In the library where your lights are, click once the light you want to highlight it. At the bottom there's a single and a double check mark.

The double check mark adds the lights to the scene without removing the lights already in the scene and the single check mark replaces the lights in your scene.

Are you using the cache? If so, go into Render settings and uncheck "Use Cache" I stopped using "png" and "jpg" files long ago. I use photoshop for all my materials and I save the files a "tif" files. Now once I add the tif to the image node in Poser. I change the tif and save it. Without closing Photoshop, I head over to poser and Render. Poser automatically applies the changes without having to go into the Material to swap out the png for the updated one. I don't know if your program can save tif files. Just a thought.

This is the technique I use. Hopefully I explained it the image above. I find that Physical Surface works better for me. I'm using Poser 13. Adjust the render settings for the best results. Render Settings are below.

Thanks. Great Hack! I came on here to find out how many layers can be added to the base layer. I never found the answer, but finding this just saved me a huge amount of time. Wow! I love this.

Thanks I will try both suggestions and let you know how it went

I had it so that the render was cut in have by using Optix, After a few renders, the program crashed. I'm going to start it up again and see what happens. I'm also going to close some background processes to give Poser more CPU and memory. That might help. I'll be back with my results. Thanks for your reply.

NikKelly posted at 9:05 PM Sun, 16 April 2023 - #4462417

My P_11.3 claims it can import LWO format, but only seems to like older models. Hence my thought that there are file version issues...

If you open a simple LWO file in eg Notepad, is there a version number quoted in 'plain text' before the data ?

FWIW, will your Lightwave export FBX ? Directly or via a budget plug-in ??

Hi. Yes it will export FBX. I'm not really all that concerned with Lightwave's inability to export .lwo files. I just realized something. I can export Lightwave object as Lightwave(LW2015) and Poser will import it.

NikKelly posted at 6:12 AM Tue, 11 April 2023 - #4461679

Are there different versions of LWO ??

Also, OBJ (+MTL) is un-rigged. Upside, as both are text files, paths etc may be hand-edited.
FBX may be rigged. It may even have 'relative' texture calls, rather than hard-coded into depths of author's G: drive's folder tree...
But, due to differences between 3rd Party / Open Source FBX plug-ins, eg for Blender, and the proprietary Adobe SDK, import results vary.
I half-joke about three types of outcome:
'Okay', either due Adobe SDK --'Rigged by Maya' ?-- or a temporary 'happy alignment' of eg Blender and plug-in sub-versions' quirks.
'So-So', anywhere between a few and many sub-rigs. Position / pose using first, parent others to this ASAP to off-load Poser hierarchy base...
'Splat', think Star-Trek Transporter Accident. Call janitor to mop mess, close and re-start Poser...

I have the latest version of lightwave and it saves objects as .lwo files. I don't know the difference in the 2 file structures, i.e *.lwo and *.obj. I wanted to know how come Poser won't import a *.lwo file, but will import a Wavefront obj file. Lightwave 3D is the only other 3D program I use, aside from Poser. I use Poser for rendering. Superfly does a better and faster job than Lightwave Layout. Layout is too time consuming for me. With Poser I can set the camera, lights, objects and characters in the scene in mere minutes. Render it in about 5 minutes and get a photo-realistic image. I can tweak it Photoshop and have a great presentation.

After I posted the original question. I imported 3 obj files from Lightwave 3D. Using the Group Editor, I spawned the props, turning each material, imported from Lightwave, into their own separate props. Then I used the Hierarchy Editor to parent everything to the Main prop and created the figure. I choose original, not new and it came out great. I made my adjustment for posing the new figure and saved it to the same folder as the original figure. Saved the document and started a new document. I added the saved figure from the library to the scene and it was perfect. I really just wanted to know the difference between a OBJ and FBX, which you answered for me. Thank you. I also wanted to know how come Poser wouldn't import a figure that I exported as an obj, opened in Lightwave 3D, saved as a .lwo file and then tried to import the .lwo file back into Poser. Thanks again for great reply.

Great answer!. Thanks so much for explaining it to me in full detail. You way beyond what I expected. I just printed out this answer for future reference. Thanks again, nerd. I really appreciate.

pigfish9 posted at 1:23 PM Fri, 31 March 2023 - #4460207

To upgrade from Poser 12 to Poser 13 is $99 instead of $249.  Search the marketplace for Poser 13 upgrade.

Thanks. Not bad. I thought I would have to pay $249. I'll download the trial and see if it's worth it.