Late, but can't wait for this one :-) Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening or whatever Dr. Geep!!

hey Doc, shine the light over here so i can see where I am walking. I wouldn't want to step on anyone here in the back.

Better late than never ... in here! Willy

Just a guess on the blank spotlights. Did you import the PZ3? Lights don't work when that is done. If you right click and open with, the PZ3 the lights will work.

Hi beryld, Thanks for that tidbit of insight. Ya lern sumthin' new everday here. One o' these days, I might actually lern howta use this dang software that them that knows call Poser. cheers, dr geep <----------- still lookin' for the "magic" ;=]

I'm going to be totally dedicated to this 'cos it is one area of Poser that I really have no clue about, and I don't care if it takes you 48 hours to finish the next one Doc. 8) Catlin

while i try to swallow all the new things in this tutorial (oh god, angle strat/angle end...), i just wanted to put down something that i wanted to post on previous light tutorial, but you said the class continues here... I write again some question I asked, and also to tell those I found answer during your explanations in the class. 1) total value of lights preventing a shadow to appear because sum is above the maximum possible. How can it be bypass using a global illumination set (for general purpose such as ligthing/improving a texture) yet having a visible direct ligthing too, that would make one true shadow. I still did not understood if it was possible and how. 2) Recommanded colors of lights to match with texures such as skin and preserve them or improve their look in render. I hope you can drop a few words about it too. I know it can have something to do with the color schema you displayed, with the interlinked primary colors giving out other colors (magenta, yellow, etc, and pure white at the intersection of all three); but doing so, therer is a risk of odd colors on the edges of a character (primary colors) and/or overexposed centerof the character... if you can drop a few hints and warnings about color combinations of lights regarding textures... would be nice 3) what is the "shadow camera" for ? I see many lightset making those shadow cam blossoming in my camera list. What the point ? 4) About intensity over 100% well page 8 answered part of my question, but would there be a risk that the character ligthed by the 200% intensity spot/light may look overexposed ? Anyway it partly answered it, but of course you then made me wonder about the effects of spotlight setting. Infinite lights usually not leave the scene to be so dark... In your example you had to blind neffie with 200% intensity light, but i guess a better compromise (lighting, dark etc) can be achieve with the special dial settings of a spotlights (dials that do not appear in infinite ones) such as starting/ending angle.. But i am sure you have an idea in mind and planned to explain this soon :) ------------- And now a new question, because the tutorial gone further and now we are about spot lights: a not too hard one: We saw that spotlight coudl change its 3 sizes (x, y and z) because for example, being parented to a prop/figure that would change its own sizes... And that it changes the behavior of the light... How exactly each size parameter affect the light the spot does cast ? I mean you have your spot positionned where you want in your scene, aiming in the direction you want. What will the x, y and z sizes of the spot change ? A harder one :( You noticed there was a new need for many people here to use again the (before) underlooked cartoon /w line mode. I saw that peomle dealing with stuff to be used with such mode made special light sets, and that the lines or the two color tone shades in this mode would be totally a waste using most standard/traditionnal lightsets desined for texured renders. I also saw that people in this used black or very dark gray spot/infinit lights that were lighting only edges or so of the figure. Can you maybe make a separate tutorial or a part devoted to the behavior of lights within cartoon and cartoon /w line modes ? and how it may be connected to material room settings (base/highlight/ambiant/reflection colors as we only are in p4 for now ) ??? I know it seems a complex and maybe offtopic matter but, well could you consider it ?

catlin: the really few and pityful tests i made before Doc's tutorial when i was trying to lern all alone taught me that poser light is both a plague and a savior. I mean, the light system is very strange compared to most 3d softwares, and it is so dissapointing (from the opinion of many) that most people export their poser scenes and render them in ANYTHING else rather than poser (well except a bunch of crazy asiate users that manage to make pure poser renders that really look good) on the other way, despite the fact it is very strange and slippery thing, the light system is most of the time the key to save, improve or change your picture beyond recognition. i once used a dull character body/head texture with dumb ligthing (close to defaults), to show a friend the difference, then with a smalllight setting i stumped on by mere luck. it was night and day ! I don't care how much time doc has to take for this tut, i'm in till the end

want a good news , geep ? i guess i believe i understood the angle start/end thing... (btw you explainign it to me and me understanding it finally, damn lazybrained boy i am, only manage to... rise new questions :) but i'll wait a bit before askign them (maybe i can push myself and answer them alone...) idea foer beginners (like me): could it be possible to create some kind of visual guide for light coners, with transparent cone props, parented to the spot ? I thought about it, but i do not see in the primitive cone settings a way to control angle, and my maths are rusted (10 years without practicing) so i need the formula to calculate the angle of a cone with it's base radius/size and its length. (and sure here your dr geep scale will eb handy !) hey, maybe it could be possible to make a python script or something, that can create a transparent cone prop parented to the spotlight and that would change according to angle start or end (one cone for each ?) dial of spot. i dunno if it is really an interesting idea at all or technically possible to do, but it could even be used (with transparency fallof and such) to "simulate" visible light ray in poser (yet it was one kind of question i wanted to ask: how to fake the light of the spot as visible into a render, see like if you have a projector/lightbulb in your scene or furniture, and want it to show brigther in the render. in fact it wouldbe a problem: simulate the light of anitem that is supposed to cast light. i mean take a lightbulb on a bed table. how can you have the scene to looks like it was lighted by the bulb ? means it would need countless of little spots in every directions ? or anything ? I know real 3d/raytrace softwares would be better for such task, but, in theory, could it be possible to do and how to try ? ... poor geep, he met the most damn annoying student ever :) sorry to put strain on you...

This is from a thread I saved when it came out. I couldn't find this post anymore and the thread appears to be different so I'm reposting kupas words in their entirity. I've run the spellchecker but that's all I've done to this post from Kupa - one of the the fathers of Poser. I tried to email it to the Doc but the Email has a 2000 character limit so I'm posting it here as supplemental material. I'm not trying to steal anyone's thunder. - I've got too much respect for the Doc to do that. FWIW, it talks about those shadowmap cameras. -----[Begin kupa quote]---------- 22. Re: Poser 5 REVEALED! by kupa on 8/21/02 13:08 Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com Rob, I'm glad to hear that you're working on creating your own light sets. I know that they aren't the easiest lights in the world to control but there are a few good solid tips that can make positioning and controlling them a lot easier. I personally really like using our lights and have found that they can be set-up really fast and with a few tweaks the results are great. I guess folks like Gabriel have also had good luck building creative and useful lights. Glad we didn't change the system, that would've have hit artists like him pretty hard, and would have switched horses midstream on folks like you that are getting their feet wet is learning about lighting. One the really important issue to master is learning when to use infinite lights versus spotlights. Spotlights yield much more precise shadow maps. In Pro Pack, a feature carried forward into Poser 5, we have a unique camera type called a "shadowmap camera 1,2,3".. etc. By selecting these cameras and viewing through them, you can precisely focus the spotlight and shadow fall exactly where you need it. Plus by zooming in or closing the angle down, you can bring up the fidelity of the shadowmap by spreading it across a smaller surface. Controlling the camera and lights jointly, by viewing through the camera and dialing in the light's parameters takes a little practice, but what good skill doesn't? A curve ball when it comes to spotlights and the shadowmap cameras? If the spot light is set to point at an object. The light will behave differently as you are "driving it" via the shadowmap camera. Another good technique to remember is to set-up an auxiliary camera to provide a high or wide view of the whole scene. Then you can easily switch to that view and manually grab the visible spotlight and drag it anywhere in the scene, positioning it very quickly, and finetuning the shadow via the shadowmap cam. Don't forget to turn up the shadow map settings to get better shadow resolution. 1024 is the max setting, 256 is the default for any light. Be aware though, speed decreases with larger shadow maps. Another good tip? Not all shadows need to be set at their full default value. Turning them down to .5 or .2 can subtlely or radically change the amount of detail preserved in the shadow areas of your scene. Plus in Poser 5 we are also enabling the use of Raytraced shadows on a per light basis. Raytraced shadows in P5 can be set with a few pixels of blur at their edge, but personally I'm more a fan of realistic soft shadows. Raytraced shadows are something that lots of artists have come to accept when using raytracers like those in Bryce. They can produce a luscious image, but the shadows aren't very realistic. Our eyes are trained to forgive that, but the fact still remains, raytraced shadows typically don't look like any real world shadow. I use infinite lights when I'm quickly illuminating a scene and don't need that much precision. Infinite lights do a good job with provide a soft ambient light source. They can be controlled with the shadowmap cameras, as well to fine tune their focus point. Another really important point to remember that lots of Poser gurus seem to not do, and to be honest it's surprising, is "memorizing" an element. What memorizing a light will do is save that light, in it's current state, with every parameter permanently ascribed to that light. That way when you reset the light, it goes back to your memorized position, not our default setting. Like a light? Memorize the element, and save it into the library. The memorizing trick is especially important for props that require a world position to work correctly, like hair, or for a set of parameters in a character that define that character, like nose and eye width. If you get into a bad state and need to hit reset for that memorized character, it'll revert back to it's memorized state, leaving your character morphs intact. Anyway, just wanted to share some comments about lights and Poser. Kupa

Can the Studio Prop from LCA1 be downloaded from same page? I wasn't using poser when the studio was done and would like to use it in these lessons, without wasting time to make it. The same question goes for other Dr. Geep's props like: spotlight, camera, rulers, etc. Alberto Mexico City

Memorize is the best thing going. 'Memorize All' includes everything in the window + lights, cameras, etc. I use it most when using poses. Default, Pose, revert to default pose, Pose again. All day long :-) About lights... I've got just about every light set made. Years ago, Lady Veth posted her light setup. 3 lights - Black, Grey, White. It's the truest light set up i've ever used. I've used it for 3 years now. Not even Global Illumination is as clean as her set.

I hope we are going to have a little more on dist start and dist end values. I don't really understand this part. What, exactly, is the parameter referring to? What is the difference between these and the angle_start and angle_end? scratching head

Karen, I wasn't, but I will. How about some detailed examples? Thanks for for input. cheers, dr geep ;=]

Some detailed examples would be perfect, doc. Thank you. Your previous tuts have helped me understand the angle-start and end (and so much clearer than the manual! LOL) but this part definitely has me confused!

i understood he angle thing, but the distance thing i still do not catch

Pssst! [passing a note from the back row] If you were to consider the Angle Start and Angle End as defining the width of the falloff cones, then think of Dist Start and Dist End as defining the length (or height) of the falloff cone. A spotlight is full strength from the source until it reaches the distance outward from the light that is set in "Dist Start". From that distance onward, it then begins to diminish in intensity until it reaches zero intensity at the distance set in "Dist End".

Um, page numbers go 6, 8, 10, 11, 16. Am I missing something here?

No, that's Dr Geep's "new" page numbering system. NatSayGuy gave it to the Doc. ;=]

Gee, this way we can have 500 page tutorials that we can work through in ten minutes. Yay!!!!

Yup, the next pages will be ... 19, 27, 56, 158, 236, 418, and 507 <--- last page. (but, not necessarily in that order) Stay tuned for 'em. ;=]

numanoid,

re: "Um, page numbers go 6, 8, 10, 11, 16.
Am I missing something here? "

(Actually, what I should have said ...)

Yes, pages 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

But, I didn't want to be a smart@$$.

Ok?

;=]

Yes! I finally get it! Thanks so much, Doc! (Ya know, if CL had called those dials "fall-off" dials, as in most other graphics apps, then maybe I would have got this a lot sooner! LOL)

That was really enlighting! I think, now I got the angle thingie. Turned those dials from time to time, but didn't understand what they did and got usable results only by accident. Thanks a lot, Dr. Geep.

Those numbers aren't in a fibonacci sequence, either... but I bet there's some code going on!

Code it be possible?

It code be.

But is it?

Stay tuned ...

You will find the next exciting(?) episode ... " +++ DG#061 +++ Make A "Grid Graf" +++ " ... if you click HERE. cheers, dr geep ;=] P.S. I just can't wait for all the " ... obligatory pandering ... " Can you? ;=]

We'll just have to bear with the pandering. ;) Or is pandering... a panoramic rendering of a bare polarity?* Or maybe Russian bears waltz, while chinese bears do circle danes? Carolly *similar to naked singularity, but there are two of them!

bookmrk

hmm sorry to interrupt, but each time a class/tutorial is "closed" by a link to another one, but what abotu the questions asked/risen for each class that still had no reply ? i know Mr. eep is very busy and he is already kind to teach us all because that take time, but well, there were questions i would really have like to hear about fromhim...

BTW - Who is Mr. eep? I don't believe I've met him. ;=]

hmm i reedited them in anotehr reply after wards, and saying you answered some with your other pictures/explanations, but there were still some unclear to me. plus i asked more (yes, greedy student i am) in the course of this spotlight class replies/messages 59 and 62 of this class here... (wont quote/rewrite them, it is just above :) mr eep is mister geep when my fingers ahce me and i have hard time typing correctly at the kayboard (old one was trashed, bought a new one but strokes are much harder...)