I have a scene where an off camera figure casts a shadow into the room. Easy right? One figure, one light behind the figure, one camera in front of the figure looking into the room. The top view clearly shows the figure and the shadow extending into the room. The posing camera only shows the light, no shadow. Basically, if the figure cannot be seen, then neither can the shadow. When I put the camera peeking over the shoulder, only the shoulder and side of the head casts a shadow. The parts of the body not visible do not cast a shadow. I have poser5. I unchecked "eliminate backface polygons". These are production, not draft, renders. I am using the firefly engine. I am out of ideas. Suggestions are welcome. Even snide remarks if they contain a clue. Sincerely, VVagnerTheUndead

I'll bet that this has to do with the render engine clipping. The standard procedure is to remove objects from render consideration if they are outside of the "view frustrum" or, in layperson's terms, outside of the camera's view. The same is then done for polygons of objects partially within view. In Poser, I don't know if there is a way to tell it to render these objects/polygons whether or not they are outside of the camera view. Your best course (although longest wait) may be to bring this up with the fine folks at Curious Labs. They would know the most about how the rendering engine works. Couldn't think of any snide remarks. Sorry! ;0) Kuroyume

You might try making your adjustments using the shadocam.

shadocam - shadowcam

Are you useing the firefly renderer? The Poser 4 renderer is terrable with shadows. I've sat and worked till I was happy. Then if you add an object or make a change all the shadows change. I blame this on "Shadow Maps". If you are useing the poser 4 renderer it probly doesn't bother to render the map for out of view stuff. I figure the ray-trace renderer in poser 5 would work though.

Definitely try adjusting the shadowCam for the light which is striking your off-camera figure. You might have to zoom it to include all the objects that should be in its shadow. Also you might need to increase the map size to at least 512 and increase the shadow strength to somewhere above 0.8, but try the shadow cam first. After adjusting the shadow cam be sure to LOCK it, otherwise Poser might try to re-frame it for your scene.

Had the same problem - one solution: export your shadow figure as an object and reload it. This worked for me. Apparently P5 renders props from outside but not figures.

Interesting solution, MungoPark! :)

yep, a very handy bit of information -- thanks!

Ok, Lots to think about, lets see if I understand; 1) Assign or adjust a shadowcam to match the backlight for the figure. 2) Export the posed figure as a prop and bring it back in, since that would change how it is rendered. 3) Adjust the shadowmap to 512 and the strength to 0.8. 4) When satisfied, lock it. 5) Call CuriousLabs? When I have all this help? Only if I identify a major flaw that noone else has found first! I will let you know which one works. P.S. This is my third posting for help and every time I have received useful suggestions i.e. they worked. Sincerely, VVagnerTheUndead

So many choices to choose from! ;) Per "Call CuriousLabs", it wouldn't be a "major flaw", just a p.i.t.a.. As I said, this is standard procedure for most rendering engines. How they handle shadows from out-of-view objects in such circumstances depends on the renderer.