I am hoping to get a kinda technical answer in language a non-technical person like me can understand. Why do Poser renders look the way they do and Max renders look the way they do?

I am jealous of that lucid quality Max renders seem to have. Poser renders seem flatter and more "translucent" than "clear and deep" if that makes any sense. Is there a way in post-work to make Poser renders look more like something done in Max?

For that matter, is it possible to simulate different render qualities such as Ambient Occlusion using post-work? I have been compositing a straight P6 render with a touch of an IBL/AO render and going over the edges of things in the scene with a blur tool set to darken.

If ya want that Uber realism Max can provide you may want to try Carrara 5 Pro as it has a fantastic renderer and is amazingly adept at importing Poser scenes, props, figures etc. 

I've been using it for a while now and I love it!

Gerard

do you have any examples of the kind of renders you'd like to do?

David, you should try Renderupgrade by Shademaster, available in Freestuff.

Failing that, you could try faking Global lighting by placing lots of infinite lights in a dome over your scene.  Keep them all at low intensity and ensure only one casts a shadow.

Quote - I am hoping to get a kinda technical answer in language a non-technical person like me can understand. Why do Poser renders look the way they do and Max renders look the way they do?

To a large degree, what many people perceive as a difference in look is not differences in render engines but rather differences in default settings (esp lights and materials). The goal of a good render engine is not to impose a certain look on an image but rather to truthfully apply the settings that the user chose for surfaces and lights. With only a few exceptions, commercial render engine use pretty much the same principles for the surface and direct lighting calculations. "That Poser look" has barely anything to do with the render engine (after all, FireFly is a completely different engine than the Poser 4 renderer) but rather the default settings for lights and materials that most people don't bother to change. In a similar fashion, people often associate scenes bright uniform ambient light with Bryce simply because Bryce has this as a default - but that doesn't mean that other programs wouldn't be able to use similar lighting or that Bryce can't be made not to render this way. That's not to say that differences between render engines don't exist - but standard methods for surface shading and direct lightings are mostly identical across the board. > Quote - I am jealous of that lucid quality Max renders seem to have. Poser renders seem flatter and more "translucent" than "clear and deep" if that makes any sense.

Can you provide example images of the look you want? The default light set in Poser gives you a comparably dull look. For a quick experiment, take the default light set and set the intensity of all the lights to 170% and see what a difference it makes for your renders.

I have no doubt that exceptional renders are possible in P6, and these will be much easier for the average user to achieve in P7. however, I see rendering as Poser's biggest problem, whose best solution is to pose the characters/scene in poser, then export to a real renderer. many years ago, when people were griping about how lousy things looked in a P4 render, I tried to convince them not to bog down the poser 5 code with alotta fake rendering gimmicks and quirks that would easily defeat their client base, and just leave it like larry intended it. but they gave in to the demands and tried to add full rendering functions. hence it became a self-fulfilling prophecy - the rendering functions are too complex for new users, they're several years behind the curve, and the typical render by the typical user still has the dreaded "poser look" that 3D snobs are fond of ridiculing.

Stewer has a point - default settings do go an awfully long way to determining the image quality. But I don't think it's the WHOLE story.

Momodot, I think the differences you are seeing are partly due to the effort put in, partly due to how difficult the program makes certain things, and partly due to technical differences between renderers.

As Pleonastic says, some people don't care to "fiddle" with lights. (Which to me sounds almost like saying some painters don't like to "fiddle with" drawing or mixing colors. But I guess that's true too.) But to get a great quality render, you must do more than fiddle with lights - you must control them very precisely.

Poser takes its "twist the dials" metaphor for adjusting figure settings and applies it to other objects such as cameras and lights. IMHO, this is a HORRIBLE workflow for lights. Yes, you can get around it, and some people do great work with Poser's lighting, but the fact is that many people stick with default lights 'cause setting up good lighting in Poser is a way more of a chore than it should be. It's difficult to add lots of lights and control them efficiently. It's difficult to make changes to multiple lights, or even select them!

So while Poser makes posing characters easier than it would be in Max, setting up good lighting is much harder. If good lighting in Max = x amount of effort, then good lighting in Poser is more like 4x, 8x or even x^2 amount of effort! And the same may be true of render time. Poser's renderer starts to get quite pokey if you have too many lights in your scene.

I think there are also probably differences in the renderers that also contribute. Speed is definitely one. Having to wait forever to see your product is a big disincentive, especially when Poser's preview is SO far from true to the way the final output will look. Stewer may be right that standard methods are used in all renderers, but I'd imagine the differences come into solving the hard problems - subtle interactions of light, shadow and color; tweaking the engine output to get that extra degree of realism, squeezing every last bit of performance out of the rendering code so that you can render more detail or get results faster... All these things take time and money. You're not likely to get the same performance out of a $200 product that you are out of a $5,000 or $10,000 product.

You can get some good HDRI results in Poser:

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1217007

You just really have to play with lighting in order to get them.

Then there are these MAX renders of interiors that look brilliant but the model rendered in P6 looks cartoonish. Here is a sample MAX render taken at random from the galleries.
http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1215664&Start=1&Sectionid=9&filter_genre_id=23&WhatsNew=Yes

I both wonder what I can do to improve my renders and why the different apps make different looking renders. I can't afford any thing like Max or even a cheaper render app. I did buy Hexagon for $2 but I have not tried yet to import a Poser scene. The look I am after is photographic rather than super-real, thus the strong shadows on an interior etc. The film grain is looking mannered now... is there a digital noise equivalent now? JPG artifact? :)

Thank you for the responses so far

one thing i notice, looks like raytraced lighting? maybe i'm just spoiled by carrara
but the room looks like its lit by indirect light, rather than direct, and poser is limited
to direct light only, which brings some differences right off

also poser 5 while not having IBL like P6, you can still fake it with 2 lights and a bit
of skill in the mat room, adding a nice flat global light to the scene, not as controlable
though as P6 IBL, but when no IBL, its better than nothin :)

and I've seen renders done in max, maya, P5/6, carrara, and more
if the artist is good, the end result can be literally anything, might require more worrk
but in the end, no render engine really created a better pic, just mats/lighting/etc

I find IBL to make things look like they have radiant rather than reflected light so I can only use it at very low intensity mixed with other lights at stronger settings. I have been using spots and point lights. All the lights in the above render were placed in the virtual room in rational positions where lights would be... more often I place the primary light where the camera flash would be with a simulated 80/20 split bounce. Often I place non shadow infinite lights very dim in a circle around the scene and beneath to light the ceiling to simulate the bounce of light off the floor but this was not the case in the render above where I had a weak IBL just inside the door at our left, a mid intensity spot from the ceiling lamp  location above and to the front of the figure, and the primary being a pinlight where as a slave flash might be mounted high on a tripod somewhat to the right of the camera, a set up I used in real world photography for a "documentary look". I do not like how the shadows overlap, I like the shadow from the primary but I have to move that wide spot from the center of the ceiling to closer to the door to get an opposite diagonal to the shadow, also that shadow should be weaker.

But can you see how my render looks chalky compared to :
http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1215664&Start=1&Sectionid=9&filter_genre_id=23&WhatsNew=Yes

Also I don't get the nice ambient occlusion on the walls with Poser 6 that I see in even the simplest room scene done in Max. How do the different render engines calculate a scene?

The render you have shown that was done in Max looks to be achieved using Indirect Lighting, through a GI render engine like Vray, MentalRay, FinalRender, or perhaps Brazil.  3dsmax has a wide selection of render engines at it's disposal, and although similar in function, each one has it's own strengths.

Stewer is correct in that most render engines use the same basic principles when it comes to rendering technology, and can all pretty much achieve the same level of output given the proper materials and settings.  However, the difference between the render engines that 3dsmax utilizes vs. the one Poser uses is mostly in the area of "physically correct" lighting and raytracing.  While there is still no render engine that can truly reproduce the highly complex effects of real light interaction in a render, since it would be FAR to computationally expensive for today's hardware, there are some engines, like the ones used by 3dsmax, that can account for fairly complicated things like multiple light bounces, scatter,  and color bleeding (things Poser is not capable of without clever faking, or workarounds... and even then, it will not be quite as accurate).

Ambient occlusion and IBL are techniques that essentially fake Global Illumination.  They're handy because they provide similar results in far less time.  HOwever, they do not account for light bounces, or indirect illumination.  It would take a very complex light setup to simulate multiple bounces, and even then the results may not be as pleasing as the "real thing".  Also, raytracing in Poser's render engine is very slow and dirty compared to these other renderers, making things like glass, metal, water, etc. harder to duplicate.

The first thing I noticed with all of these renders is that the image quality is poor.  I think that has far less to do with the renderer than it has to do with file compression and lighting.  I was able to get fairly decent results using the P4 renderer, and never had the advantages that Pro Pack had, but went straight to P5, and now P6.

You're right, you can't get the same results with the P4 renderer as you will get with Max, but you can get decent results (certainly much better than those you have posted), and then use postwork to polish the image.  There are some very nice lights in freestuff by Snowsultan, and others that will really help, but also make sure you save your renders at the best quality compression.  I always used the PSD format to export for my working files, then finished them up in PSP or PS.

Attached Link: IBL tutorial

This is a straight P6 Firefly render.  No postwork, using one IBL low intensity light ( with a peach and warm yellow radial gradient style image used as the source image, and a lilac colored spotlight:

If I can get these results without postwork, so can you.  It just takes some practice.

There is alo a great tutorial at RDNA by Olivier in the P6 forum on how to get the most out of IBL and AO lighting

here's a little room i made...original render was at 1600 x 1200 about a year and a half ago.  probably nine lights if i remember correctly.  all textures are photographic. this image took about not quite 10 minutes if i remember correctly because of the curtains.  they are simply poser cloth planes with bits of it stitched together by export and reimported, resting on the curtain rod and clothified.  i used a trick to push the pieces together to get the folds.  i did not make the chairs or the poser box, but everything else.  many mistakes on this but i learned a lot.

i love the postwork momodot.

elenorcoli, thanks. Your render has that clarity.

Momcat, thanks for the URL. :)

Attached Link: Pure Dynamic Poser

this image took 10 hours, from start to finish, including rendering time (which was about 2 and a half hours)

Follow the link for more details on it.

Poser 6's renderer can make very nice pictures, if you don't use the canned render options. Usually I use raytracing, AO, a very fine "Min. Shading Rate" (to get rid of the grainy look), and realistically put up shadows (RL shadows have blurry outlines, and are not black, except in outer space). Unfortunately, when using all this Firefly gets very slow. I often have render times of several days, on a 4 GHz with 2 GB of RAM... Add atmospherics, and you can have a render running for over a week... Similar pics in Vue 5 take a couple of hours.   sigh

Anyway, to get a good result it takes knowing how Firefly will react, but it's not very difficult to learn. P6 has some quirks (strange behaviour of IBL and point lights, artefacts in AO) but you'll find quickly the way to bypass them and get the result you want.
I'd say, comparing the prices of Poser and Max, I think Max does a very bad job in rendering!...  :-D

Now, if only e-froniers would decide to fix Poser's memory problems so we can actually use it (for making a little more than naked Vickies in a temple with a sword...)
Poser is actually my favorite renderer.

I think AO applied to the lights takes far more time than is necessary.  If you apply AO to only those materials that need it, you get a far more efficient render.

Neat trick!
Your link above "Pure Dynamic Poser", contains session information.  The forum software rewrote it to redirect to the microsoft home page.

http://http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1218918

LOL, hmm, there doesnt seem to be an edit button in this new forum. thats stupid

Quote - I think AO applied to the lights takes far more time than is necessary.  If you apply AO to only those materials that need it, you get a far more efficient render.

Yes, I forgot to mention it; BTW I use the AO Setup script you can buy here in the marketplace.

Quote - Your link above "Pure Dynamic Poser", contains session information.  The forum software rewrote it to redirect to the microsoft home page.

The problem is the "http://http//" beginning of the link. "Http.com" redirects to Microsoft...  :-D

I have an edit option at the bottom of my post.  There are 3 options:
quote, edit my post, and delete my post

I still get redirected to microsoft.  How strange...oh..it's because you have a double instance of "http", lol

Quote - I have an edit option at the bottom of my post.  There are 3 options:
quote, edit my post, and delete my post

That dissapears for older posts. You're allowed to edit only recent posts...

Quote - I still get redirected to microsoft.  How strange...oh..it's because you have a double instance of "http", lol

Yes, and "http://http.com" is a Microsoft site... The browser thinks the second ":" is a port number, and the following // is a series of subfolders without names...

Quote - If ya want that Uber realism Max can provide you may want to try Carrara 5 Pro as it has a fantastic renderer and is amazingly adept at importing Poser scenes, props, figures etc. 

I've been using it for a while now and I love it!

Gerard

I'm sorry Gerard, but Carrara's renderer is no where near that of Mental Ray (which is the renderer within Max). I have yet to see a Carrara render approaching anything like the look of Mental Ray.
If you want Max type renders then pick an app with Mental Ray included (Max, Maya or XSI).
The reason why there are so many renders is because they all have their own unique signature.

Cheers

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1176862

Oh!  Very nice.  The kitties look a bit flat though.  Are they composited in?
I just purchased Glow Worm by Poseworks. I don't know how I ever got on without it.  It really enhances the render power of the Firefly engine with the ability to do multiple render passes, including a depth pass.

I agree with elenorcoli - Poser 5 using the Firefly renderer gives pretty good renders. I do all of my renders in P5. I would like to use P6 but it's just too damn slow on my poor old 'puter :) With that being said however, I could never get the lighting effects in my renders direct from Poser but I rely heavily on Photoshop for adding those effects in postwork.

The secret is to render your image a bit dark in Poser and then use the Curves, Brightness & Contrast and the Hue & Saturation tools to get a more favorable overall tone for your image. Then add the shadows and light areas with the burn and dodge tools respectively to enhance the highlights.

One of the advantages with MAX lighting is that you can specify which objects get lit by each light and more importantly - which objects don't get lit. This gives you much finer control over the lighting of your scenes and this would have been a nice enhancement to Poser lighting. I suggested it as a product enhancement but it has not implemented yet and there is no reason to believe that it will be added to Poser 7 - too bad.

Quote - I would like to use P6 but it's just too damn slow on my poor old 'puter :)

Don't be sad, it's very slow on my poor new computer too...  :-D

Primary advantage of Firefly isn't speed, nor stability, unfortunately. It's that you get a simple tool perfect for newbies, with enough advanced option to cater for the veterans.
It's easy to learn too. A year ago I was a perfect Poser newbie; A year later I don't think there is some rendering option of Poser I don't know well.

I suppose you're right cheers...

I bought Max 7 right when it came out (after using Max3.1 for years & years) and I only use it for modelling and rarely render in anymore. 

What I was suggesting really was for something "Next Level" for rendering I thought Carrara would certainly kick it up a notch or two and yes I do admit not to Max's level but pretty much surpassing firefly and the P4 renderer bigtime!! 

I have a project on the go and am seriously considering Carara to render in as I love the crisp lighting and level of realism it provides (the hdri too!!) , also the flawless Poser scene imports helps!!!  If  I wanted to render in Max I'd have to go Bodystudio or some other type of plugin that I don't need as it's built in to Carara 5 Pro. 

For it's price (In my humble opinion) Carara is really a bang for your buck!!  Especially seeing that for Max 7 and Final Render Stage I plopped down almost 6 large and C5 Pro was 10% of that!

Thanks!

Gerard

Quote - > Quote - If ya want that Uber realism Max can provide you may want to try Carrara 5 Pro as it has a fantastic renderer and is amazingly adept at importing Poser scenes, props, figures etc. 

I've been using it for a while now and I love it!

Gerard

I'm sorry Gerard, but Carrara's renderer is no where near that of Mental Ray (which is the renderer within Max). I have yet to see a Carrara render approaching anything like the look of Mental Ray.
If you want Max type renders then pick an app with Mental Ray included (Max, Maya or XSI).
The reason why there are so many renders is because they all have their own unique signature.

Cheers

Quote - > Quote -

I'm sorry Gerard, but Carrara's renderer is no where near that of Mental Ray (which is the renderer within Max).

Cheers

Sadly, I prefer the default scanline renderer in Max to Mental Ray....    That's why I bought Final Render Stage!! 

 

Gerard

"Sadly, I prefer the default scanline renderer in Max to Mental Ray...."

I'm not surprised.  Max's scanline is actually faster than MentalRay at certain things, but not nearly as deep or dependable..  In fact, other than PRman, I can't think of any renderer out there that can match MentalRay's depth and flexibility.

If you do only stills, then honestly, any renderer should suffice.  Animation is what seperates the "men" from the "boys" as far as renderers go.  Scanline is great for NPR rendering, but it falls way short and has lots of problems when dealing with realistic animated rendering projects.

Poser 6 still has some problems when dealing with animation as well.  There are workarounds, but I'd rather not even deal with them.

Poser 6 is an animation disaster zone. so painful, so slow, so unoptimized for animation rendering....

I wish there was just a mental ray renderer that was stand alone. max is too different from the apps Im used to, and using it to simply render my scenes is too difficult for my old brain.

Quote - Poser 6 is an animation disaster zone. so painful, so slow, so unoptimized for animation rendering....

I wish there was just a mental ray renderer that was stand alone. max is too different from the apps Im used to, and using it to simply render my scenes is too difficult for my old brain.

There is a MentalRay standalone, but no way to export Poser scenes to it.  If there was a way to export Poser scenes to .mi, like there is a way to export to .rib, then we'd be in business.

http://www.mentalimages.com/

well, you I could export the objects to OBJ format, then, using polytrans batch convert them to mi format. hmm interesting

One thing I notice about poser gallery compared with other renderers is that most (if not all) of the images look dark in poser. Even that one above looks darkish to me. Max renders have a crispness and brightness just not seen in poser scenes. Love esther

Quote - One thing I notice about poser gallery compared with other renderers is that most (if not all) of the images look dark in poser. Even that one above looks darkish to me. Max renders have a crispness and brightness just not seen in poser scenes. Love esther

See my post above - simply make the Poser lights brighter. You can turn up the intensity beyond 100%. It often helps to open your rendered image in Photoshop to look at the histogram (it's the graph you see in the Levels dialog) to see how the brightness distribution is in your image. Jeremy Birn's digital lighting and rendering book has some good tips about that.

i don't think it helps, things get so bright in poser when u do that that detail is lost whils something bout the pics still look dark - i can't really explain it. love esther

Can you show examples?

to me the whole of the galleries looks dark when compared with galleries of other renderers. Just poser stuff in general always looks dark to me. Love esther

I'm not sure that this can be taken as an indication of the program's capabilities: Consider that the lighting skills of the average Poser gallery contributer are usually not as elaborate as the lighting skills of those who typically post in the 3ds max or Maya galleries. Many chose to use Poser exactly because of that - they don't have to learn lighting to get the images they want out of Poser. On the other hand, people that invest several grands in high-priced applications often do that with the ambition of learning 3d and every detail that comes with it, and are thus much more into tweaking the lighting and render settings than users who are satisfied with whatever light set came with their pose. Just counting the number of images in the Poser galleries without shadows tells me how few users pay attention to lighting.

That sounds vaguelly plausable. But isn't poser actually limited in the number of lights one can have in a scene anyway? Love esther

Not that I was aware of. The preview is restricted to the OpenGL limit of 8 lights, but I have rendered scenes with far more than 100 lights.

ah yes, it's just the preview. Quite right. Love esther