Gods, I LOVE this feature.  Along with P7 rendering a scene that P6 choked on every time, it's rendering in the background right now while I'm reading my mail and writing this!

Also, for anyone having problems merging pz3 files, here's my solution:

Open the first one (make sure you have your external runtimes attached if you used them) and save it.  

Open a new window.

Close out any runtimes you didn't use with the second pz3 and then open it.  

Delete the lights in the second one and then save it, as well.

Open a new window and open the first pz3.  You won't have to attach any external runtimes because P7 now knows where everyrhing is.  Then merge in the second pz3.  You should only have one set of lights and P7 shouldn't have to look for anything.

I just tried this with the scene I'm rendering and it worked for me by doing exactly what I just wrote.

While it's rendering in the background, you could be creating a new scene?  (Yes, I understand it's a seperate task, but I've always been able to check and write mail while Poser was running.  It's when I run Poser, Wings and Tattoo that I have problems on my 1GB, Athlon 1900+)

Still can't create a new scene in Poser while it's rendering but right now I have Poser, Vue, Outlook and IE all open without a single hang.

From the EF Poser 7 page:

"Render in a Separate Process: FireFly now has the option to run in a separate process from the application, which can yield performance advantages when rendering highly complex scenes. FireFly also lets your system manage memory more efficiently and provides better system stability due to the separation of rendering tasks."

So, it's a seperate process from the application, but you still have to finish rendering to do anything else within Poser?  Or is this so I can start rendering, kill Poser and have resources free for other things?  I just got Poser, boxed, yesterday and haven't played with it much yet...

You can't kill Poser or the render will stop.  What this does is allow you to work with other RAM intensive programs while the Poser window is minimized and the rendering continues.  Have a care, though, doing so will slow down the render.

Hmmm...  I've always minimised Poser while rendering and done other things like checking mail or surfing.  So, I don't see how functionally this changes anything.  I actually thought I'd be able to keep working while it was rendering.   

You're right,  I could always minimize and answer mail or suft the net.  I was never able to work in another RAM intensive program like I can now.  At this moment, I'm rendering an image in P7 using IBL and HDRI lighting and some pretty hi-poly props.  Poser is minimized and I have IE7, Outlook 2007 and Vue 6 Esprit open.  Vue is pretty RAM intensive, so is Outlook but the render just keeps going.  It's a scene created in P6 but P6 choked and gagged every time I tried to render, even without the HDRI lighting.  My bucket hasn't dropped below 32, either, so I'm very pleased with this.

So, no tweaking the scene while the render completes? That was what I had hoped they meant:(

Oh well, the copy and improved memory are the improvements I am looking forward to (if it ever gets finished installed:P )

I didn't expect to tweak the scene as it rendered, but I thought it'd be cool, while animating, to continue posing and editing while an animation was rendered.  I know this was asked last time, but can we run Poser6 and 7 at the same time?

It's the same as always: only one instance of Poser per user (so fast user switching is helpful if you really want to run two instances at once...)