I'm not exactly new to poser, but I've encountered a problem I've never encountered before.

I tend to do the slog work in P5 because I am very comfortable with the interface and don't (usually) do much fancy stuff with lights and materials. I then open the file with p9 to render the animations as that renderer is faster and WAY more stable. (Also, it allows me to continue more slog work in P5 while it's rendering).

I set up an animation in p5 of a spaceship flying through space and the coordinates were massive. The camera was set at z=1068, for instance. The starship's initial starting point was z=-2999. I also had a background cube with a tremendous scale (approximately 10000). Amazingly the images render fine in p5:

But when I open the file in p9 all I see is the grey background. It's like some enormous blob has swallowed my scene. The animation ends with the ship passing very close to the camera, and playing the animation in p9 (not rendering, just running it in pose mode) the ship emerges from the grey blob right at the end.

Is the p9 work area limited in scope? That's my only notion of what the problem could be. If so, can I temporarily increase the size of the work area? Or maybe the camera can only work up to a certain distance. Truly I am at a loss and any help would be appreciated.

The settings on the camera Hitter and Yon are different for poser 9 than they are for poser 5.
Hither is nearest the camera, Yon is farther away. Increase the Yon value to enable longer views. Decrease Hither to move the clipping plane closer to the camera
http://www.poserbydesign.com/news/index.php/troubleshooting-poser/poser-dictionary