I have heard a rumor that there is a script for turning off texture filtering in P7.  Can anyone substantiate this rumor and point me in the direction of this script?

Why, oh why did they make this the default?

Quote - I have heard a rumor that there is a script for turning off texture filtering in P7.  Can anyone substantiate this rumor and point me in the direction of this script?

http://www.contentparadise.com/forums/contentparadise/index.php?showtopic=2908

Quote - Why, oh why did they make this the default?

Probably because filtering now has no perceptible impact on performance or system resources.

*'Probably because filtering now has no perceptible impact on performance or system resources.'

*It certainly has an impact on my machine. I have problems any time I use smooth polygons and/or displacement to a greater or lesser degree - in fact tonight I wasn't using either and I couldn't get a render out until I turned filtering off. Sometimes P7 hangs during shadow map rendering, sometimes half way through a render. The only thing that seems to cure the issue is turning texture filtering to none on all image map nodes in a scene. All adjustments to render settings (increased shading rate, low pixel sampling, low or no raytracing etc) has no impact. This is for 400x400 pixel renders of a single figure with no clothing or hair. Definitely something not right.

I'm putting together a mail for technical support now. It may be some kind of problem with my system, but I never had issues with renders not completing in P6 even with texture filtering enabled (they'd take a lot longer, but at least they'd complete). I also have problems with raytraced reflections/refractions, but that's another matter.

Umm... my lament is because of the awful renders I get with it on.  System performance can go hang.

I took exactly the same scene, which I had rendered in 7 and wondered why it looked so awful, rendered it 6 and said to myself: I KNEW if shouldn't have looked like that P7 render turned out.

Turned off most of the filtering on the important image maps: presto, 100% better looking render.

Anyway, I'm snippy this morning, apparently.  Thanks LD for the link; once I got there, saw the script.  Apologies for the snippiness.  Didn't we used to be able to edit/delete posts over here?

I'm not exactly sure in what way P6 or P7 filters textures - i.e. what it's doing to the textures during rendering. I know that other software (Max, Maya, XSI) have different pixel sampling options available for texture filtering. There's kind of a confusing mix of options in Poser - texture filtering on image map nodes, and then there's Pixel samples, Min shading rate and Post filter size in the render dialogue - all operating across the whole image but serving a similar function of reducing aliasing in the final render.
The problem seems to me to be that the texture filtering option in both P6 and P7 has quite a heavy blurring effect, as does the Post filter size (whatever option you use - Box, gaussian, sine etc). this can cause seams to become visible on textures during rendering, as well as killing fine details in the maps.
I found that in P6 it worked much better to use as low a shading rate and as high a pixel sample rate as my system can handle. I'm forced to follow the same approach in P7 as texture filtering is just not viable in the renders I've done so far.

Quote - Why, oh why did they make this the default?

Well, let's see: * it's the mathematically correct way * many popular hair styles only look good with filtering * it's more memory efficient than without filtering * it doesn't crawl or flicker when animated * it's "the right thing" to do * antialiasing is better than not antialising > Quote - I'm not exactly sure in what way P6 or P7 filters textures

Poser 6 used summed area tables, Poser 7 is using mip maps with either trilinear ("Fast") or anisotropic EWA lookup ("Quality").

Quote - It certainly has an impact on my machine. I have problems any time I use smooth polygons and/or displacement to a greater or lesser degree - in fact tonight I wasn't using either and I couldn't get a render out until I turned filtering off

Are you by any chance rendering in a separate process?

Quote - "Are you by any chance rendering in a separate process?"

I am, but then P7 won't render at all when I don't use this option.

Are you at the same time also bumping up the number of pixel samples and using a low shading rate? Possibly rendering in multiple threads too? Then you really should lower your bucket size (try 16 for a start), because as mentioned in the ReadMe (that nobody reads), the external renderer can't do that for you.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2678991 

I'd been having a hell of a time rendering a simple scene with a figure using displacement .png maps (see above thread). I'd tried a whole series of diagnostic tests to see what was causing the problem but when I eventually realised that I'd missed a couple of image map nodes where texture filtering was still on, I finally got it to render.

What I said about the 'render in seperate process pref ' in this thread was inaccurate in fact. My system will render without that option sometimes. But as soon as I use any kind of complex shader setup or polygon smoothing or displacement, I have to turn off texture filtering or the render hangs and cannot be cancelled. Often I've had very low bucket sizes and pixel samples, and a high shading rate but still no joy (I've used a single light with depth mapped shadows and no AO to test, so no real strain there). With render in seperate process enabled If the render hangs I can at least cancel it ok.

Disabling texture filtering is the one single action that has enabled P7 to render consistently on my system (details of my PC in the above linked thread). 

BTW, thanks so much for your python script for disabling texture filtering - it's saved me so much time.

Quote - > Quote - Why, oh why did they make this the default?

Well, let's see: * it's the mathematically correct way * many popular hair styles only look good with filtering * it's more memory efficient than without filtering * it doesn't crawl or flicker when animated * it's "the right thing" to do * antialiasing is better than not antialising > Quote - I'm not exactly sure in what way P6 or P7 filters textures

Poser 6 used summed area tables, Poser 7 is using mip maps with either trilinear ("Fast") or anisotropic EWA lookup ("Quality").

Ok... I'll bite on this.

What I am doing wrong then? Or is it just to my eyes that having the texture filtering on produces an unacceptable render?

I'm generally not a complainer, Stewer; you won't find me on any forums badmouthing anyone or anything for no reason.

You're not doing anything wrong. Mathematic corretectness must not necessarily agree with everybody's artistic preference. You are of course free to like whatever looks best to you. The defaults for Poser's rendering are not meant to be the one and only true set in stone setting. If you want the full scope, your favorite search engine and a number of rendering theory textbooks will teach you everything there is to know about signal processing, nyquist limits and how they apply to texture antialiasing and why about every serious 3d program under the sun is filterin textures. But as long as you know how to get the output that you want, why bother? The golden rule of computer graphics: when it looks right, it is right.

will that script change everything in the scene or just the current figure or prop?

if it is everything, is there a way to make it only change the currently selected thing? preferably as a material room wacro

I think I'm right in saying that stewers script turns texture filtering on all image map nodes on all objects in a scene to 'none'.

I'd agree that having per object or even per material zone control would be an added bonus, as well as the ability to choose betwen all three filtering options. It's a lot to ask though.

On the bright side of things, I did a complete re-install of P7 and I now can render with texture filtering enabled in most circumstances - something must have screwed up with the initial install.

Quote - * many popular hair styles only look good with filtering

I mostly perfer to lower the Shading rate to zero in the appropriate body parts' Properties, as well as in Render settings to get clear and crisp hair renders. It slows down rendering a bit though. Michal

Quote - You're not doing anything wrong. Mathematic corretectness must not necessarily agree with everybody's artistic preference. You are of course free to like whatever looks best to you. The defaults for Poser's rendering are not meant to be the one and only true set in stone setting. If you want the full scope, your favorite search engine and a number of rendering theory textbooks will teach you everything there is to know about signal processing, nyquist limits and how they apply to texture antialiasing and why about every serious 3d program under the sun is filterin textures. But as long as you know how to get the output that you want, why bother? The golden rule of computer graphics: when it looks right, it is right.

Ok, point taken.  Perhaps there should have been a method to change the value en mass included with the release.  I think the biggest problem with Poser is not actually any problem with the program, but with so many conflicting opinions on what works, how things work, how things are supposed to work, etc, and very often no clear answer.

I am going to run some of my own tests, and see what I think is going on here for me.

I have to say that I don't agree with the "why bother" part of your post.  That's like telling a painter not to bother learning different techniques, isn't it? Granted, some of the discourse will doubtless be over my head, but a firm grounding in theory is always a good place to start.

The script does indeed turn all  texture filtering off, for every image map node (or so it seems after a cursory inspection of several different nodes)