I've discovered a very frustrating bug in Poser 6. During certain circumstances the program will come to a complete stop while trying to render. During the "Loading Textures" phase, Poser will just remain there indefinitely, with no hard drive activity.

This has happened when I import a Poser figure into a scene. I've tried several different approaches to the problem, including loading each figure individually, loading the figures first and then the interior set, but when this certain combination of figures are involved, the program just freezes. The figures include a medium sized sci-fi set, V3 and SP3.

Just wondering if anyone else is having a problem similar to this? (EDIT) I'm running Windows XP Pro on a Pentium 4 - 3.4ghz with 1024 mb of RAM.

Message edited on: 03/28/2005 08:55

have you reduced the maximum texture size to REALLY low just to see if the bug is related to that, then if not the prob, dial it back up until you hit the wall. ::::: Opera :::::

Well thank you operaguy, I've made some progress! I was using the regular Poser renderer (not Firefly) which does not have the maximum texture setting. So I tried the scene again using Firefly and reduced the setting to very low. And it worked! Thanks again! But that leaves me with two questions: 1 - When I set the maximum texture setting to low, I didn't notice any difference in the rendered picture (It looked just as good as a normal render) what exactly is this setting doing and what difference should I notice? 2 - I'm also wondering why the same scene renders okay in Poser 5 but jams up in P6?

CL has reported an issue with memory in P6 and if two IDENTICAL pz3s rendered with the P4 engine are okay in P5 but failing in P6, it must be because of that. Others HAVE reported issued with the P4 engine being slower in P6. Service Release to fix this is apparently begin worked on now. Huge max texture size in FireFly is there in case you have a very high reolution texture and are shooting a closeup. It is always safe to reduce that setting to the size of the largest texture of any in your scene, and if not a closeup, you can go smaller than that. Other Poser people have even better schemes for optimizing this thing, as well. ::::: Opera :::::

If Poser gets wiggy on me, I save the whole scene, kill the program, then restart it. This is an annoyance but usually solves the problem. Save often!

Operaguy, well whatever the case, you got me working again and I greatly appreciate it. It's very frustrating working on a project (trying to get it finished on time) and spend half the day trying to figure out a problem just to get going again! AUUGHH! Each time I had to Ctrl Alt Del and start Poser all over again. I guess that will teach me to upgrade versions in the middle of a project! And why didn't I go back to Poser 5, you may ask? I tried that and Poser 5 didn't like the new files I created in Poser 6. The files loaded up okay, but when it came time to render, I ended up with a blank screen. Anyway, I'm back on track again (sort of) thanks again!

When P6 saves a scene is actually save 2 files... 1) yours Pz3 2) a pmd file Poser 5 is not equipped to read the PMD files. However, if you use the Shade 7 with the new Poser Plug in, you might be able to go that route.

You can save a pz3 from Poser 6 in a way that is readable for Poser 5. But, you have to uncheck "Use external binary morph targets" in the Misc. tab in General Preferences. You will get your usual pz3 with all information inclueded in one single file. I don't know, what Poser 5 will do with any of the new features you may have included in your scene. (AO, IBL, etc.) I guess it will just ignore those.