OK Python Gurus, (KoffOckhamKoff!) I think the single thing that affects render quality most in Poser 5 is shading rate. Without adjusting it most hairs look like crap, and while working on a pic today I really realized how big a difference a lower shading rate makes with skin textures. It's like Night and day.

The problem is that going thru every body part on a character and manually adjusting the shading rate is EXTREMELY TEDIOUS. (You can't just do it for the whole figure) and it might be nice to be able to turn it up and down for test renders.

My question is: Would it be possible to make a Python script that allows you to change the shading rate for all a character's body parts at once?

Message edited on: 10/16/2004 16:33

Is shading rate declared in the available Python methods? I've just looked through and can not find it.

No way to do it directly. All of those node-related parameters are beyond Python's reach, at least in the current version. Would have to save a PZ3, rewrite a temporary modified PZ3, and reload. Certainly possible, but slow and inconvenient.

Hmm. After looking at the PZ3, maybe not so hard after all. If you don't need to know the original value, and just want to force them all to a chosen number, a very short PZ2 could be written and loaded. (IE, you don't want an increment; you just want to make them all 0.013 or whatever.) Would that do?

Yes that would do nicely Thank you!

If you want to lower the shading rate for everything, why don't you just reduce the minimum shading rate in the render settings? Poser uses the lower of this and the shading rate set for the object.

Message edited on: 10/17/2004 04:15

Actually, the shading rate is exposed in Python. It came with SR3, so it didn't make it in the PDF manual. But you can generate updated Python documentation using the document.py script that comes with Poser. I think it was also documented in the SR3 readme.

Quinlor, you have to lower both. Lowering the rate for the object is the hard part since if it has many body parts it takes a loooong time to set manually.

Yes, you are right! My memory was wrong, Poser uses the higher of the two, not the lower.