My desktop is pathetic!  I can render some things with Firefly, but not others.  I just discovered I can render those things using Poser 4 Render.  However I'm not familiar with that.

There doesn't look like there are many settings though.  Can someone recommend what I should use in order to get a nice render with Poser 4 Render?

As you stated yourself the Poser4 renderengine is a tad limited..for a decent render you should check them all but the last one that says "Ignore shader trees" which will basically make the engine ignore all materials and shaders made using the Poser6 shadertree which Poser4 doesnt have.

Also mind that you use lighting setups for Poser4 as the Ambient Occlusion and IBL lights wont work in the Poser4 engine.

That said what is your system hardware?..Processor and RAM memory...display adapter?...there might be something else going on which does not allow you to use FireFly.

Quote - As you stated yourself the Poser4 renderengine is a tad limited..for a decent render you should check them all but the last one that says "Ignore shader trees" which will basically make the engine ignore all materials and shaders made using the Poser6 shadertree which Poser4 doesnt have.

Also mind that you use lighting setups for Poser4 as the Ambient Occlusion and IBL lights wont work in the Poser4 engine.

That said what is your system hardware?..Processor and RAM memory...display adapter?...there might be something else going on which does not allow you to use FireFly.

I can use Firefly sometimes. It just not everything. It's driving me insane. i just tried a different single figure scene.  Basic with 1 figure with texture and morphs, 1 dress, 1 corsette,  1 pair of wings, simple hair style, head veil and a 5 light setup and I get a "encountered error while rendering, can't load texture. not enough memory".  My desktop only has 384 MB SDRAM, and while I wish I could afford more, or even a new computer, both are out of the question so I have to try and find work arounds.  ugh

Ah...that wont be enough for FireFly I'm afraid :unsure:

If you send me an email to marco@mindvision-gds.com I'll send you a few lightsets I made that work well for the Poser4 engine.

Quote - I can use Firefly sometimes. Basic with 1 figure with texture and morphs, 1 dress, 1 corsette,  1 pair of wings, simple hair style, head veil and a 5 light setup and I get a "encountered error while rendering, can't load texture. not enough memory".  My desktop only has 384 MB SDRAM, and while I wish I could afford more, or even a new computer, both are out of the question so I have to try and find work arounds.  ugh

I get the same error sometimes.  What I have found works..

First set the Max Bucket Size really low, like 8, 12, or 16.

Set up your entire scene just the way you want it, and save it.

Open your scene again and take out anything in the front, like clothes and the model.  Render anything in the back ground first.  Like the wings...  Save this scene as '"SceneName"BackGround'.

Open the orriginal scene again, now take out anything in the back ground and render only the forground and model.  Again save with a different name.

*Hint, I discovered that if you save the render with a blank background as a PNG the background is transparaent when you open it in Photoshop.  Making it super easy to drop onto the back ground.  All you have to do is add some shadows to bring your model into the image.  :)

Luna Faye

Quote - Ah...that wont be enough for FireFly I'm afraid :unsure:

If you send me an email to marco@mindvision-gds.com I'll send you a few lightsets I made that work well for the Poser4 engine.

Thank you :)  I sent you an email.

Quote - I get the same error sometimes.  What I have found works.. First set the Max Bucket Size really low, like 8, 12, or 16.

Set up your entire scene just the way you want it, and save it.

Open your scene again and take out anything in the front, like clothes and the model.  Render anything in the back ground first.  Like the wings...  Save this scene as '"SceneName"BackGround'.

Open the orriginal scene again, now take out anything in the back ground and render only the forground and model.  Again save with a different name.

Yes, I do that too.  Unfortunately it doesn't always work.  I was trying to render a single figure and use a light set that had 4 lights in shades of blue. I couldn't render it in Firefly no matter how much of the figure I hid. I suspected t was the lights. I was able to render the whole thing at once in Poser 4 render. 

It's very frustrating.

just a reminder - dpi (or other units) of a render will only affect print resolution. it has no effect on screen resolution, as the user's screen is set independent of the render, in a far narrower range than the available dpi settings.

Reducing the size of your textures and bump maps helps. If your not doing a close-up, there is not a real need for 4000x3000 textures. I quite often reduce to 1024 on the large side.

Quote - Reducing the size of your textures and bump maps helps. If your not doing a close-up, there is not a real need for 4000x3000 textures. I quite often reduce to 1024 on the large side.

If I go and resize, do I have to resize everything I find in the texture folder for that item by the same percent, or just certain files?

Quote - Reducing the size of your textures and bump maps helps. If your not doing a close-up, there is not a real need for 4000x3000 textures. I quite often reduce to 1024 on the large side.

Thank you. That was just the answer I needed for what I was working on.  The textures were 3000 and 4000 pixels. I resized to 1024  and was able to render them perfectly well using Poser 4 render. I didn't try firefly.  I think I'm hooked on the speed of using the poser 4 one!  Man, talk about speedy!!!!!!!!!  ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! LOL

"If I go and resize, do I have to resize everything I find in the texture folder for that item by the same percent, or just certain files?"

You can if you want and keep a separate folder for the reduced textures. I reduce all my sets and save them on a disk to use when needed. For animations, I'll reduce the smaller files to 512 and sometimes even the main textures to 512.

This should help the performance of the firefly render so youi can still have those P6 advantages.