Lastly, yes, 4 cores will be used at full power. 

Well, "better" is a word that can have many, many interpretations :)
It is much better for me, but I wrote the software because I was frustrated by the lighting systems found in all 3D softwares. I'm a photographer and used to lighting with real lights. Biased rendering, what is found in the majority of 3D programs, does not use realistic lighting.

When I saw what Lux was capable of doing I wrote Reality as a bridge between Poser and Lux. Reality takes all your Poser materials and automatically creates a version of those using physical models. It comes with its own set of lights and props that can give you, among other things, real water, predictable lighting based on how rel-life light works.

The results can be seen in our gallery: http://reality-plug-in.deviantart.com/

Is it better? Without taking anything away from Poser's excellent renderer, I do think so. I like realism and I like lighting in a simpler, predictable way, so in that regard it is better. In the last four years I used nothing else.

Cheers.

Hi.

Reality is written by Pret-a-3D, myself, not Hivewire. Hivewire is one of our distributor and they are good friends.

If you have a 64-bit processor then LuxRender, the renderer used by Reality will be able to see all the memory that you have. That has nothing to do with rendering speed though.
LuxRender is a physics-based renderer. It is used to get the most accurate, realistic renders possible. Speed is not its strong point since it runs absolutely accurate physics simulations, something not available with standard Poser.
The speed of rendering with Lux is directly related to the number of CPU cores that you have. With a modern machine, 8 cores or more, it will run at a very nice speed. In addition it allows you to render while using Poser. Also, Lux can use as many render nodes as you have, since it's Open Source and has no licensing limits.

Lastly, Lux can stop and resume a render at any point.

Keep in mind that Lux renders the whole image and it refines the result in successive passes. This mode of working allows you to see the whole picture instead of waiting for the render to happen from top to bottom. In many cases this workflow is very beneficial and it can cut the delivery time of the final artwork.

You can see Reality and Lux in action in our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/PretA3D

Hope this helps.

OBJ files are standard interchange files for 3D assets. They are used to exchange 3D assets between different programs.

To import it in Poser use the File | Import | Wavefront OBJ menu.

Good luck

Same is happening with the new version of Reality, currently in development. I have great skin shaders with SSS for three generation of figures, from A3, V3, S3, M3 to the current one, plus Roxie, Jessi, Alyson and others. I like being able to inject new life in old characters.

Cheers.

Very interesting technique. Man, the Poser morphing tool has so many uses.

I wonder if this technique coul dbe adapted to work on other models as well. Good to see the A3 still in use, though, it's a great character :)

Cheers.

Hello.

The Reality User's Guide is included and it's located in the docs folder of Studio. If you need more information please post you questions here or in the Reality forums ( http://forum.runtimedna.com/forumdisplay.php?303-REALITY-3-Official-Forums )

Thank you again for purchasing Reality.

Hi.

Although Reality is mostly C++ it has a bit of Poser Python in it and I thought to give you my humble opinion.

Quote - 1) What is the best way to sell your plugin? Content paradise? Rendo? Your own site?

My experience is that it's best to no put all your eggs in one nest. It's good to retain control and have your site. Upgrades are something that are best managed by yourself. On the other hand Rendo and other sites have a great reach and they are good places to be. It's well worth giving them the brokerage fees to reach a larger public. 

Quote - 2) How do you prevent others from sharing your code without paying for it?  Do you even try to prevent this or just rely on the honor system?

There is no honor among a certain group of netizens. People will pirate your software no matter what you do, no matter how cheap it is. I have seen content that literally sold for $2 being pirated. There is no such thing as honor on the Net. Some people steal because they simply don't want to pay anything.

So, my advice is to put a pyracy deterrent in the software but do not lose your sleep trying to prevent people from stealing from you. I saw cracks of Reality done by dissassembling the binary. It would take much less money, in time, to simply buy the software but somebody went to the length of disassembling a $29.95 plugin. o figure. There are all kind of vermins out there but there are also great people who understand the value of software and who will support you in the long run. Give them great support and you will gain loyal users for years to come.

Cheers.

No, you cannot rename objects in Reality. You need to click twice in the Scene tab of DAZ Studio.

Cheers.

To rename an object you click to select and then click again. It'snot a double click, it's two clicks.

Cheers.

If you have imported the object as an OBJ then Studio does not use a unique name for it. Check you scene. Do you have two objects with the exact same name? If so that is the cause of the issue. Rename the object to have unique names and possibly apply the materials manually to one of them and the issue will be resolved.

Hope this helps.

Hi.

In general animations are rendered to sequences of frames. That's how studios like Pixar do it and for good reasons. It's easier to replace range of frames and lengthy rendererings don't rinsk to be lost, like you experienced. Movie clips should be avoided.

Cheers. 

Hi Michael.

What do you mean by "evaluated output"? What kind of value would that be?

I'm with you. In fact I don't see why there has to be a time limit. Most other forums allow you to edit your message as much as you need. Even months after posting.

Quote - I'm curious if it means we would also have sync across materials, for example, if I change the properties of the skin specular for the head, will it update the skin specular for the body to match?

Hi.

While that might be a desirable feature for specific uses it's hardly useful in the general case. You want to be able to have distinct shaders for each material so, no, that is not the case but there are tons of new functionalities in the new ACSEL system that will make the job of setting materials as simple and enjoyable as possible. I'm also working on specific UI improvements to make copying of properties between materials easier and simpler.

Cheers.