This was buried in a thread below. Some people have asked me about it. So I'll post it again. I hope it helps people get some of the "Stoned" out of the "Sloth". * Use ray traced shadows, not "Displacement Mapped" Change the shadow setting on every light to "Ray traced". It takes nearly as long as the main scene to render each shadow map if you use mapped shadows. (Note: there is a bug with reflections and ray traced shadows, they don't show in reflections. CL has accepted this bug and will fix it next update. If you have mirrors you will need mapped shadows.) * Set the bucket size to match the memory of your computer. 32, the default is too much for an average system. If you hard drive is churning during a render set the bucket size down. A rough estimate 256MB = 12, 512MB = 16, 1GB = 24, 2GB = 32. Once you've set this it should stay the same unless you add memory. Don't set it too low you will just slow your self down. Set it as high as you can without causing memory swapping. NT/XP/W2K users can use Task Manager to help set this just right by watching Poser's memory utilization. * Forget Smooth Polygons. All that does is make your image look like some Salvador Dali thing. Anything straight gets a weird curve distortion. * Minimum Shading Rate (This is a big one) The Book's description of the settings for this parameter are wrong. The Book states that Higher numbers produce better quality and slower renders. WRONG. It's the other way around. So, set your Draft Shading rate to 4 or 8. Your quality will suffer, but it will render much faster. Even for Production I can't see the difference between a 1 setting and a .1 setting. The .1 takes forever to render. * Map size really effects memory consumption. You won't benefit much from setting it larger than the render size. Use 1/2 render size for draft. * Pixel Samples Set to 1 for your draft. This is like turning AnitAliasing off. * Remove Back facing Polygons. Well it would help, except it may spoil your render, which will waste way more time than it saves. The back face cull is a bit over zealous. It may remove you figures nose if it takes a notion to. (Fine for the sphinx :-P ) Probably better with it off. * GET THE PATCH. It made Stoned Sloth twice as fast... Well not fast. Let's say half as slow. Rooms switch less slow. Program loads takes only a couple of seconds longer than P4. This is all based on the tests I've run. Actual milage may vary...
The Nerd