" a lack of shadows does tend to be inherant in Poser renders..but why?" Honestly, I think it's because there are more Poser users who do their images just for kicks, and waiting for shadows to calc in Poser (raytrace or shadow map) is boring for them. They just want to get a thrill from posting something to the galleries. Not all users of course, but some. Other apps tend to attract more serious enthusiasts. Not just talking about "high end" apps either... even apps like Carrara, Vue, Bryce, etc., all tend to require a greater learning curve than Poser.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.