what about reflection? Turning up reflection in other renderers kinda makes the renders look airy and shiny and bright and real (I have vue and carrara). I haven't tried it in poser. Love esther

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Quote - 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.

I agree with Stewer on this.

When I spent the money on 3dsmax a few years ago, I made it a point to learn every aspect of 3d that I possibly could... from lighting to modelling.  It just made sense, considering the sizable financial investment in the application and it's purpose in my toolbox.  Poser still comes in handy in a pinch when creating certain items from scratch is too time consuming for a project, but most of the people I know who work with Max, and other apps like it, have a much deeper understanding of the overall 3D process than those who utilize Poser as their one and only 3d tool.  This is especially true when it comes to things like lighting a scene.

Some interesting points in this thread, and good suggestions as well.. To this i would add that lighting isnt as simple a thing as many people think, it is a complex artform in itself and not everyone is (or even wants to be) naturally good at it. However the lighting in any scene (no matter which renderer you use) plays a crucial role in the final look. Everything from the positioning, color, brightness etc can make or break the image so you shouldnt ignore it.

So my suggestion is that anyone who feels that their scene is flat or chalky or just uninteresting should get a decent book on lighting techniques. Jeremy Brin's "Digital lighting and rendering " is the industry standard guide on lighting and one of the best books to get on this topic (The guy works at Pixar, what else do you need to know) It is written in a very nice informal manner and never becomes too technical. It isnt specific to any particular software either so you can apply its ideas and settings anywhere. There are also many free tutorials around that cover the basics if you just want a quick look. This is probably a much more sensible thing to try before you dump your current renderer only to find that you get similarly bad results in the next one you pick, because frankly until you know just what is wrong with your image, you wont get better results no matter where you go.

Didn't know Birn wrote a book about this

I couldn't find anythin on "Jeremy Brin" at amazon.com. Any idea where I can find that book?

It's Jeremy Birn, and the book is available at amazon.

Ahh Thanks!

Attached Link: http://www.3drender.com/light/index.html

Well she could be standing in shadow, but behind her is some outdoors with what appears to be sun, and it just does not look as bright and crisp as sunlight in max renders. However, it is a great render and I really like it. WEll I don't think many of us will be buying max because of the price, I know I won't so it is good to get the hang of what we have and try and get the best out of it. You are certainly getting the best from poser as far as I can see. Love esther

Rendered with P5, only spotlights are used.

That certainly looks closer to max quality. Maybe the shadows is part of the problem. Love esther

(the plant in the above pic is P4-mode. Means: no shaders, only plain texturemaps)

The figure is completly untextured (wearing the boring standard texture) but morphed.

T-Shirt is using a simple texturemap, a highlightmap (any picture from my collection to disturb the whiteness of the texture), a displacementmap (to have some structure)  and a little bit ambiente color (light green) to soften the shadows.

ADP, your renders always look amazing! The dark ones as well as the light ones. As I understand it you work with few lights in a given scene and you get such clarity... this is what is called talent :)

Thanks! I just ordered it.

The "secret" may be to attend how a surface response to light. P5/P6 has great capabilities with shaders.

Try to use bright highlight (with little intensity) and perhaps a little bit ambiente. It may help to avoid very deep shaded parts.

Quote - Ok, what about this one?
I think most pictures apearing so dark in Poser because the "shadow-dial" is set too high. In this picture all lights have shadows set to 0.2-0.4.

Rendered with P5, only spotlights are used.

I like the metal shelf in that one, but I can't understand why the plant is so dark when the rest of the objects are brightly lit?  You need some bounce lights to indicate indirect illumination.  Right now, your scene is lit too directly.  Plants have translucency, but this one seems opaque.  Even a plastic plant would have some light underneath in that kind of environment, caused by the direct light bouncing off the floor, etc..

Exactly this is what the picture should show :)

The plant is "P4-mode", as I wrote before. Means simply texture as it is used in most Poser renders. The other objects are using reflections and such, done with P5-shaders. The difference is clear to see, Not only the plant but the pot also looks Poser-like :)

Quote - Exactly this is what the picture should show :)

The plant is "P4-mode", as I wrote before. Means simply texture as it is used in most Poser renders. The other objects are using reflections and such, done with P5-shaders. The difference is clear to see, Not only the plant but the pot also looks Poser-like :)

Ah!  Got it!  Sorry, it's early for me and I didn't read your original post correctly there.  Good work.