http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=53548 I can never g et anything to look klike this. I use Poser 6. Is that rendered at full FINAL render setting with ray tracing and all that.. And do they also use some special lights?

It says "All images rendered in Poser 7 Firefly with In The Mood-lights. " which is a great lightset by the same vendor.

By the way, i have a bunch of lights i bought from the market or i downloaded from runtime dna or other sites. Including IBL lights and they never give me these results: This is the lights i have but of course i always render with low settings( 2nd line after the WORD Draft in the Auto Render settings, And smooth polygons selected..no raytracing): 1. In the MOOD lights 2. BSL Lights 3. Tendom's Magic lights 4. DNA Studio lights 5. AS Portrait Lights 6. DNA Backlights 7. DNA Carnival lights 8. dna Creedlights 9. DNA FAll lights 10 DNA HDRI lights ( 8 sets ) 11. DNA LIghtStudio01 lights 12 DNA Moonlights 2 lights 13. DNA MysticGlen lights 14. DNA Night1 lights 15. DNA Outdoor4 lights 16. DNA Outdoor 5 lightsd 17. DNA Passages Lights 18. DNA Portrait 1 liths 19 DNA POrtrait 2 lights 20 DNA Radiosity lights 21. DNA Softlights Blues 22 DNA Softlights Silver 23. DNA Spot Clusters lights 24. DNA Sultery lights 25. DNA Sunshine 26. DNA White lights 27 DNA White2 Lights 28. DNA WInter3 lights 29 IBL Ambient Occlusion lights 30 LIght Sets( came with poser) 31 Radiance Pro Lights 32 V Portrait LIghts Wow, i have alot of lights. But i can't seem to get my pictures to look like the promo picture for that product i told you about. What to do?

maybe they used high settings, with raytracing on. ask 'em. AFAIK they ain't allowed to post retouched promo images.

Well I would conclude they probably do at least use semi-high settings for promo images.  It would seem like the smart thing to do, but that's just my opinion.

I have those same In The mood lights and i dn't get anything like they do. I'll post a pic

Well you'lll definately not get the same results if you're using low quality settings without ray tracing turned on. Truely outstanding promo images are most likely using the best render settings they can get to make their products stand out from the crowds.

Contact SaintFox and ask her. She's a sweetheart and never minds helping people out when she can.

She is a sweetheart, and that light set is utterly brilliant (please pardon the pun). I used it for part of a promo recently, too. There are matters of positioning the figure to take best advantage of the lights, but I can assure you the render settings are a big issue and probably the primary one at work here. I honestly can't imagine using anything less than the 'final' settings for promos because it allows for the most detail, and I'm a detail junkie. Things like the way light shimmers on skin, or the details of a face, get muddied at lower settings -- you end up losing almost all of the benefit that many of the light sets listed provide. Give it a shot at a higher setting, seriously. grin I think you'll really like the results.

I am very happy with all those wonderful free lights at RDNA.

Attached Link: Jule Portrait-Light and Camera

The "walkthrough" of this image is simply the following:
I used the best settings that P7 gives me in "Auto settings" mode  Raytracing, Raytracing bounces, the whole catastrophy...
I used the light and camera that I attach to this message. It's a portrait light from the In The Mood package PLUS a single pointlight. Meanwhile I've made another package for P7 with more pointlights that you can add to existing lights by using the "Select" button (no, this is no advertising -  you don't need to buy this set, you can always add a pointlight to enhance let's say the eyes by yourself - it's no witchwork.).
But wait, the pointlight is not the thing that does the final trick, you can get away without it. The figure itself contains a specular mat that reacts on the light.

The rest is camera finetuning (I've included the camera in the zip) and a lot of patience. I do several smaller testrenders until my images (promos or artistic) look exactly like I want them to look. I always try to avoid postwork in both kind of renders, so the only postwork in the promo was combining the full figure image and the portrait and touching up the hair. It's a Michael 3 hair and while I used several magnets and other tricks to make it fit there are always some strands that look ugly. But as I don't sell hair I think that this is okay.

One last word regarding pointlights: If you use them please keep in mind that the shadow-blur is turned off by default! Always make test renders and then adjust the shadow blur (2 is a good starting point). Alter the Min Ray bias below 0.8 - and alter the shadow maps and the shadow (1.0 is far too hard for most images) itself until you like the result!

**You're welcome, Sweetie.

And thank you for making the light and camera set available to us. Very generous!

Janet**

Thanks all. Well, you guys say i should use Ray tracing and all the high stuff. But i didn't , i did it with no raytracing and low settings and i tried one of the IN THE MOOD LIGHTS and it looks great( great for me i guess, cause you guys favor the high stuff). However many of those In the mood lights look too dark. they don't look at all like what their light preview graphic shows. Only 2 of the lights in the in the moods set actually hit my character with enough light. I guess i'll have to add a light bulb to fix those lights.

**tebop,

One silly question for you. Actually, two.

Did you move the character and if so, did you add the lights before or after you moved the character? Reason I ask is because I found many light sets to not "hit the character" correctly. Then I found out they did if I put the lights in before I moved the character.**

oh i put the lights after i put in my character and posed him.

Try placing the lights before the character is moved. I do that all the time now and get much better results.

tebop: A sample would be helpful! You can even drop me aline via sitemail. I will try my best to find out what's wrong here. Okay, and one maybe silly question: Did you calibrate your monitor? I know that I sometimes think "Uh-how dark those promos are, I can't see anything..." and hen find that my monitor needs to be adjusted.

Wow what Unicornst said. worked!!!

I had someone tell me to place the lights first, also. Really glad it worked for you. smiles

***Try placing the lights before the character is moved. I do that all the time now and get much better results.

:woot: I dare to say that this is the strangest "ancient chinese light secret" I ever heard about !!! Okay, I'm off to try it on my own!!***

All I know is that it works for me. grin

Hey folks - I just found that 58 people collected the little light. So I gave it another try and found that it lits the full figure pretty nice - but you have to alter one thing. Change the shadow blur on the point light (Light 3) from 0.0 to 2.0 or so - otherwise you will have a supernasty hard edged shadow on the chest or neck.