rl2000,

If you are using Vicky 4 when you port over, I would recommend using the reduced poly version.  Also reduce the resolution of your textures for your skins/clothing/props.  Folks forget that when they save their Poser work, it is usually using the compression and when it gets exported to Vue, the compression is gone and what was once a 40 meg file ballons to 60-70.  One last resort would to be to half the poly count of the object while in Vue.  Just right click on the object, select edit object and find the "/2" button.  Not sure of how good the model will be doing it this way.  I have noticed that using strand based hair significantly increases your rendering time in Vue.

Jonj1611,

As you are able to render smaller files between the machines, your firewall settings are not a factor.  I believe the problem comes from your file size. A 96MB file transferred between machines (such a simple file transfer) will take some time, now throw in the fact that it's a render program that is trying to subdivide the program between several computers and this will cause a bottleneck.  You do not specify what network card(s) you are using or your bandwidth 10/100/Gbit, but I would dare to say that what you are seeing is your main machine trying to divide the file up to each machine and those machines writing the information to the hard drive in preperation of the render.  A quick verification of this is to see if your hard drive access light is staying lit or continuously flickering.

It is amusing to see some of the advise given out to folks in trouble.  I am not trying to start any wars here but a bit of tech info for folks who may give out bad advise.  

If the controller card build onto the hard drive has failed and the hard drive does not spin up, no software available anywhere is going to help.  The hard drive platter must spin in order for the read/write head to gather stored information.  The only recourse for recovering data off of a "dead" drive is to purchase the exact same model by the exact same manufacturer.  Remove the platters from the "dead" drive and replace them into the new drive.  An immediate backup of the hard drive must be accomplished as the contaminents released into the drive will reek havoc within days.  This should be only accomplished if the data stored on the drive outweighs the cost of the new drive as both drives will be rendered useless forthwit.  Also this procedure should only be accomplished by those who are experienced in technical repair. 

Dynamo,

If you bought the boxed version of Poser 7, then you can completely skip Poser 7 Revealed as it is almost verbatum of the Poser 7 book.  It seems to me that the author was more worried that you see her face than explaining anything in further deatil as it is shown on every chapter page and many of the pages edge .  It would have been nice to see some of her examples.  Practical Poser does go into deeper depth on many of the subjects and I would definitively recommend it.

Man I love all of the conspiracy therorists who run rampant spreading crap rumors, spy ware inserted into XP when it shipped, buggy updates to force you to upgrade, blah blah blah.  The basic facts are this, Vista is an overpriced eye candy with no major benefits, period.  If you are looking to play the latest Directx 10 games, then yes you will be forced to go to Vista as Directx 10 will only be issued with Vista.  If you are looking for a preyty desktop, go to Vista or Mac.  If you have to much money on your hands, go to Vista or better yet send it to me.  If your operating system works the way you want it to and see no foreseeable reason to change before 2010, then do like the rest of us are doing, place the tip of your thumb on the tip of your nose and wiggle your fingers vigorously at Bill Gates.  If you are actually curious as to what problems you may come up against if you do go to Vista, do some research, do not come to Renederosity for answers as you will get the most assinign answers you can find, mine included.

The easiest way I have found is move all textures the I am using for the scene in Poser to a temp directory.  When Max asks for the location, just set your material path to the temporary directory.  Once you are through with the scene, you can delete the textures from the temp directory and reuse as needed.  The only other solution is to remember where, in the Poser runtime, all of the textures are located.

I am in total agreement with ugpsobta, make your machine a dual boot.  Poser 7 with Windows XP 64bit is a finicky beast at best.  You will get to enjoy the old popular BSOD on occassions.  I usually pose on the 32 bit side and move to 64bit for rendering.  This allows me to take advantage of my extra memory.  Just understand that you will get somewhat of a speed increase due to any memory you have beyond 3.5 gigs, you will not see a performance enhancement due to the 64 bit OS.

Ah Amsterdam, I remember it well. Duval's in the club, strolls through the district, getting drunk, falling into a very smelly canal.  Realizing I missed being impaled by a stolen bike handle bar by a mere foot.  The wonders of coming into adulthood in the military.  Groetjes, Don.

65 when I wake up in the morning, 42 when I arrive at work, 13 when I get home and plop behind the computer and 18 when i go to bed ;)

Realflow V4 is available free in the current issue of 3D Computing, contained on the enclosed cd.

Can anyone answer this definitively on using WW to convert clothing designed for V3/A3 over to V4 (please include a screenshot if you can).  Like 95% of you, I have a vast collection of V3/A3 clothing that I would love to apply to V4 and there are more sets of clothing that I would like to purchase but it is only for V3/A3.  I have seen PhilC's products and am about a nanosecond away from buying WW but after buying Poser 7, I am a little leerie of throwing more money away, no offense Phil, blame EF.

Why buy a fit sytem for hair props?  With a simple turn of the trans dials and maybe a touch of the scale, it is easy to get any of the hair props to fit V4 or Sydney without a problem.  The only area you are going to run into a problem is where the hair is a figure itself.  This reeks of the "I want instant art now" club.

I predict that Sydney is going to end up sitting on the curb while Victoria 4 rides by in her Porsche.  One only has to look at the past CL/EF characters (Casual Woman, Nude Woman, Judy, and Jessie) to predict the future.  Time and time again, our wonderful folks who create Poser, release characters with little support in the way of textures and morphs and hope that the wonderful modders out there will step up to the plate and fill the void.  While our folks at DAZ3D release their charcters (Victoria 1-4, Stephenie, etc) with better textures and better morphs at the same time.  This gives the user a great start on using the character and enjoying it while those that attempt to struggle with the characters that came with the program grow ever more fustrated.  All you have to do is go to the Galleries section and count up the postings of the pictures using CL/EF characters and those done with DAZ characters and you can see the future.  Someday EF is going to learn that in order to get the market share, they are going to have to include more than just a smattering of adjustments to their characters.  EF if you are actually reading these posts, stop dragging the razor across your jugular vein ever time you introduce a new character.  DAZ is going to catch up to you one day in terms of the quality of the program itself and then you too will be sitting on the curb with Sydney while DAZ and all of the Vickies go whizzing by.

Got a Dell Precision 690.  If anyone is really interested, just go to Dell's main site and do a search for refurbished.  They have some excellent deals.

I open my renders (1280X1024 4800dpi) in Corel Paint and save them as .jpg files for uploading.  I usually use a compression percentage of about %7 to get it to the required limitations.  There is a minimal amount of degradation but nothing so bad as making it too ugly to post.  I leave my lack of talents to that department.