Firefly
Renderer Settings Tutorial
First a quick defenition of each setting, you will find these
options in Poser 5 Firefly renderer and in Poser 6 Firefly under
manual settings.
Bucket
Size: The amount of pixels being rendered at one time. If
you have the system resources, set this number high for faster
renders. One drawback to a high number is that it will take
longer to respond if you hit cancel. This doesn't come up often
though, I would use the highest number your system will allow
(about 100 for 1GB ram depending what else you are running).
You can find this out by using Windows Task Manager to view
your memory usage as you try out new settings.
Pixel
Samples: This is used in antialiasing. It means how many
pixels are averaged between to create the smooth antialiased
line. A higher number will increase your render time and quality,
according to the manual 3x3 is a good default size, I like 4.
Max
Texture Size: Set this value to the same size as the largest
texture map that you are using for a quality render. For draft
renders you can set the number smaller and Poser will use/create
a smaller version of the texture just for that render. For instance
using a 3000x3000 face texture you could set that number to
500 for your test renders and they'll go very fast. If you leave
that number low though your final render would suffer as if
you had used a low resollution texture map. It won't create
a larger version of your map if the number is higher than your
actual texture so if you always want the texture to render at
it's actual quality level then setting it to 4900 should let
you forget about it from then on.
Shade
Rate: A lower minimum shade rate will give you a better
quality render, it also takes longer. *Important note, there
is also a shade rate for each body part or object. Poser will
use the higher of these two numbers, meaning the lower quality
setting. For a high quality render you have to go set the shade
rate number for each part in the properties dialog box. What's
good about it is that you can set a part low that is not being
noticed or focused on and high for what is most looked at, such
as using a 0 for the face and hair but a .50 for the forearm.
The default shade rate on each object and/or body part is .20.
If you want a better quality render than that you have to change
the value in both the render options window and the body part/object
properties.
Here
is an example of what shade rate set to zero looks like and
then shade rate set to two, fairly low resolution maps are being
used. The shade rate at zero compares favorably to a straight
Poser 4 render, shade rate set to two looks fairly blurry.
 |
 |
|
Shade
Rate 0
|
Shade
Rate 2
|
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Post
Filter Size: Samples colors within a pixel and averages
them. It's like a blur that makes model edges look softer. A
setting of 2 will work for extra antialiasing, the opposite
of sharpening.
Post
Filter Type: Seems like one of those "how many angels
can dance on the head of a pin?" things. You are choosing
what kind of algorithm to use while averaging the color within
a single pixel. People have said that gaussian is best but test
them for yourself to see what you like.
Use
these settings if your render looks jagged along the object's
edges or has a moire pattern. If not leave them off because
they increase render time and you'll lose some crispness.
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Check "remove backfacing polygons" unless it
causes a problem (black spot, empty spot).
To
use Ray Tracing for shadows, change the shadow setting
on each light to "Ray Traced". You won't have to wait
for shadow maps to render but the render itself takes longer.
Also raytraced shadows can have funky effects on morphed characters.
If you set the Ray Trace Bounces higher than two, expect
slow render times. The higher setting is used when you are trying
for ray traced reflections and special effects.
Smooth
Polygons: Can cause distortions on straight lines and corners
but makes organic curves look more natural. You can set this
on each object using the properties dialog so use selectively.
Example, on for a face and off for a cube.
Default
Scale: Different versions of Poser have different values
for the bumps, if a texture or mat pose was made in another
version from yours, chances are the bump will look wrong. Most
commercial textures will have a Mat pose for each version of
Poser for this reason. If you are having a problem with too
strong or too weak bump values, change the bump value in the
materials room.
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Trouble Shooting: Shade Rate is the setting that effects
how your texture maps render as well as the Max Texture Size
setting. Pixel Samples effects how the geometry renders the
most, especially the edges of things. If you have a problem
with jagged edges you want to try changing Pixel Samples first,
if that doesn't do it add a post filter. If your textures look
blocky and chunky it's probably your Shade Rate, either in "Render
Settings" or on the object or body part itself in the Properties
dialog. Also make sure that your Max Texture size is set to
the size of your largest texture map for the final render. If
your object looks grossly bumpy it's the bump map values, different
for each version of Poser so a constant source of vexation.
The
default render quality output is low, meaning that the image
will be compressed to death unless you change this setting to
high. When you go to export the image you will find a quality
drop down list to select from, if you save without selecting
from this list the default quality is low or compressed.
Slow
renders can be caused by the higher quality settings mentioned
above but other things to look out for would be atmosphere settings
on the lights, if you turn atmosphere up in the light properties
it will slow your render down a lot without much to show for
it. Also if you render with ray tracing on and turn up ray trace
bounces it'll take much longer to render.
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