I don't know what im doing wrong, but when i render even though i have ground shadows on in the display mode and choose cast shadows in the render menu, i always lose the ground shadows which really dtracts from the finished product..help please

You'll also need to enable shadows on one or more lights, and something to cast the shadows onto (the ground plane, a wall, etc.).

...and if that doesn't do it, turn off Cast Shadows on the ground plane and/or zoom in the light's ShadowCam on the objects that you want to cast shadows. Poser's Shadow Maps are generated from the view from each light's ShadowCam. If they are zoomed out too far, the shadowmap's antialiasing will blur out the shadows on objects that appear too small in the ShadowCam's field of view.

also, this might sound obvious, but make sure you have something for the shadows to fall on, like a backdrop and you might try and actual floor prop... and like the others said check the properties of your lights, and make sure the spot lights you have are actually pointing where you want, if not try moving their x, y, z rotations and translations, and you can set lights to 'point at' certain body parts or props (go to object 'point at' and select from menu)..... Make sure that they are not too close or behind your character.. Theres quite a bit to learn about the lights, as there maps size and shadow strength can make a big difference! :) Basically its just a lot of fiddling around and testing and trying out things to get the desired effect :) Have Fun -SimderZ-

You want the shadows you normally see below the figures? Then you need to put a light overhead to cast them... The display shadows are just guides for posing, and are not real shadows, so they are not seen in a render.

And you might want to do a search for Dr. Geep's tutorial on lights and shadows--he has one series of pictures rendered at all sorts of different settings, so that you can look at the ways your settings influence the shadows that you are going to get. The subject can quickly get really complex, so pick one or two things to experiment with and try not to get too overwhelmed! There's been a huge improvement in my shadows just by selecting each shadowcam and zooming in (as mentioned above in message 3). Good luck :)