1. What is the best render application for a realistic look...i saw some awesome render with firefly and carrara...what else?

1. How do you render a whole file (scene) from poser or bryce in a nother renderer?

Hi Robert

I'm quite partial to C4D for rendering my Poser images.  Besides having better lighitng abilities than Poser it'll also import lots of other file types (eg: 3ds, LWO etc), you can simulate cloth, do modelling etc...  A good example of Poser done in C4D is Kromekat's gallery - he does tutes on these in 3DWorld mag.  (I've also got some images in my gallery... but check out Kromekat's first!)

It depends on what you mean by "realistic" as Poser figures will only ever be as "real" as their textures - some of the work in Poser itself is amazing because the textures are so good (see FS's gallery) but I struggle with getting anything I'm happy with out of Poser itself.

Anyway, you can import scenes into C4D using Kuroyume's InterPoserPro (still in beta but due out soon) which you can either lift complete Poser scenes or individual characters and props and pose them in C4D (see http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/) 

cheers - Alan42

There is no such thing as the best renderer, it all depends on what you want, what is in the scene and the amount of time you are willing to spend on rendering.

For any close-up work you are probably best off with Poser (Firefly), for any rendering from some distance (with mutiply figures) you are better off with Carrara (currently my renderer of choice) or Vue.

Getting a whole scene from Poser into Carrara is very easy, just open it. Depending on Native or Transposer (strongly advised) you may get everything in except for camera and complex materials. Remove all lights except for the spotlights (point light seem to loose their position, other lights are better defined with the lights available in Carrara), find the correct camera setting (camera's in Carrara are more proper then the Poser ones) and adjust complex materials (the materials in Carrara are just as powerfull, just different). In general the rendering in Carrara is quicker and of a better quality (depending on lights and materials) but with a complex scene it can still take long (just finished a high quality rendering taking 65 hours).

Getting a scene from Bryce into anything else is completely out of the question. Bryce uses its own format (not compatible with anything else). So is using Bryce for rendering (way too slow).

Free alternative that is worth a try (especially when Poser 6 chokes on a complex scene):

1. Pose scene in Poser 6 as normal but don't get exotic with material shaders
2. Export whole scene to wavefront obj
3. Save PZ3 too
4. Import PZ3 and obj (and partner mtl file) into PoseRay
5. Use Poser OR PoseRay native lights (camera comes from PZ3)
6. Fix any busted materials (shader materials not supported but maps, bumps and transparencies work)
7. Watch for opportunities to use nice POV materials (e.g. for metal objects and glass)
8. Launch POV-Ray renderer from PoseRay

Pros: Fast, High Quality render, Solution for when P6 fails.
Cons: Only has simple material handling, Might need to weld/smooth organic objects so that material zones flow into each other nicely (quite simple to do this), Radiosity seems a bit troublesome and quite slow.

PoseRay from
http://mysite.verizon.net/sfg0000/

POV-Ray from
http://www.povray.org/

Most of the 4 and above character scenes in my gallery are using this rendering approach.

HTH,
Jovial.