Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=118403&Start=1&Artist=scifiguy&ByArtist=Yes

At the risk of looking like I'm trolling for gallery hits, first go see the image in the link because that's what I'm talking about ;) Ok, that image took 20 minutes for Poser to render (1600x1200, 150 pixels). 20 freakin minutes! That may be nothing to some of you Bryce folk with your three and four day renders, but I've never had a image take anywhere near that long in Poser. The pz3 file is smaller than several others I have, but nothing else has ever taken more than 5 or 6 minutes. I always render at that size too, so its not that. Yes, there's quite a bit of of stuff in there, but they're mostly simple props and I've only got one Mike...didn't even bump him because he wasn't close enough to the camera for it to matter! Thoughts on what made this one go slow? I'd also like to hear what kinds of render times you've had, and please do give a link to any of your images that took a long time (for Poser) to render.

Oh...and the tree decorations (except the star), wreath, and most of the presents were added in post, so its not because I had a zillion tiny things in there mucking it up ;) (we really need an edit button...where's the edit button?)

i find lighting has a big impact,the more lights the more shadow maps etc need to be rendered,at least that's my thoery.try some of these "global illumination" light sets with 20 or more lights on a single figure standing on the ground plane and you'll see what i mean,the render just crawls till it gets past the the "floor" and all it's shadows.

I only have the light casting shadows, but theres a pack of spots and other lights to get the room to show up. But maybe its the strong shadows that light casts on the wall? I don't have anything else that does that, but I always thought Poser was figuring all that out when it shows the "shadow" dialogue before rendering starts.

I my experiences,transparent and transmapped things slows down. maybe the windows of the room

Lights definatly seem to make a BIG differnce! When I did a Halloween render with 7 charaters and *** load of props it rendered in only about 5 or 7 min.....but a recent Christmas pic with only 7..oops 8 (counting the sleigh) charaters BUT with Lots of snow, lights but only a couple props = Would NOT Render at All..... I ended chopping it into Three separate scenes and then rendering and reassembling in PhotoShop. Yup, gotta be those lights and shadows....

Well, considering that Poser does refuse to render stuff (too often) I guess I should be glad it worked at all! Bet a dollar to a donut that if I tried to put Vicki in there it would seize up on me instantly. It guess it just seemed so weird for it to take so long. I'm used to either instant freeze while Poser tries to think about rendering, or 5 minutes and you're out of there pic in hand. I'm gathering that the long time for this image was just a combination of the large transmap areas (that tree must be a bear too), extra lights to show all the walls, and the heavier than usual shadows I ended up with. Thanks for playing the "why the #%*$ does Poser do this?" game with me!

trans maps..............and alien textures