WTF??

However, I've come up with a result that has me a bit puzzled. First let me say that I'm a rank beginner with Poser - just bought P8 a few months ago. I've figured out how to do some cool stuff in the Material room, but my uderstanding of how all this works compared to, say, a pro like Bagginsbill, is roughly equivelant to a grasshopper's understanding of string theory. In other words the likelihood that I've done something stupid is pretty much 100%. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

Anyhoo.... I loaded my DeeAnne character (she's a mish-mash of V4,A4, and I also used a skin mat from Shauna from the G4 Pro Pack). I used the grouping tool to make two separate stocking areas, one for the legs and one for the hip area as I intended to create the effect of pantyhose. I assigned the legs and feet to 'stockings' and the hips/torso to 'stockings-up.' I used BB's shader to assign the skin colors as directed for both areas, and selected red for the hose. Here is the first result:

Not too shabby, but wait - what's that little area on her right leg, just under the dress (circled in red)?

..Continued below....

Well, I think I may have found the answer while perusing this thread - that and enough additional information to keep me busy for the next three weeks. It boggles the mind.....

I just printed out this entire thread, so I've got lots of studying to do. I'm amazed at the amount of knowledge available here. Thanks BB for the outstanding info and tutorials, and everyone else for the additional info!

I know where to go if I have more questions - and I'm sure I will :-P

Rod

Quote - OK so load my shader. Again, there are a lot of nodes here - don't worry about them. Just pay attention to the ones I've left open.

This is an awesome tutorial, and I'm anxious to put it to work - however...

I'm a relative beginner with Poser, so this is probably going to be a rather basic (i.e. dumb) question, but so far, I've not found, stumbled onto, or otherwise encountered the answer - so here goes...

How does one 'load' this shader? :-P Just point me in the right direction, and I will  be forever grateful!

Please don't beat me up too badly LOL!

I've figured out a lot of stuff simply by reverse-engineering things, but this one has eluded me thus far. I probably can't see the forest for the trees...

Thanks,
Rod

Attached Link: Rod's Lair

I am planning on using some of my renders on my new, updated website - if I ever get around to updating it in between all the other stuff life throws in my path ;-)

Quote - Tonight, I downloaded and installed SR2 on this computer just to see what would happen. So far, this evening, I've done several renders with 'final' quality @ 1960 X 2000 pixels using 4 threads, and NO LOCK-UPS!!!

I'm hoping that this has fixed the problem, but we'll just have to see. This issue has had a way of coming back the next day after working ok for one night. > Quote -

.....Sigh........

Nope. Render lock-ups are back .....

Back to the laptop.....

:sad: 
 

Tonight, I downloaded and installed SR2 on this computer just to see what would happen. So far, this evening, I've done several renders with 'final' quality @ 1960 X 2000 pixels using 4 threads, and NO LOCK-UPS!!!

I'm hoping that this has fixed the problem, but we'll just have to see. This issue has had a way of coming back the next day after working ok for one night.

I'm being gaurdedly optimistic   ;-]

The Girly-Girl is pretty happy tonight......

Quote - Congtats on the Photographers who were selected this week great work once again.

Thank you all for selecting my photo!! I'm honored to be among this collection of awesome photos!
:-D

Rod

My wife is pretty tolerant of most of my nutty hobbies. As far as my art, she enjoys pretty much all of it, although she's not above needling me a bit about some of my female figures that feature - ummm - large chests, shall we say.

Sometimes she just shakes her head, rolls her eyes, and goes back to her Soap Opera channel (like the time I had the blue mannequin/robot guy doing a sexy runway walk. It didn't help that the BeeGees' 'Stayin' Alive' was playing in the background...)

Hopefully, if I can learn enough about this Poser stuff to make a buck now and then, she'll like it even more. So will I :-D

:-D
:-D

In other words, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it?' Sounds like these folks should have a look at Murphy's Laws.....

Thanx for the chuckle - I needed one!

Quote -
Why don't they just use a Zip file, you ask?
I guess that's just not high tech enough.....

Plus, Zip files might cause confusion in the Poserverse, unlike the totally flawsless and confusion-proofed installer they created... :blink:

Actually, this machine is running XP - SP3, but what bagginsbill describes sounds a lot like what I'm encountering - the V4 content is being installed somewhere in a parallel universe. I sure can't find it....

I'll monkey around with it a little more tonight (I'm 'supposed' to be working at the moment ;-O). If all else fails, it works fine on my laptop - a little slower, but it works. I'll try a couple of the ideas folks here have suggested and see what happens.

Thanks, everyone!

Quote -  I just received a Phenom 4 core processor and installed it in my machine. Loaded the worst case pz3 I had on the disk and it rendered like a champ!!!! All cores engaged.

It WAS the cpu! Now the question becomes, was it something wrong with my particular unit, or is there some design flaw that makes some cpus not handle the demands of a graphics environment. I'n not enough of a computer genuis to answer that one (being only a BASIC wiz!)

At any rate, it was not Poser at all.

My $.02 and $189 for the new cpu.

Well, that's certainly something to consider. I'd happily cough up the 189 bucks on a Phenom if it will keep me from pulling any more of my hair out! I don't have that much to spare :-D

John Csaky at SM has been working with me for the last couple days trying to get this resolved. Unlike a lot of companies I've dealt with, SM is really trying hard to help get this resolved.

Last night, I downloaded and ran the CINEBENCH benchmark test per John's suggestion - my system seemed to cruise through it without even breaking a sweat. I've sent the result to John, so we'll see where it progresses from here.

As a side note, I loaded P8, with SR-1 onto my HP laptop (AMD Turion 2-core CPU, 3gig RAM, two 250gig HDs), and it's running just fine, at least so far. I've thrown it a couple hi-res renders @ about 2400 pixels (1 figure), and it's rendered them with no problems. It's noticibly slower than my quad-core system (when it worked), but at least it completes the renders!

So, I dunno - it could be some wierd compatibility issue with certain processors, I suppose. There's a galaxy of variables out there, and unfortunately - and frustratingly - none of it is an exact science. We'll just have to see what happens the next few days.

To be contiuned.....

I have opened a ticket with SM. They have responded with a laundry list of information I need to send them in order to figure out what the heck is going on. I'll do so, and keep everyone posted.

For some reason, last night the crazy thing started working. I had previously set the render threads to 1 rather than 4, and it did not seem to affect the lock-ups. The 'seperate processes' was unchecked already (can't honestly remember if I unchecked it or not.... :-P), so I checked it again. Tried a render, and it worked! It was slow with only 1 thread, but a slow render is better than no render. It continued to work for the rest of the evening. Who knows what it will do tonight. Depends on the alignment of the galactic plane..

To be continued....

Hey, Bagginsbill!

Well, if mine kicks yours in the butt, I guess I don't really need to put all that money into the retail channel just yet ;-D

I have installed the updated driver from NVIDIA, and it didn't seem to help. I had thought about a format/reload, but from what others have said, they didn't have any luck with that (and it's a giant pain in the butt, anyway).

I've been looking around these forums, and trying a few things I've stumbled onto. Funny thing - I just tried checking the 'separate processes' (I think that's what it's called - having a senior moment.....), and setting the render thread to 1. It seems to be working at the moment. I've done a couple hi-res renders at around 2400 pixels (high) with no lockups. It's a lot slower, but a slow render is a helluva lot better than NO render!

I'll just keep plugging along - it's working on my HP Vista laptop ok, and it's working for the moment on this system. I'm sure SM is working on things (you may have an inside track on that one :-D).

I may go ahead and look at a video card upgrade, and I'll also snoop around on NVIDIA's site and see what I can dig up!

Thanks,
Rod

OK - The system I'm using currently is..

Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 CPU @ 2.4 ghz
4 Gigs (shows as 3.25) RAM
Abit 'Fatal1ty' MOBO
NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT Graphics Card
Two 320-Gig HDs

Built by me - not a pre-mfg system ;-P

It should be able to handle Poser, but I am having an issue with lockups during render.

Thanx!
Rod