster processors and the ability to use multiple processors and large blocks of RAM (coming in Poser 7) is a must. 3. Currently, the first two problems cause most people (including myself) to have to arrange, set, test, edit, render and export each frame individually (usually as a TIFF), and then combine them all in a video editor, such as Final Cut Pro or Avid Express. Tedious doesn't begin to describe it. It just wears you out after the first 5,000 (!) frames, no matter what kind of time-saving tricks you use. 4. Let's be honest: Poser is used almost entirely by people who have day jobs. Those for whom 3D animation movies is a full-time job might -- might -- use Poser as an adjunct tool, but not as the primary production vehicle. It also takes an incredible amount of time to do everything associated with making a movie, from scriptwriting, scene planning, sound recording, editing, and production. The moviemakers listed in this thread are truly dedicated pioneers, no doubt with a few arrows in the back to prove it. To all of the above, Poser 7 may change things. Somewhat. It will supposedly run several times faster than Poser 6 on higher-end, multi-processor machines, and is obviously designed to better serve animators. As someone who would like to squeeze in more Poser movie-making out of the free time available, I sure hope so. SS

Writing code up to the last minute? I cringe at the thought of zillions of bugs that implies.

It may be a prank, but it was one with a decided lack of creativity, wit and intelligence. Any idiot can yell "free food" in a bread line, and one apparently did.

Good point on the copyright. Can't be too careful (I have just gone through the registering of my company's own trademark and logo after 12 years in business; quite the lengthy and tedious process, and I'd sure be bent if someone infringed on it). But I'd love to see your animation and when the right time arrives. Cheers!

JenX, speaking of posting V4 images (personally, I liked the stick figure in the other thread), what restrictions does Renderosity have on posting home-brewed animations -- the cartoon kind, not the motions kind -- using DAZ characters like V3 (e.g., Star Trek Aurora)? No nudity and offensive language, of course.

Great explanation, Tguyus. Sounds like it will help me. By the way, I'd love to see your superheroine animation if you want to share it -- my current project is a superhero feature with about 20 different characters (I know, too many). If so, post a link in your next message, and if you can't do that, I'll give you my .Mac address and you can drop it to me. If that's a hassle, thanks anyway; I'm grateful for the advice. SS

Thanks, Tguyus. Those are exactly the kinds of things I thought I'd use it for, but does it really do anything more (other than ragdoll) than using Poser 6's normal collision feature, and is it easier? Also, I don't recall whether Poser 7 is supposed to improve on Poser 6 with regard to physics in a way that would make Poser Physics unnecessary. SS

I've been looking for SVDL but am having trouble finding it. Any tips? SS

Frisketus, how many frames (jpegs) did your 24-hour render generate, and how large (pixel-wise) are they?

Also, here's an excerpt from a new post from the author of Star Trek Aurora (the work-in-progress animated feature posted in this forum); apparently crossing over from Poser to Cinema 4D on a Mac still has issues: "Software-wise, the workflow was a little complicated by the fact that I'm working on a Mac and rendering in Cinema 4D, and the only Poser Mac plugin for Cinema 4D* that honors IK and Point At (which I use for where the eyes are looking) is an old OS9 plugin that has never been updated, so my basic workflow for animating characters (Daz V3 and M3) was: 1. Record voice using a decent microphone (M-Audio Nova mic, Mobile Pre preamp, Apple Soundtrack); 2. Create mouth/head moves in Mimic; 3. Open Mimic file in Poser 5 (Poser 6 gave me problems with the old C4D plugin); 4. Animate character body movements/adjust head movements (head turns, blinking, etc.); 5. Boot into OS9, open Poser file into Cinema 4D environment and render it to TIFF files; 6. Go back to OSX, create .mov file from TIFFs, save; 7. Import .mov file into Final Cut Pro, edit into animation; 8. Add voice file/sound effects. Other programs used: Photoshop, Illustrator." So, the question still begs.