Hi, Robo. Specular lights are easy really. Just go into the material room, select the light you want to be specular only, and do one of two things: Either make the diffuse color for that light 100% black (it's usually white by default), or press the "Set Up Light Style" wacro button to the right of your mat room panel (under Wacros), and choose "specular only" as the light style. For the diffuse IBL light, there's really no need to mess with Angle Start/End, since the IBL covers your entire scene 360 degrees all around. Angle Start/End is used for spotlights, and adjusts the angle of the "light cone" that they emit. I don't think the angle on spots ever actually exceeds 180 degrees, even though you can put any integer you want there.

I dunno. Been rendering so many times. I am unable to notice if this looks ok. I took a Digital photo of the sky, and used it as a IBL AO, and set at the very top. 3 other lights, for a total of 4. Lots of adjusting for each. Also adjusting render settings. Had one close to this, and when I turned my back, I found my computer rebooted. Gees....WHY!! I have a powerfull computer! Did a lot of reading while rendering. My brain is over loading. Will do other characters with same lighting, and a close up. See if any difference.

Message edited on: 08/25/2005 17:59

Here is a close up view with the exact same light settings. Dunno why the eye lashes look like that. Trying other figure.

Attached Link: http://www.e-frontier.com/article/view/1406/1/323/

For the eyelash problem: take a look at the link above, and scroll down a bit. You'll see that eFrontier recommends turning on Texture Filtering to correct the "gunky eyelash" problem in close renders like that.

Lowering the shading rate might help too. By default, it's set to 0.2 on every object, lower it to 0.05 on the eyelashes and the hair (object properties), then set minimum shading rate to 0.05 in the Render Settings dialog (manual settings).

Kinda figured had to do with my render settings..thanks a lot guys.. :-) I am on a role over here.

Sorry if I am to repeat anything someone has said, I didn't get thru the whole thread. I made the Akiko texture in the original render. It does take an aweful lot of work to get something to look real. I gave up on Poser's rendering engine a few years ago when I saw what Cinema 4D could do. Now I can light scenes with a picture I've taken of a garden ball and light a scene with that picture mapped on a sphere. Lighting is so important to a scene but without any postwork (IMHO) it just is impossible to make something look totally real...at least with Poser. Anyway take a look at this picture (more can be found @ www.expressionimage.com. This picture, ignore copyright here, this couldn't become a sold piece without the permission of the photographer since I am using this photo but it was basically for the challenge to see if I could do it. So basically the point I'm making is if you look close enough after all this work you can still see or recognize the 3d even after all the work put in. We're close but may have to become God before we're there. Lights, Shadows, and the interaction between the environment, they are in all help but you know this because you see it everyday, it's just taking notice and putting into practice, what the natural world teaches you and simulating that quality in the computer.

What I failed to mention was that I used the original photo as a template for my render. So the knee bends would look right etc. etc. It took hours to get every part to match the real person below. Natural humans are the hardest to make real because we do see them everyday. I know this was said already but it's very true.

Attached Link: http://www.panoscan.com/PanoPress/2005Press/Lemony/LemonySnicket.html

***"We're close but may have to become God before we're there."*** Do you mean just us Poser users, or CG world in general? High end CG is VERY close. In fact, they actually pulled it off in the movie "Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events". ILM did shots of the character "Sunny" entirely in CG, and the composite of the CG vs. real were downright invisible to the audience.

yea, I guess sometime it can happen. You're right. But at least with the DAZ folk, and Poser, and what is at our disposal we do have to do a lot of work to get us there.

Yup...I lowered my shading rate to 0.05 and did the job. Image shown. I am realizing that the light setup I am making here on this one figure, doesn't do so well on another. Same lighting, render settings. very Odd..

I'm sorry to say Robo, I think the figure still has a fair dose of Poser self-tanning. So many textures for Northern European have this dark beige/orange look which it too even anyway. I must desaturate and lighten almost all my textures except some of the new freckled and blond textures for V3 in the Market Place which are nice and pale. I don't know why the tradion of the "Poser Tan" is so persistant. Many Afro-textures around are ashy rather than light coffee, warm brown, or rich chocolate or blue black. Usually skin of the darker European look has an olive rather than this orange cast. Also some subtle work with blue helps with the illusion of blood vessles esp. around the eyes where the skin is thin. Also the ears tend to be a cool redish rather than an orangy color. Just thinking :)

Agree... Ok..tried this again. Same lighting, some moved around for shadow. Like if she is outdoors. Nothing changed in render settings. Same character. Will add life to it, after I conquer this realism with lighting. IBL AO is confusing. I do my best to understand it. And also I tend to add an image to a IBL. Thinking I am getting the full effects. I played around with the IBL dials in Material room with Image attached to get a balance of things. Full figure image. This was a 1024x768 render. Then cropped to put in here. Now is 416x768 Doing a close up with same lighting, render settings.

Looking good. Early morning light rather than mid day but the light and shadow are good. I still think there is that Poser Tan and it is grayish here. It is that tan that maxxxmodelz is able to overcome --check the gallery!. Oh... one thing, it has been just awefull for me following this thread because of that first close up image which includes the shoulders as well as head... this thread is too wide for my screen and I have to scroll side to side to read the posts :(

Close up, same lighting, render settings. Only problem was eyes. Can see reflection of people indoors. I wasn't able to remove in material room. I checked everything for eyes. Added armbands. Rendered in 1024x768. No postwork or cropped. I have a render in progress of another character full figure. See if lighting does the same.

Message edited on: 08/26/2005 08:49

To large.. :-( I have my 17' TFT monitor at 1280x1024. I thought 1024x768 will be just right for the majority of people. Will look into seeing my pic sizes. Sorry momodot. Also I am trying to get that tan look as well. I have adjusted the lighting to get it right.

Wow. Awesome Thread. One note that I haven't seen (sorry if I'm just blind) is that reality is imperfect. Skin has flaws - scars, pores, uneven tans, moles. Also, people aren't built symetrically. Adding imperfection to a figure can add realism. For example, use a magnet to bend the tip of the nose... Lighting is obviously critical. So are the textures. But other elements, small elements like skin imperfections or an imperfect body, can all add to the realism.

I'm sure everyone's is bigger than mine ;) I think a little more oilness to the skin would be good in my opinion. Have you tried face-off's products... they will blow your mind. But none of this address the original issue of why figures soffer in terms of realism when you pull back. Can anyone summarize the conclussions? Shadow and lighting matters more, texture matters more, what is it? I get the sense that maybe psychologically we are willing to fudge a face mentally, acccept the unreal and boost the real. As a teacher I found that the facial recognition features of optical pre-processing in human perception can overwhelm actual visual information... angles are plumbed, features are regularized , etc. The clearest evidence is to have someone draw a face head but tipped to the side... so often the result is skewed and leveled features. If a head is drawn in a three-quarters pose the eyes will be shown the same size and sometimes head on, the lips also head on... the cheeks in profile... I saw this year after year very wide spread except among the several surgens and doctors I taught in night classes. I have decided this is not weak drawing but strong pattern recognition at work. To draw well you must decontectualize the face and view its forms as shapes, you can look at the gastalt in the end for nuance. The optical system also does contrast and edge enhancement. With a mid shot or long shot render the optical pre-processing features of the brain are probably less strong so maybe we default to a predjudice for photographic representation: narrow value range, high contrast etc. This is my thinking maybe regarding the essential issue involved. Sorry to be long winded.

Just thought I would add a thought. Textures with "painted on" hightlights will cause problems when going for realism. I like what you have going with your lights right now, but the eyes, lips, and hair all have "fake" highlights that "clash" the lighting in the scene. When you set up your lights, do SSS, displacement or bumps, the try to avoid textures with highlights built into the map. Also, you can take your figure into post and pop the contrast and adjust the hues. bB

"I think a little more oilness to the skin would be good in my opinion. Have you tried face-off's products... they will blow your mind."

Yes I do, although I do have problems with the lighting. The product was made for P5. And I have P6. So, I do struggle a lot with the product.

"One note that I haven't seen (sorry if I'm just blind) is that reality is imperfect. Skin has flaws - scars, pores, uneven tans, moles. Also, people aren't built symetrically. Adding imperfection to a figure can add realism. For example, use a magnet to bend the tip of the nose...

Lighting is obviously critical. So are the textures. But other elements, small elements like skin imperfections or an imperfect body, can all add to the realism. "

I am fighting for realism as much as I can. Doing my best. Still working on this.

Message edited on: 08/26/2005 14:36

"Yes I do, although I do have problems with the lighting. The product was made for P5. And I have P6. So, I do struggle a lot with the product." Oops..I was wrong. Downloaded the update yesterday, and thought of trying it out. Found problems. Will adjust lights.

I see definite improvements, the skin starts to look more "alive." There's a known problem with the V3 joints and her buttocks, and that problem shows up in your last image: you can see that her left buttock extends way too far down her leg. For a realistic looking buttock the crease shouldn't be higher up and far less pronounced. Unfortunately it's pretty tough to morph it away. ZBrush might be a great tool for fixing this kind of problem, I've seen some very good work by richardson in the galleries.

That is looking good. Man, that shader kicks butt. Now here is something other people may not care for but that I use. I run a second crisp P4 render in P6 and composite the two renders in Photoshop using a mask to be selective... this can give me some of the sharpness that is lost in Firefly renders (maybe I just can't find the right Firefly settings). I mention this incase the softness on the face is not intentional. I still think you need to desaturate, lighten, and contrast the figure... one thing I do is select auto levels and then fade the result. Try also the one click photo fix in PSP9 or some such. Most photos have to be adjusted in this manner as a matter of course. It is time to drop in some clouds... I do this with a layer, the cloud filter, hue/sat to colorize, and perspective to get stretched across the sky properly.

Agree..I really like to stay away from Postworking. Only for cropping, and file size. I do have clouds..heck..I got to try that. I am in the process and adding life in the scene. So be prepared to see another render.