I think I may have found a bug in Poser 6... the same bug that seems to be darkening my figures.   It seems that the P6 Material Room doesn't pass the Ambient Color from the Advanced tab to the Simple tab (or vice versa). Some of my characters have the Ambient color set to dark grey (63,63,63) so they "glow" slightly. When I go into the Material room, the Advanced tab shows the correct color, but Poser colors the figure darker... when I switch to the Simple tab, Poser has changed the Ambient color from my dark grey to pure black.

Here's how I duplicated the issue:
 

1. Select a figure (in this example, I selected the "Socks Right").
    

2. Click on the Material Tab.
   Poser opens in the "Advanced" tab and is set for the selected figure (the "Socks Right") and the first texture (in this case, the "Main_Texture").
    

3. Set the Ambient Color to a color that's easily seen (in this example, I used green).
   (Screen shot on left.)

4. Click on the Simple tab and the Ambient color is reset to black.
   (Screen shot on right.)
    
   I wonder if this is an issue with the "initializing" of the Simple tab? Once I've clicked on the Simple tab and set the color manually, Poser starts passing the correct Ambient color between the Simple and Advanced tabs. For example, if I change the Ambient color to red in the Simple tab and then go to the Advanced tab, the Ambient color is now red.
   But, if I select another figure, the same issue occurs: changing the Ambient color in the Advanced tab does not change the Ambient color in the Simple tab.
    
   Can anyone else replicate this issue?
    
   Thanks
   --John

Try setting the ambient value to something other than 0.  For the simple tab the ambient color is based on both the ambient color and the ambient value from the advanced tab.

I received an e-mail from e-frontier's tech support people and they have confirmed this occurs, even in SR3. They've put it on their list of fixes for the next release service release.
 
--John

John,

I do not have this problem and I'm not sure that  you really do either (at least you have so far failed to demonstrate that you really do).  When you duplicated the problem you left the Ambient Value set to zero.  I get the same results that you did when I leave the Ambient Value at zero.  However, when I make the Ambient Value 1 then the Ambient Color on the Simple Tab is the same as the Ambient Color on the Advanced Tab.

Awesome! I hope it makes it in the next patch.

:b_smile:  Chocolate Chip Cookies for tech support and JHoagland.

chris-
Yep, this is the solution. :)
 
Setting the Ambient_Value 1 causes the Advanced tab to use the correct color. But, why is the default value set to 0, especially when the Diffuse_Value and Specular_Value are both set to 1 as the default? Hmm...
 
Thanks!
--John