I've never posted a question in the forum. I've answered a lot of them tho. Let me first thank to all that response. I've started using poser about a year and a half ago. I am still in learning mode. Lately I've gotten more time to explore Poser 4, and I was playing with lights. I started this pic as a pure poser render and want to stay that way. I know it's hard for I started with 2d graphics 8 yrs ago, and the tendency to do post work is hard to avoid. But this time I want to challenge myself to do a pure poser render. Enough chit chat.

Here is my dilemma:
I use 4 lights for this render. One light source is from the FLAMES in the BACK of the character (I use a orange color infinite 80% intensity light). The skin and prop received the lights/highlights alright, but no matter what i do I couldn't get the hair to get the highlights. I've included a picture to illustrate what i am trying to achieve.
Any ideas?

JV :D

What kind of hair is it? And can you post a screenshot of the material room setup for the hair, that might help :)

Thanks Karen. It's Kozaburo's long hair. BTW I am using Poser 4 Pro. JV

some "experiments" I might try: - add spot light with a reduced 'distance angle' pointing at the area you want to add the highlight from an obilique angle. - might also try changing you ambient setting to a dark grey. This will effect the rest of your hair but I find that off black catches highlights a bit more.

Oh shoot, I haven't got P4 installed any more. Hmmm, well have you tried putting a spot directly onto the hair and see if it then gives highlights? That would indicate whether it's a question of material settings or of light positioning. Also have you tried tweaking the highlight size? In the render you posted, it looks to me like the flame light is not in a position to be casting highlights in the place you expect them to appear. It looks as if it's off to the model's left, and therefore can't cast light through to the right of the hair. Is that the light you're expecting to cast highlights, or is there another one?

I don't think it is possible in P4 becouse highlights don't work with transparency. That is the reason all Poser transmaped hair has textures with painted highlights. But as you noticed, it will look fake in non standard lightnig situations. In P5 I had some sucsess by using the transparency map (or the Texture map)as specularity map (and no texture with painted highlights). But for really good results we would need hait with specialy made specularity maps, in contrast to transparency maps they should have a more or lees uniform density over the whole length of the hair. It is on my very long list of things to try if I find the time. Stefan

That's a good idea, somebody at another forum also suggested that. I tried it in P5 with a alternate specular. It did a tiny bit of "highlights" on it, but not to my satisfaction (they are not on the right places.) When I rendered using firefly, it came out horribly. I lost some lighting effects from the other lights. Then I tried to using P4 rendering and it came out a little bit better, but some of the light are "muted". I guess I have to go back to P4. I also tried the spot light suggestion and played around with the ambien color. The only thing I got out of it is the hair color being changed to brown. Not the effect I was looking for. So I guess a few minutes of postwork could take care of all this trouble. Sometimes I really wonder if all these fiddling is worth it. I think this little experiment is getting out of hand. Thank you for all your input. JV :D

I hear you JV! There comes a point when you just have to move on! :-)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1374245

Concerning highlights and transparencies in Poser 4 you might want to have a look at this :)