OK, I have all the bits and pieces to assemble my first fairly complex Poser scene (and *finally* have my FTP working so I can upload stuff)... just one small problem. I was putting together the scenery and doing test renders when I noticed I wasn't getting any shadows. Help?

The room is part of Murgol's flat, the lights are a set of four spots at a scale height of about 30-odd feet, shining down and set to point at an invisible object just above ceiling height. I'm fairly sure all lights and objects are visible and have "cast shadows" set. Does anyone know what could be wrong?

FWIW, I'm using Poser 4.0.3 in Win98.

Aargh... my uploaded pic isn't showing up at the top of this thread. Am I supposed to just enter the URL in the "attach file" box below, or what? The file has been uploaded to my website.

I need a holiday... wait, I am on holiday...

Never mind, I figured it out...

Same questions as in the post at the top of the thread, then...

Check your list of Cameras. If you do not have "shadowcams" you won't get any shadows. If they are missing ... delete the lights and create new lights. cheers, dr geep ;=]

BTW - thassa nice pic. ;=]

Also, make sure your walls and floors are not set to cast shadows.

Many thanks to the good Doctor for the tip -- I'll check that as soon as I get offline. What do these shadowcams do, anyway? Is it covered in one of your tutorials I haven't had time to check out yet?

BTW, that pic is just half the size of the full render. Wait a bit and you'll see who I'm putting in the middle of the scene. =)

You can see the view by switching to the shadowcam but don't try and render using it. It is what Poser uses to "see" where the shadow will be located in a render. Looking forward to your next pic ... who in the middle? ... is it St Nick? ;=]

OK, I now have most (but for some reason not quite all) objects casting shadows... I've tweaked the lights so the room and contents are properly lit without washing out the tops of the walls... nearly done... =)

No, it's not the fat guy in red -- it's too late for Newton's Birthday, but the lazy slob in the pic hasn't cleared away the tree yet. This will be a New Year's one.

Eesh... when this is over I'll have to hunt out tutorials for properly parenting bits of object to combine into one prop -- I'm getting it done, but I'm sure I'm not doing it the right way...

"... bits of object to combine into one prop ..." Why not ... Just use Doc Geep's "glue." cheers, dr geep ;=]

Re shadow cams - Here's an extract from the Help File for one of my products which will give you the basic idea. 'The lighting sets included with this pack are set to very wide tolerances, usually to include an entire wall. If you're only seeing part of a wall in your scene, you can use the shadow cameras in poser to get higher-quality shadows. A shadow camera shows you what the light 'sees', and the shadow you get in a render will be made based upon this view. The general rule with shadow cams is to zoom in on your figure in the shadow cam view, and center it in the frame. There are 2 ways to adjust the shadow cam. One is to use the dials on the camera itself. The other is to first select the camera view, then select the light and use it's dials. Adjusting the light's parameters will change the shadow cam view, and the shadow quality in the final render. Try this experiment. Go to the camera menu below the document window, and select the correct shadow camera (the one for the light casting the main shadow). You will see a highly distorted view of your scene. Use the zoom and pan dials to center the main figure in the scene and fill the frame with it. Then go back to your main view and render the scene. You'll notice an immediate difference in the shadows. They become much crisper and more detailed.' mac

Note that Mac's tips only work (well) with spotlights. The shadow cams work differently with infinite lights. It helps (in both cases) to disable shadows on objects like floors, etc. that don't need to cast a shadow anyway... particularly very large (or deep into the scene) objects.

Ahah... thanks for the tip, Spanki. Didn't know that.

Well, the final (maybe) render has just been posted -- and I finally know now how to attach a pic properly -- so I'm sure you'll all tell me just where I went wrong.