Yes, it will make a difference. Not so much in the total render time per frame, but more in the time that it takes for you to perfect an animation. You will find huge time savings come available in the compositing stage because you don't have to go back and re-render stuff like backgrounds. And it's a huge time saver with static, i.e. non-moving cameras because rather than rendering out the background for each and every frame, you only render it once--on the first frame.

If something doesn't change from frame to frame, then why bother re-rendering it for each frame?

RJ

I always render out in layers and composit in a program like After Effects or Final Cut Studio. So, the characters would be on one layer, the backgrounds on another, and so forth.

This speeds up production in a number of ways. First, if you have a static camera shot, you only have to render out a single frame of the background and composit that in with the animated footage of the characters. Second, if you have to do multiple takes to get the motions right on the characters, or you have to change some details, you do not have to re-render the background each time. Third, the background is re-usable, so that you can use it in multiple scenes.

The same thing can be done in moving backgrounds. All you do is render out the background with a moving camera and then--AND THIS IS IMPORTANT--without changing the camera movement at all, render out the characters. When composited in After Effects or Final Cut, the result will be seamless.

I use After Effects for compositing. Open-source programs like Jashaka can also be used for compositing and I understand that Blender also has compositing functions available.

Thank you everyone for the great advice. I'm looking forward to becoming a merchant here.

RJ

Sounds familiar. I have only 1 Vista machine in my office--and it's a new notebook PC that I purchased to replace an older one. Everything else is XP or OSX. Not a fan of Vista--at all.

And if you have only Poser on your machine, then there is no reason to require Vista. It works quite nicely under XP.

Anthony, I would second mrsparky's suggestion of looking at Wondertouch's Particleillusion, which can be used to generate any number of explosions. It takes a fair bit of work to remap some colours on their presets, but you can get 2D explosions which are every bit as good as the ones at Artbeats.

I care. I need the network rendering for a number of projects I have planned.

If anyone can get me into the beta-test group, I could guarantee that I would place the program through its paces.

Had some snow this weekend here, but it's melting.

Very cool indeed. You're going for a celshaded look?

This is two that I've missed. Dang!

Jon--Glow Worm looks very interesting. I'll have to take a closer look at it. Thanks.

No, not exactly what I had in mind. The approach there is a "set up multiple scenes and render out multiple images." I was hoping for more of a "set up one scene and render out multiple images."

Thanks for the tip though.

If I had to guess, I'd say that they would be materials based on typical illustration techniques, such as pencil, ink wash, etc. Kind of like Olivier's Art Materials over @ RDNA.

There's nobody who wants to see PoserPro released more than I do. And yet, I'm willing to give SM slack to make sure that the program, when released, works as advertised.

It will be released when it's released.

Thanks for the help everyone. Material Collections will probably do what I need.

I'm willing to wait. I need the network rendering more than anything else the PPro pack has in its list of features.

Deci6el, if you're expecting something like this: http://video.luxology.com/modo/301/video/ClickDragDone.mov
then I don't believe that UV Mapper Pro can do something like that...it is more labour intensive than what Luxology's Modo can do for UVs as shown in the above video. UVMP does have a forum here on Renderosity and it looks like UVMPs creator hangs out there a lot, so it may be worthwhile to direct more detailed questions to him.

Mind you, for me, the price of UVMP was a good investment for the type of work that I have to do (texturing vehicles and structures). That it is also used by others in the Poser field is another endorsement. But as always, research before you invest. I've been burned more than I care to admit with software and plugins for much more than the price of UVMP because I didn't do research.