this is perhaps an idiotic question, but.... Let's say I have a 20 second digital video shot in the form of 600 TIFF images in a folder. It's a dolly along a path in the woods that goes from dark to an open meadow filled with sun and back to dim forest which I shot with a good digital camcorder. I want to animate James walking along looking for heffalumps... Can I light James with IBL in an automated way? I don't even know the mechanism for telling Poser the image to use to reference when lighting a frame (waiting for TheBox)and I realize the referrence image does not need to be literally exact as the background image...but wouldn't that be the ideal? Do you have to manually indicate the reference file for each frame of an animation? ::::: Opera :::::

Hmmm. Maybe I'm not fully understanding what you are wanting to do here, Opera, but couldn't you just turn the 600 images into an AVI and use a movie node to provide IBL from the animation?

is that how you do it? I didn't know you could feed a movie into the IBL mechanism. So if I attach a 600 frame AVI into a 600 frame pz3, Poser will light each frame of it's animation with a corresponding frame of the the AVI? ::::: Opera :::::

"is that how you do it? I didn't know you could feed a movie into the IBL mechanism." From what I understand, you can use just about anything as an IBL mechanism. From still images, to movies, to animated procedural textures. I haven't tried all of these meathods yet (I've been converting my HDRI probes to .jpg and using those), but I'm pretty certain it will work. "So if I attach a 600 frame AVI into a 600 frame pz3, Poser will light each frame of it's animation with a corresponding frame of the the AVI" That's the idea, yes. You may have to add and animate a few extra point or spot lights seperately to produce specularity, etc., but it should work. You can even make it more convincing by using a "forest" light gel on a different light, to simulate the shadows of leaves in the forest canopy on your character. With some creative forethought, you can pull it off quite convincingly. I personally haven't tried adding an animation or movie file as an IBL yet, but again... it SHOULD work as planned. I'll try it out when I have some extra time.

Wow! The mind boggles at what we have the potential to creat with P6!!! Heck even P5 has a million features I've yet to discover!!! Thanks to both you guys for yet another eye opener about Poser!!! Later!! G

maxxxmodelz on 3/27/05 10:34 Opera, but couldn't you just turn the 600 images into an AVI and use a movie node to provide IBL from the animation? you know? you can use an AVI node to provide the same light as in the background video, and you have to export the frames as still images for the best quality. use hsv node for the IBL and plug in the movie node and set the saturation to minimum but not total to grey, this way you will get real soft shadows + the color light that come from the movie, think about the IBL Contrast and set from 3.0 to 0.9 success :) and I tested it , it works fantastic!!! Cath

Oh FedEx don't fail me now.... Bring my box to me! ::::: Opera :::::

I have little clue whether my attempts at AO & IBL are looking the way they should... I think they look better than my P5 renders of course but I suppose what I'm wondering is if I'm heading in the right direction! Please critique this for me if you don't mind??? Purty Please?? p.s. don't look at the rest of my gallery... Especially you Opera... It stands for every reason that you don't like V3!!!! LOL!!! Thanks you guys (and lady)!!! I love reading any and every post from you three... always inciteful, informative & educational!! Of all the regular posters I think you three totally have all the bases covered with what to expect with P6!!! Gerard

Gerard Very nice light and soft shadows! I can't say anything negative to this render, the AO is nice and soft... you got the right proporties. if you wan to get it little more Model Look like a photo try to use a little bit warm color by the IBL AO , it is my own taste only! the IBL AO colors are very sensitive, but this help to match the all textures together to get one total image. Cath

very fine, I like the lighting. The pose...she shows life in the partial motion of her feet and hand gesture. Great that she is looking at the camera sideways... Can you give length of render? If not hours and hours...maybe you could go for sharper image...note how ground plane has lines thru it...unless that was your intention it leads me to believe you might take it to the next level by reducing the minimum shading rate and upping the sampling. What are the settings on this render? Yes, you will jack up the render time, but it might be an interesting experiment and the scene is fine enough to deserve it. ::::: Opera :::::

Thank you Cath & Opera... I just used the auto settings as above, it took about half an hour to render at 1600X1200. I'll do what you suggested Opera and we'll see what happens. I've not really messed with shadow or render settings for a while now (lazy I suppose) but I know that offers fantasic results! Thanks for the reminder!! G

hmmm without texture filtering textures still looks very sharp, good work Gerard Cath

Here's with the adjusted settings... took 49 minutes to render, again at 1600X1200. The ground plane still has the lines... I think it may be the prop itself. There's an incredibly good chance I'm wrong though. Pic next post. Thanks again!! Gerard

New render... Hmmmmmmmmm......

Should have done a side by side shot...

well.....your lines are sharper! I don't know what's causing them. Frankly, I do think the second render looks better but to the casual glance no one would notice, perhaps. The resolution of detail on her face is better in (2). how much longer did the render take? ::::: Opera :::::

Only in 19 minutes longer... I'm going to experiment some more, perhaps try animating with similar settings. Thanks so much for the input and advice!! Gerard

Hi, I advice to use no more than 5 pixel samles with a sync post filter of 2 pixels. It will give you a much nicer image. Though for final release the max pixel samle is adviced. david