I am lcuky enough to have a pretty powerful pc with a shed load of memory (1.7ghz p4 and 512mb RIMM) what i want to know is how viable is in going over 400 dpi, the reason i am asking is a lot of my work is for print and 400 dpi is the standard for print images...just wondered if poser supported 400 dpi or shall i export to max or vue or lightwave,

Hi ! DPI - or dot per inches - is only an information for printing machines. It has absolutely no effect on your CPU or Memory, neither on how the picture will appear on screen. The picture pixel's dimension remains the same. If you render a 800x600 pixel image at 10 DPI or 2000 DPI, the rendering time and the file size will be exactly the same ! To get 3D renders ready for print the only relevant settings in your 3D software is the picture resolution (in pixels). Take for example a CD cover : the printed size is 4.73 x 4.73 inches. If want to print it at the industry standard format 300 DPI, you should use a rendering resolution of 1419 x 1419 pixels. And if you want 400 DPI, render it at 1892 x 1892 pixels. It's easy to know the resolution needed for a printed image. Multiply the size of the printed images (in inches) by the DPI required. The result will be the resolution in pixels. You won't get higher or "better" DPI in MAX, VUE or LIGHTWAVE !!! Set it to whatever you want in POSER and adjust the resolution (in pixels). A powerful processor can render a high resolution picture faster, and the amount of RAM tells you how far you can go. With 512 MB of RAM you can go up to a resolution of 9000 x 9000 pixels. But not much further, otherwise your PC will tell you : "not enough memory" ! :) Eric

I found Eric's reply very educational but I've run into a different yet relevent problem. I get a message stating that Poser can only render up to a resolution of 4090 pixels (on a side I guess), so the higher my DPI, the smaller the resolved image becomes (which leads to pixalization when I enlarge them too much in Photoshop or other image editors). Am I doing something wrong, is this a limitation due to my CPU/memory configuration (P2400 w/128MB, although I would think this would just cause a larger render to take forever, not be impossible) or do I have something set incorrrectly?

Sorry I forgot this : POSER 4 as a resolution limit of 4090 x 4090 pixels. That's surely not enough.

You can still enlarge it in your image editing software, but not more than 130 %. Otherwise the pixels will become noticeable !

You can try to render the image in separate parts, but it's tricky job...

:) Eric

4090 pixels is more then enough for normal (offset) printing. that gives you almost 40 cm or almost 14 inches. if you want to print larger formats, like poster-sized pictures, those printers need smaller dpi count (sometimes even 72 dpi) so you'll get along with it fine... you won't get better images in print if you render in more then 300 dpi.

Most places don't even require 400dpi or 300. Most of my friends rendering for print use around 250. You should consult your printer. They use an algorithm [brain is still dead from heat and pain, ignore sp] for their process and it is usually an off number from what I've heard. Emily

You can render larger by rendering a 1 frame animation (use current render settings) and choosing image file as your output type.

The common standards are: 600 dpi laser needs 210 ppi (pixels per inch) 720 dpi inkjet needs 250 ppi 125 lpi offset (newsprint) needs 250 ppi 150 lpi offset (magazine) needs 300 ppi 175 lpi offset (best brochure quality) needs 350 ppi 1440 dpi inkjet (if true, which I doubt) needs 500 ppi

I run into the same problem all the time and hit the 4090 pixel cap. I usually just try to zoom in on the objects and composite them separately in photoshop. I've managed to get pretty good results this way even up to a 11" x 17" tabloid poster. ***Hint hint for Curious Labs listeners... remove the 4090 x 4090 pixel maximum for renders in the next version!!! visualkinetics

raven has the answer. I figured out the render as a one frame animation workaround some time ago. I went as large as 6000X6000 as an experiment.