I'm using v3 with high quality textures.. and yet i still can't get a render that looks even like daz 3d's previews of v3. They have great renders cause she looks great. I've tried various light sets and none gives me that realism. Are there any lights that allow me to get that realism?

The best thing to do is have a look at Olivier's tutorials on lighting over at RDNA. 

Olivier's Making of a pomo pic
Poser 6 IBL Ins and outs by Olivier
A little tutorial about lighting by Olivier
Tutorial: GEL MAPS by Olivier

How Light Probes are Laid Out
Advanced Image Based Lighting in Poser 6
Basic OpenGL LightingCastle Poser Tutorials

The best bet is to create the lights from scratch, as "the best" lighting always depends on your scene. There is no one size fits all light solution - they will always end up casting shadows where you don't want them or leaving parts that you want to be in focus in the dark. If you want to spend money, I recommend getting Jeremy Birn's book "digital Lighting and Rendering". If lights sets are fish, that book will teach you how to fish ;) Also, look out for general 3d lighting tutorials and even look into how lighting for photography and film works. It all follows the same principles anyway: http://www.warpedspace.org/lightingT/part1.htm http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/light.htm

Shameless self promotion: If you are looking for a typical well lit pinup style of lighting then I can recommend my ProClub IBL - light rig for Poser 6+ over at PoserPros - it's rather cheap and good for this kind of renders :) End of shameless self promotion A lot depends on the shaders that you use in combination with a texture, even the best texture can look dull if it isn't in a shader of some sort. Most high end V3-V4 characters nowadays come with more than a simple texture/bumpmap nodes MAT poses that you can tweak to use your own textures through Poser matroom. Michal 4blueyes

Thanks, 4blueyes! I just went there and bought it. :) My lighting skill are still rather bad. Best way
to learn is to use pre-sets and study how they are done. L8r.

Thanks all . Well, actually i found out i have a bunch of HDRi awesome lights ( tons) that i got free at RUNtime dna. So i'll use those.

A good trick is to use the light ball as a reference. It resembles the shader balls I used to make in art class at school to figure out the lighting for a picture I was going to draw.

Can anyone recommend a good light set featuring sets that have fewer than eight lights? I have these nice global sets but I can't see anything in preview with them loaded... I used to feel good about my own work with lights in earlier versions of Poser but I feel lost now. My goal is realistic interior domestic but all the non-global sets I have found are very dramatic as opposed to realistic.

momodot - well, i'm pretty happy with my own lighting in general, and i usually have no more than 4.  are you using poser 6 or above?  i find that ibl can give you nice even global lighting.  i specify because in d|s i use dreamlight's sets rather than ibl for their shadows.

for indoor lighting, bagginsbill suggests 1 ibl and 1 infinite light.

Thank you, cobaltdream. I have had my best success with 1 IBL for ambient, 1 Point for source, and 1 Spotlight for fill light but I am just not really happy. The sets I find in Freestuff and Market Place are globals with many many lights which cause shadow trouble in interiors, display wrong in preview, and take forever to render.

90% of my renders are done with 1 IBL with no image loaded set very dim and infinite light, position, colour and intensity depending on the scene in question. 

Quote - Shameless self promotion: If you are looking for a typical well lit pinup style of lighting then I can recommend my ProClub IBL - light rig for Poser 6+ over at PoserPros -

confirmed! it's one of my fav light sets...

Quote - Thanks all . Well, actually i found out i have a bunch of HDRi awesome lights ( tons) that i got free at RUNtime dna. So i'll use those.

Could You provide a link, please?
I have searched RDNA but could only find common (no HDRI) lights in the freebies...

thx

Check the forums on Aerysoul.com They have a great AO set on there I use all the time.

momodot - maybe you should be more specific.  because i find ibl isn't just a kind of light the way infinites, points and spots are.  when i did my pic "vacation," i found that tweaking the ibl "image"  or intensity very slightly vastly changed the lighting.  i just about never use an actual image, since i just about never have a background image and an light source image. 

in any case, could you post a w.i.p with your lighting as it is now, and say what you want to achieve and what you don't like about the existing lighting?  i bet some of the lighting adepts here can give you some great pointers.

mask 2, well in runtime dna POSER LIGHTS section of downloads section. HOwever, the HDRI lights i have are not there. mmmm.. i don't know where i got them from. it was long time ago. But they are in about 8 folders. called DNA HDRI 1 upt to DNA HDRI8. each folder has a bunch of them. And if it says DNA. that means it's probably RUNTIME DNA. Ohhh i know why they are not there. They USED to be there long time ago. then RUNTIME DNA updated their site and stopped putting them on.

mask 2, well in runtime dna POSER LIGHTS section of downloads section. HOwever, the HDRI lights i have are not there. mmmm.. i don't know where i got them from. it was long time ago. But they are in about 8 folders. called DNA HDRI 1 upt to DNA HDRI8. each folder has a bunch of them. And if it says DNA. that means it's probably RUNTIME DNA. Ohhh i know why they are not there. They USED to be there long time ago. then RUNTIME DNA updated their site and stopped putting them on. Yeah, i even remember going back to the site after the new update of the site, the new look , and then they werent there anymore.

Quote - mask 2, well in runtime dna POSER LIGHTS section of downloads section. HOwever, the HDRI lights i have are not there.

If you go to RDNA and click on the RDNA Freebies and search for "Lights"  or "Jungle" you will find:

JungleLights.zip
JungleHeat.zip
JungleNightLights.zip

Those all have a .txt file inside with "Poor Man's HDRI  Instructions.

One of my favourite lights from RDNA is the "Garden Rose".  There is a very nice neutral light set in there.