I was quite happy with the DNA Sunlights I used in this pic, but I know in bright sunlight with snow, there are quite sharp ground shadows. I tried turning ground shadows on, but the didn't seem to cast right and they looked too "starkly gray". Any suggestions to get more realistic ground shadows? Thanks...

You need to increase the 'Shadow' value of the lights. Look in the parameter dials and see what it's set at. A value of 1.000 will give you hard shadows. mac PS I'm assuming 'cast shadows' is actually switched on for the figure and lights, right?

And if that still isn't strong enough shadows, click on the Shadowcam for each light (found under Cameras, below the working window) and zoom them in until the area where you want shadows (the snow, in this case) fills the Shadowcam's viewfinder. It's easy to do and makes an immediate difference in the strength of your shadows :)

You can also overload the Shadow value for the light ie set it to 1.5 or 2. This makes the shadow stronger. It also allows you to use a rather dull light but have it cast a much stronger shadow.

Your other problem is that shadows on sunlit snow are not grey. They are purplish-blueish in hue, depending upon the time of day and amount and color of overcast/clouds. Get your shadows to the right strength, then colorize and adjust hue in postwork. Carolly

Where do you get that outfit & the skis?????? TIA - Debby

As to "Ground Shadows", they will not show at all in a rendered image, they are only meant as an aid to positioning in preview mode. Another factor to concidder is Shadow Map size, a larger map will give better defined edges to the shadows.

And many of us could have saved the nasty wear and tear on our typing fingers (all two of them in hauksdottir's case ;) by just referring Cyhiraeth to do a search on 'Geep' and look for the cool illustrated tutorial on Poser Lights....

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will be experimenting with them and will post my attempts ;-) I'll check out Geep's tut also....by the way, whatever happened to him? The jacket is Vicki's combat jacket from Poserworld - my texture. The pants are the V2 catsuit, my texture, and the skis and poles are from Evanara, my texture :-). Oh, and the ski boots are a reworked version of the rollerblade from 3d Cafe, which they have given me permission to distribute in free stuff, so just as soon as I get the darn things so they texture right (I did something funky and had to monkey around to get them to work right) I will have them up in free stuff.

Well, I increased the shadow value to 1.000 and the map size to 1024, checked out Geep's tut (there is a lot there I will have to digest), but I still don't understand how I can get her shadow to be cast on the ground. I have "cast shadows" turned on in render options.

if the snow is a background pic, forget it. If its a ground plane, bring it right up the bottom of the left ski and see if that helps.

Rats, it's a background pic. Well, maybe I can work some magic in postwork. Thanks anyway....

There's a tutorial somewhere on making shadows with postwork using a background picture, but d'oh I forgot where I put it... :( I't deals with making a render without the background then intergrating the two in postwork. Maybe somone else knows the tut I'm talking about and is kind enough to post it. If you have a Platinum membership at DAZ though, I can sugest looking into getting the Cyclorama, it works wonders on scenes like this. ;) Cheers, Axe.