It seems like most of the precalculation time is spent on hair. Other than turning off raytracing, which would make hair shadpws a problem what can be done to speed up this bottle neck?

With "turn off raytracing I guess you mean "Visible in Raytracing" which sometimes helps. Other than that... I have no ideas. Transparencies of any kind + IDL = LOOOOOONG render times.

There really isn't much you can do. IDL and layered transparencies definitely do NOT get along ;o). It's fine when there's only one layer, but add more than one and it's a looong waiting game.

Laurie

I noticed that t he render option for IDl quality stayed at the 14 I had tried earlier. Is there much to gain in quality from changing this from default of 7 or is it a waste of cpu cycles to boost quality?
Other than that I guess I will just have to wait sometimes.

Use D3D Render Firefly and find a balance between quality and speed.
follow this nice tutorial about it, and pay attention to all the options that are not present
at the standard Poser Render options ;-)

www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php

Hope it helps someway.

If I need to speed up IDL precalculations, I set IC for IDL to 10.  But, as mentioned, transparencies will bog down any IDL unless you turn off visible in raytracing or find an alternative method.