Poser's grouping tool is neat, but the interface is a tad clunky...

Tried reading 'Blender for Dummies' again. Got one (1) chapter in, again totally failed to grok the surfeit of hot-keys required for even basic navigation. I haven't seen so many since a certain 'word processor' from PC pre-history...

Then I remembered that, a year or three ago, I'd downloaded *free* Hexagon from D*z.

Have found it in my archives. Interface looks more like CAD than Blender. Will install and report...

I think I nabbed that Hexagon as well.

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I've found that to do well with any figure you really need to have a passion for that figure,

...and I hope you develop that passion for yours.

Ditto. Installed it years ago, but never had a closer look

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Downside of converting files is discovering you can't render them effectively in Poser...

I converted a *free* MMD PMX 'stage', a modular park scene, to OBJ/MTL. Only half-a-dozen materials, one texture each. Path tiles, lawn, bench seats, lamp standards, lamp glazing. Poser figure in the middle. Dial up lamp glazing ambiance to 'self-glow', render in Superfly.


No, sorry, Superfly doesn't want to know. Multi-core CPU or twin GPU cards, progressive, back-ground or whatever, I got either black screen or beige, but blank. Doesn't look as good in Firefly, certainly no super-ambiance.

After some trial-and-error, I shut Poser down and had dinner. This time around, I'll try to be a little more scientific...

Plan_B, of course, of course, is to shoe-horn a point-source light into each street-lamp...

After much research, I learned I had to enable 'SCUDA' via Nvidia's control panel for my twin GTX 750 Ti GPU cards. Note NO RegEdit required. Just do via 'global' as only found P7 not PP11...

Each of my cards has 640 cores. With hardware assist available, I set Superfly's bucket size to 1200, leaving a few for the PC. There's an *acceptable* Windows UI lag...

NOW Superfly is turbo-charged. Even so, there is a limit to what PC will handle. If scene is just a bit too complex, comes out blank. That aside, I began increasing the super-ambience of the scene's street lights, reducing the Poser lights. Renders needed more and more pixel samples...

Then, a new failure mode. super-ambience stopped working, everything rendered in greys. Back-tracked a long way before realising problem.

NOT superfly, but PPro x64 needing more than ~3GB RAM and not loading textures correctly. I cleared out render cache etc and 'normal service resumed'...

Currently running a 99-pixel night render of scene using only the set's street lights...

I found a work-around for complex scenes that refuse to render in superfly.

Using 'progressive' and both 640-core GPU cards, I iterated 'buckets' from nominal ~1024 through 512, 256, 128 all the way down until render ran. I've recently had to set 16 buckets, which was s-l-o-w, but worked...

After, be sure to export your render ASAP, certainly before you adjust view-point, lest PP's clunky garbage collector crash the UI...

I'm still looking for a friendly 3D editor that won't give me prompt migraines.

I tried Hexagon, but it promptly choked on a complex OBJ, shut down without warning. Which was not too unexpected, given its age makes it an x32...

I tried freebie MeshMagic, but it covertly loaded links to rest of NCH office suite, which took a while to pry loose, then trash.

Also, though I *may* have been using MM wrong, zoom seems to scale the model, not the view. This is *very unfortunate* if you're trying to carve a complex set into convenient modules. After some digging, I did find how to 'dial in' XYZ offsets, allowing better than 'By Eye' placement. Will try again...

Turbo CAD has had OBJ & 3DS I/O for ever and ever. I've just discovered that TurboCAD Pro 2020 has 'automatic' FBX import / export, whatever that means. There seems no plug-in for my '2016 version, whose UI still confounds me. Sad, really, when I remember how productive I was with the 2003~2010 versions. But, hey, a dire decade out will do that to your 'Minds Eye'...

I could just about afford the discounted upgrade from '2016 to '2020, although that would be a total waste if I can't make it 'play nice'...

D'uh...

The free Open 3D Model Viewer I've mentioned previously has unexpected talents.

I've been using it to study FBX rigging, trying to spot which models, which style of 'trees' are compatible with Poser. Short answer, only the 'trad' type...

Then, serendipitously, I noticed it claimed to open Blender.
Yeah, right...
But, so far, it has opened every '.blend' I've tried !!

O3DMV has *some* export options, but only the 'solid' OBJ/MTL & 3DS are *directly* accepted by Poser. Curious, I opened an un-rigged Blender figure I'd found some-when (*), exported it to optional DAE. Autodesk's free FBX toolkit converted this to FBX, which Poser duly imported at 100% default scale. Not a 'first', but rare...

Un-rigged, of course, of course, and one solid figure rather than a shower of body-parts...

Well, actually two figures, overlain.

So, I swivelled them apart, applied their full-body texture and highlight maps, rendered in superfly.

*) I think was Deemona by Vlthar on DeviantArt
https://www.deviantart.com/vlthar/art/Deemona-842931010
But he seems to have replaced it by a v1.0...

The free open3D viewer has unsuspected talent.

I've just noticed it will usually open terragen's otherwise intractable .TER files. And, yes, export to the 'Usual Suspects' such as OBJ+MTL.

Snag is a 514 KB TER file goes in, a Poser-choking ~ 35 MB OBJ writes out. I make that x70...

So, I've begun hunt for way to convert such half-million poly mesh to something more friendly.

Conversion to a height map would be neat, but non-trivial due to non-uniform mesh. Given even that might need lower poly count, I took a look for budget ways to 'lean down' mesh.

Yes, there's a free tool built into eg Blender, but I cannot work the UI.

I found Autodesk's free 'Meshmixer' which also has such a tool.

https://www.meshmixer.com/

I'll let you know how it fares...

It didn't work. Only seems to apply while you are creating the mesh. Can't high-light or select, then down-poly.

At least not for me, YMMV.

Still searching for budget solution...

Some-what off-topic:
To get 2FA via SMS to my PC's 'Desk with No Bars', per Yahoo, PayPal and, now, my purblind bank's increasingly urgent demands, I've had to buy a hi-end, $$$ wireless router that takes a SIM card, too. First had an intractable firmware bug, went back in disgrace. Configured unto 'Tethered', hung in window that gets a few bars, attached to far, far end of my home network, the second, a rival brand, seems to be working. Well, sorta. Still testing...

Downside, is I now can't afford $$$ AC3D CAD, the one with OBJ+MTL support, until November at earliest...
{Sulk... }

... might want to give this a try -> http://www.micromouse.ca/

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Thank you for that link !!

I was surprised to find it was already bookmarked, but deep in 'check-back' zone.

Serendipitous spin-off from a Rendo thread:

Seems PPro_11.3 has a well-hidden 'reduce polygon' facility. One tool simplifies 'characters', other does 'objects'. Seems associated with preparation for FBX export...

It's in the Poser PDF manual at pp 999~1002.

Proviso: Even if I can get facility to 'play nice', it still requires me to actually import too-hi-poly model. Of course, if I delete my default start-up's LaF figure, swimsuit, ground plane and sky-dome, that might help...