Hi guys!

Ok I've been through the P5 Manual and Stefan's FireFly FAQ and that solved a lot of my questions but I have a few left....

1.Why Poser4 Render engine seems to make better pictures than FF? somehow I feel FF is better but can't make it work.

2.How can I make a metal look like a metal? (i.e. Bryce) for instance I want to render a sword that looks metalic

3.In FF options Maximum Texture Resolution; what are the recommended number for a Production output image? i.e. 4096

1. Use Displacement Maps...ok here's a biggie I fully understand what it means, but when to use it?. I've read that,it's rarely used and by that I assume that Merchants don't release products using this feature, can you list a few that use that feat, and are Bump Maps gone? I mean some of the Freebies Texture Packs don't use'em, maybe 'cause they're free but I don't know. Which is better Bump or Displacement?

2. I also read that if the Lights and materials don't use RayTracing, I must deactivate it for Lesser Render times, If they use it... How can it improve the quality/realism of the image? Can you list an example of what Light Sets or props use that Feature....either free or from the market place

3. And Last... can you guys tell me what's the Ideal Settings for FF (production)and a Scene that is a Character Studio with Global Lighting like the Set at Daz (Daz Complex GL)

TIA ...and English is not my native language so bear with me

1. Better in what respect? Crisper? Smoother? Different colors? 2. Strong highlights with a reflection map, or if you have busy scene, ray traced reflections. A reflection map renders much faster, so I'd recommend that over ray tracing. 3. Set it to the size of the largest texture in your scene - if you're not sure, just leave the default 4096. 4. For starters, you could simply plug your existing bump map in the displacement channel. In general, displacements are better since they actually alter the shape of the surface and don't just the light it as if it were like bump maps do. That makes them a little harder to handle (since they can rip your mesh apart), but much more realistic. 5. Ray tracing is only necessary for accurate reflections or refraction, or when you want super-crips shadows. In many cases, you can just as well live without ray tracing - for example, there was no ray tracing at all in "Toy Story", and even the fish tank in "Finding Nemo" was done entirely without ray tracing, just reflection and refraction maps. 6. For complex light environments, I usually use very small shadow map sizes to conserve RAM and speed up rendering. Small shadow maps have less detail, but you don't notice that when the shadows of 40 lights overlap each other. Use the LightPanel script from ockham's freestuff to change the map size of multiple lights. Other than that, the FireFly production defaults should be a good start - you might want to try a 2 pixel sized gauss filter and maybe 5 pixel samples if you want stronger antialiasing.

Attached Link: http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/index.html

Crosspost, hehe

Now that was Fast! Thank you guys you're awesome

Attached Link: http://www.runtimedna.com/messages.ez?forum_id=4&Form.ShowMessage=68023