Here's the 10 sided die. If you do'nt recognize it that is because its resting on its side still, it was easyer to put it together this way. I'm going to rotate the Main Camera, and M2, 90 degrees along the X axis and rerender. I would try to set it as it rests after it's been rolled, so that a side points straight up, but this is difficult without a script to rotate the lights... = )

I got bored with my Dice theory and decided to jump ahead for a moment. This model is a takeoff on the 6 sided. I noticed that the 6 sided has light every 90 degrees, if you always travel N,S,E or W. So I decided to cut the angle down to 45. This raised the number of lights in the set from 6 to 25. Has anyone noticed these renders getting particulary more difficult to work with as the light count has increased. I had'nt noticed how each new light set has lost much of metalacity present in the post before. I wonder why this is happening? I noticed because getting this image through photoshop has been a particularly difficult task. I had to try several different light levels, MAT shades, and then go over the Highlight Size option. I'd never done this before. I guess lighting was a really good place to start picking up on Poser's more intricate features... The image above took me about as long to get to, probably, as the two that came before it. You can tell its really far from complete, but I guess this is what its all about. Yeah, I said that! = )

I got bored with my Dice theory and decided to jump ahead for a moment. This model is a takeoff on the 6 sided. I noticed that the 6 sided has light every 90 degrees, if you always travel N,S,E or W. So I decided to cut the angle down to 45. This raised the number of lights in the set from 6 to 25. Has anyone noticed these renders getting particulary more difficult to work with as the light count has increased. I had'nt noticed how each new light set has lost much of metalacity present in the post before. I wonder why this is happening? I noticed because getting this image through photoshop has been a particularly difficult task. I had to try several different light levels, MAT shades, and then go over the Highlight Size option. I'd never done this before. I guess lighting was a really good place to start picking up on Poser's more intricate features... The image above took me about as long to get to, probably, as the two that came before it. You can tell its really far from complete, but I guess this is what its all about. Yeah, I said that! = )

I see what you mean about the loss of metalacity. I think it's more of a result of the texture/reflection map you are using than the lights. As you add more lights the contrast between highlight and shadow decreases, giving the model a more uniform tone. You should try using a true reflective material on the model. You will retain your metalacity throughout. I have a few in the freebie section, just add your own reflection map to them.

MY 'puter is on the blink right now, I got a naster virus, and now P5 wo'nt load. I'm gearing up now for an FDISK. As soon as all my important directories are burnt to CD, I'm going can this virus all at once! How 'bout inspiration, is there a future for this post? I noticed I've been the adding posotive data, but not recieving many replies... There are only a few dice left, but if nobody is reading... = )

I'm reading. Don't know about the logic, yet. But it's certainly interesting. Sorry about the virus. I hope you get back up fast. Cheers Q

How much longer does the lighting for each set take (will this be usable?) for an increased number of lights? And how does it compare against other lighting setups (Is a customised setup better than a mathematical model) in a scene? But very interesting to see lighting setups done by python (which I know nothing about!) Just my 0.02

quixote - I think of logic as the procees of imagining formulas. So far we've mentioned: Pyramid Stacking, Ockham's Python, Die Replication, and Pole/Compass Extremities Division. FireHorse - The 12 sided should'nt take too long, it will be much like D8 and D10. D20, and any other suggestions..., are going to take a little longer though. I think the way to do it will be to divide the 180 of lontitude by 4, and the place a light every 72 degrees. Thanks for adressing quixotes question of Logic. I think useablility is a matter of mathmatics! Though I do'nt understand Ockhams Math, I'd consider the rest of the theories presented in this post as worth having at. And would like to hear from anyone who has any other formulae. = )

cainbrogan: Don't mind me. My logic is way out there, anyways. Working in cell clusters does replicate certain real life situations, both in studio and out. And that is of great interest to me. But I'm from the old school: 1. Global illumination, although useful, at times and an interesting math model to wrestle with, is not very appealing. 2. a photographer or cinematographer writes with light. It is his responsability to create the lighting set-up that will bring his scene to life. Every scene should therefore require it's own approach and model. Having said that, I know that this is not what the thread is about. Fostering a better understanding of such a complex subject in the context of the Poser interface is commendable and I, for one, have learned something. Bravo, and please don't mind me. I only posted to let you know that someone was still monitoring this thread. Cheers, Q

I know you've done a global illumination based on a complete sphere. In the cases where 'below ground' does not need to be illuminated, would it be an idea to develop a lighting scheme in the top half of the sphere? This would reduce the number of lights. It would also be interesting to compare the lighting from some existing freebie lighting setups to a 'global illumination' setup for a figure and/or scenes. If say, out of 5 different scenes, global illumination worked well enough (almost as good as an indivually hand tweaked lighting setup), it may be useful as a general lighting setup for newbies ... like me :-) But if global illumination turned out to be the worst lighting in every case then it might be best left as a learning exercise in programming in python! :-)

quixote - Thank you very much! I see where the where an artist needs to "Write with Light." Every work needs to have its own character. I'm glad you're keeping tabs on my attempts to suppliment this belief with mathmatical basis'! FireHorse - That's really the half of choice here, but truthfully I'm not really sure where that is. I'd always thought the front of the Ligth Controls(0,0,0) was the front of the scene. But recently, while working at acquiring Set Rotation Formulae/Pythons, I've come to relaize that beliefe is off some, but I'm still not sure how this is. As I said to quixote I think Global Illumination makes for a wonderfull base. This way you really get some thing to start each scene off with! Then if we can get you rotating/coloring/dimming the set(s), with Pythons, we will have definatley accelerated the scene creation process! Unless your working with only 1 or 2...lights, for a very unique effect, I think your always want to see as much of the surface of each of you models as possible. THis is where Global Illumination is paramount. The differance between them being how much tweaking you a prepared to perform for the final render. Sometimes, for quick renders, the 4 sided model will blanket the surface smoothly/evenly enough. For a smoother and more consistant cover of a models surface you would want to use a set with more sources though. So there is room for expirimention from right within the mathmatical realm of the Global Sets via the relationship between intensity and source number! Well it happened folks. After installinf Win2KPro IIS, and not any patches or Virie protection, and even without having hosted a site yet, the Code Red Nimda disease took the life of my PC! I backed up as much as I could before I needed to FDISK and reformat my HD. Unfortunetly, not all of my Libraries made it to CD-R. I though I had backed up my lights sets, but this was not the case. I've contacted ockham about replacing some of what he has copies of, but I'm sure all of my die sets were lost. I'm going to start back up again tonight, but it might be a week, or so, before I post with any new die sets... = )

Sorry to hear about Code Red. I suppose you need to reinstall offline?!? ... turn off the server stuff ... Stick all the protection you've got before going back on the internet! ... Just thinking out loud, in between the regular lighting sets, there will be some lighting sets that are not regular whereby you might get an overlap e.g. placing lights at every 25 degrees or 15 degrees. These won't be totally symmetrical but ... if the new python program can handle it then it would give us some in between options rather than just going from 22.5 to 11.25 degrees ... a compromise on eveness of lighting and the number of lights required to achieve it. ... or a user can put in the number of lights wanted as some parameter and then the program could do it's best global lighting for the specified number of lights. Just some ideas :-)

I think 45 degrees is as close as you can come without overlapping. This posed a significant difficulty passing through Photoshop 7. I think sets in between at and total overlapping of the Light Control Sphere may not be lucrative. I just got some .PYs from Ockham today, I'll be going over them tomorrow. I know I forgot to mention this before, but the light set generator I mentioned in post#21 has a rhyme and reason to it. It only generates lights of a power. That is to say sets with 1(11,) 4(22,) 9(33,) 16(44,) etc. = )

I posted a free globalillumination lightset for poser a while ago. It uses the same principal as the bryce lightdomes only there are less lights. It's only 20kb. so don;t let the size stop you.

That was the first thing I DL'd when I became interested in this a few weeks ago, thanks! I just have one problem though, the set does'nt look uniform at all. Would you check the file being DL'd to make sure its what you intended people to use? I'm not saying I did'nt make any nice renders with it, but the Light Control U.I. looks a bit jumbly. = )

Ok I've just about recovered from that virus, but I'm rnning into the same problem. The more lights that are added the less attractive each point is! It is even more evident with the use of skin maps. Does anyone have any real advice? = )

This is really a huge drawback to Global Illumination, no matter how sound the geometry is. I'd at least like to venture as fgar as to learn why. You would'nt think more light would cause less visual stimulation. I think this is a major drawback to Poser 5! = )