Of course this may be total nonsense, but I was wondering... How does Poser 4 do lights. I mean, when I point a light at a surface, and render, it brightens the mesh according to the settings I gave the light. Er, well put in non tech terms. Anyhow, hang with me, it would seem to me that a python script could be written that would allow you to assign this brightening effect (of the light principle) to an object. For example, I have a ball prop and I want it to glow, like it would if I pointed a light at it. Maybe this is sort of what the ambient material setting does in a way, but since I am rambling anyhow and just tossing this out for thought... Wouldn't it be cool to select a prop or figure and run a python and the object would light up just as if you had lights pointed at it from all sides, or one side, or whatever the settings you gave it. But nothing else in the scene would be effected. Unlike a light shined in a scene at everything in its path, nothing else would get lit up. Just the object. You can have no lights in the scene, and the object itself would be lit. Okay, if any of you Poser Genius out there can figure out what I am saying, and better still can figure out a way of actually making it work, that would be fantastic. Okay, well maybe fantastic is a bit over the top, but I think it would be cool to see - and I think it is doable. Though that is the advantage of not really having a clue what you are talking about. :O)

it is do-able...at least in other programs..what you need is a better set of options to set for the light,so you can define what objects it affects...a setting i think poser lacks..at least i haven't seen it..poser's lighting is actually fairly primitive in comparison to most prog's.in most other 3d programs you can just tell a light to affect this or that or exclude this or that object and there you go...it does seem simple enough but i don't know how or if you could implement it in poser...it seems like it should be simple,and i could be wrong,but i bet it's not,something tells me you're going to run into poser's hard coded lighting model

If you guys find the answer please let me know, I think this would be brilliant. 8)

I wanna know to.

Interesting idea. I'm not a lighting expert, but after a bit of experimentation: Setting the ambient to white does make an object "glow". If it has a texture, that texture will also show up; if no texture, the main color is irrelevant and the object is just flat white, sort of empty-looking. In this image, both balls have white ambient. The left ball actually has a dark blue main color, but the white ambient wipes it out. The right ball has a random orange-ish texture applied, which shows up equally well with lights gone. So, an easy Python solution might go like this: 1. Give the selected object a white ambient. 2. If it has a texture, leave that in place. 3. If it doesn't own a texture, turn its main color into a temporary texture BMP and apply that tex. This would not make any highlights or reflections; the object would be diffusely lit (matte) from all views. I don't see any way to set up highlights and reflections without, as Rodzilla says, digging into Poser's underlying render code.

I'll bet P. C. Bos could solve this completely, if he hasn't already! He seems to have the key to Poser's lighting innards.

To all who commented, thanks for the interest. To ockman, interesting test. In the past I have played around with the ambient material settings and that does make it possible to get some neat effects, but I would hope someone could still make this work like the lights do. That way you can have shadow effect and all the other cool effects of lighting, but just applied to that one object. Not familiar with P.C. Bos, but my hat is off to anyone who truly understand Poser lighting. :O)

P. C. Bos is the author of the "Environment Creator" scripts, in the Marketplace. You might take a look at the details of those items; it's possible that he has already included your effect. Or you could email him; he doesn't seem to visit this forum.

Attached Link: http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/probelight.html

try the Probelight node....it makes things glow without any lighting pointed at em....pretty kewl effect that came with SR3 for PC...plug it into the Alternate_Diffuse Channel and turn off all of your lights.....heres a more detailed tutorial....

Ockham, thanks I will check him out. Biggert, sounds interesting, on my way to view the link. Thanks! :O)

aight man....post some renders....

Is a python script available, which makes it possible to add a probelight node (or any other single node for that matter) to one (or all) materials in a figure without disturbing the existing nodes?

I'm beginning to think that this is way over my head, but I'm hoping that if I hang around here long enough the LIGHT will penetrate my little grey cells. 8) (pun unavoidable, sorry) Catlin

bm

hmm... Magical effects, anybody? Odd alien glows?

I am confused... what exatcly is it that this would give yout hat the P5 renderer can't already do for you?

soulhuntre, you may be right, P5 may be able to do more than I am aware. I was making reference mainly to P4 lighting, since I used Pro Pack most. I have had problems in using P5, and while I think it has great potential, it mostly gives me hours of frustration rather than enjoyment. Hopefully as I get more familiar with using it, this will change.

Wow, my spelling sucked :) No problem, I am just trying to understand. It seems that a map in the ambient channel would let you control the lighting extremely well for what you want. Sorry to hear your having trouble with P5, but if your looking to do advanced lighting you may want to try it again.

Oh, I am not giving up. I just do not have as much time as I would like to devote to learning P5, so getting all those nodes and what not figured out has been slow going. Thanks for the comments/encouragement. Rob