I'm having trouble seeing in the preview window even though I have a lot of lights. If I load spotlights I can see but with infinite it is dark. Compare the area render in the pic. I have tried HW & SW openGL and Scree (?) for preview but it doesn't make much difference. I know I have an older graphics card (update v1.1) and I can't find any Mac drivers on the Nvidia site. Does anyone know if there are any?

Are any PC people having this trouble?

Apple does the drivers themselves and they are released with the OS updates. I believe the last big update that Apple done was mostly drivers and improved OpenGL. Nevermind, I see your OS now. I was going to say it was because of the OpenGL preview because Daz|Studio does the same thing. Turn up the lights so you can see and you end up flooding your render when you are done. Sorry I could not be of any help. I purchased Poser6 for my PC and not my Mac so I cannot see if it does the same for me, that and I have not recieved it yet. I think it may be you video card though. The MX lines are not that great and I know it is almost imposible to find a Mac video card for a descent price. I have a whole rant on Mac video cards if you ever want to hear it sometime. Hope someone can help you out, maybe a PC user that has a similar card on hand or installed.

Daz studio has the same problem between OPENGL and the software renderer. I could never find a solution to it.

The preview also may not include all the features of the full render - so you may get extra ambient or specular light from the latter, lightening the image. Again, that's true in D|S.

If you are using the AltDiffuse node for part of your trextures it is not shown in the preview window. Ambient settings may not be represents the same in preview as a render. Good grief! delete all those lights and use the IBL/AO lighting. Your scene will render in a fraction of the time. (And probably look better) Nerd3D

I'm sorry but I don't understand what AltDiffuse node is. I just jumped from P4 to P6 and I am so lost! So I wanted to try it right away without reading the whole damn manual first. ;-) I bought a P5 only set, DesignerLivingRoom, from Ratracer at RMP so I could just install and render - at least that's what I thought. The light set and cameras came with the product so it should work shouldn't it?

It does render lighter as in the area render above. It's just that it's too dark to see in the preview. I'll try some other lights as you suggested also.

In the Material room switch to the "Advanced" tab.
Look how each material is seup. The attached image shows a Toon shader setup on the Alt-Diffuce node. If your scene is using materials connected to the Alt Diffuce node. First connect the node to the diffuce node and set the color for the diffuse node the same as the alt-diffuse.

Set the value of the diffise node to 0.000

HOW?

To connect the shader (Probably an image map for you) to the diffuse node. Drag the "plug" (top left of the shader node) in the shader to the "socket" for the diffuse on the root node. (Root node: says Poser Surface at the top)

To set the color click the little color swatch on the node and the color picker will open. click on the screen any where that has the color you want (The alt diffuse node color swatch in this case)

To set the value of the diffuse node click the "Diffuse Value" where the numbers are displayed. type in "0" and hit enter. P.S. you will probably need to do this for all the materials in the set. Once you've made the changes be sure to save the modified setup.

Message edited on: 03/23/2005 18:43