I'm still using a 32-bit OS until probably later this year or early next year, which means i'm limited to 2 gigs for rendering. This post is for those who havent upgraded to a 64-bit OS, those who don't have a lot of memory, and even those who have a lot of memory but find it isn't enough for a certain scene. For what i do, the 2 gig limit isn't a big problem, i can still render out 95% of my scenes. But sometimes there's that certain figure or scene that takes so much memory you can't complete your render and it just stops.

This works in Poser Pro 2012 SR3.1 (i'm not sure if it works in any other version), and assumes that you taken all the steps to get maximum memory, like checking rendering in a separate process, clearing your cache, using all your cores, etc. You also need to set your recent renders limit to at least 3, i got mine at 5.

What happens to me when i run out of memory, is the scene will render up to a certain point, then just stop. So i will have like half a render, and the rest is black. There's one ghetto way i get around this. Let it render up to that point. After it stops, select your area render and place the square around the entire area where it's black, making sure to start slightly above the line where it quit. Make sure it overlaps so you don't get a line. You have to make sure you go as far left and grab all of the remaining black area. It will then render the rest of the scene and the final render will be the full scene. You HAVE to make sure you don't change any settings, accidentally move your camera, change your preview window size, or this won't work. Area render will leave a small line on the left, right, and bottom, but not the top, so you will have to do this from top to bottom. And if your scene is very complex, you might run out of memory again and have to do this 3-4 times. But as long as you area render from top to bottom, you'll be able to render out the whole scene. You might see a black line on the very bottom and sides, but a simple crop in photoshop will fix that =)

With this technique, i'm able to render like 2400x2400 scenes with many complex characters that could take like over 8 gigs, with a 32-bit operating system that has the 2 gig limit.

Good thinking piccolo! Before my new pc I did a very similar thing - render a quarter of the screen at a time, then paste them together. But yours is a much more efficient method.

I had something important to say about memory problems... But I forgot what it was. :huh:

 

P.S.

Thanks for the tip.

lesbentley, I think it was my gift certificate.  You were going to say how important it was not to forget to give that to me.

 

Love esther

PS well it may not have been that of course.

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month.  Oh, and it's free!

Just trying to help a bit: in my Breaking the 2Gb Barrier tutorial http://www.book.artbeeweb.nl/?p=110 you can find out how to ... break the 2Gb barrier on your 32-bit windows environment.

You can find more Poser (and other) tuts over there as well.

enjoy.

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Usually I'm wrong. But to be effective and efficient, I don't need to be correct or accurate.

visit www.aRtBeeWeb.nl (works) or Missing Manuals (tutorials & reviews) - both need an update though