In giving shadows of a figure, object, prop, etc...  I kinda toyed around the Raytraced Shadows in lieu of Deepmapped with an Infinite Light and Diffuse IBL, topped that with HDRI as the main light.  It seems that the ray traced would produce some dark shadows, but it can be very sharp.  Is there a way to soften it, or should I use deep-map shadows for that?

I know that AO would only work in putting it in the figure, not the light itself -- whatever the case may be.

I'm really taking a liking to the HDRI feature in Poser 7, now if only they would think about GI or Radiosity in the next version - who knows.

As always, I like input if any...

Thanks,

JB

they will support GI/indirect lighting in poser 8 AFAIK. it works to some extent in P7, but there were some errors in the implementation, hence it's unsupported. there are several reasons why poser renders are at the bottom of the 3D pecking order, including no indirect lighting and the tendency of users to disable "cast shadows", or to use default shadows. I can't say which method is better (ray-traced vs. depth-mapped), but the experts will post their opinions. IMVHO each has its advantages, provided the user reads the manual (and the many threads here and at rdna) on how to properly apply said shadows.

As was said there are several threads on this topic.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2712423

This is more specific to what your after.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3106045

I will suggest to use ray-traced shadows only with spot and point light and  depth-mapped shadows with Infinite light only.. most of the users use the REUSE function and forget to clean it up after that why in some cases the shadows looks not accurate...

I use AO in my HDR IBL and it works very well, the value is very low, when working together with the extra light the AO doing own thing on the best.. react also to the extra light and show only in the places where the extra light don't hit the surface, as it works in real world..it is fast and accurate

I use only depth-mapped shadows for the extra light when the base is HDR IBL.. ray-traced shadows are sharp as well and represent the shadows when the light coming from objects like lamp and spots.. ( not infinite light ) you can blur the edges as well or set the intensity a little bit down..

I tested the depth-mapped shadows with the HDR but this don't work very well, even if you change the shadow value to 300 it looks better but still it is not good and the function don't works as you think it would works.. HDR is nothing else as only Global Illumination there are not shadows beside Ambient Occlusion, you should use one more extra light for the specular and shadows.
For example if you put in real life a white plane in front of you the light that reflect from that  would not create a shadows behind you right? it is not strong enough.. so this make a sense..
Use HDR IBL light as a base lighting only...

The best ratio for that is setting the HDR IBL to 65 % and the extra light intensity to max 35 %, this way you will get 100% light intensity and you don't have to change the Diffuse Color however this way don't give the best effect.
Other thing here is that the poser scene is very small , only 7% is lighted up from the HDR IBL Light-probe, you should change also the Image Resolution to 7 in the material room to have more accurate and well the best light for now...
However when Poser8 will have GI , it will make it not so simple to get the realistic effect,  you will have to compose a complete scene with all right materials and textures that will generate around the model the right Light..and the rendering time would be also very long.. HDR IBL is the most simple way to capture it with one simple light and I love the simple way :) Simple is beautiful!

Cath

jlovesart2 - You can soften your raytraced shadows by increasing the shadow blur radius.
When I used to render in Poser I would use raytraced shadows as they are more accurate.

I think it's a matter of taste.
As Storm said above, raytraced shadows are more accurate. But the great advantage of deep mapped shadows is that you can have them calculated once, and if you don't make any change in your pose, you can render and render again without having to recompute them.

First  you need to set the Map Size higher that 255 ( 650-1000) works perfect and set the Shadow Mini Bias to 0,000000.. (for the details ) after that your depth map shadows are so accurate as the ray-traced shadows and much more smooth and render much more quicker no matter what type of light you use spot or infinite..if you wanna get deeper in..you will see self...
  the standard of depth-map  in Poser is set wrong that why they render not accurate but that is wrong setting not the shadow problem or bug... if you switch from Ray-Traced shadow to depth-map shadows you have to put in the correct values too .....

SEE IMAGE ABOVE, THEY ARE BOTH ACCURATE
But one thing what make them different is that the shadows that are created by a spot or point light are total different as from an infinite light ( the sun)

Cath :)

Thanks for pointing that Cath ^^

But in my previous post, i didn't mean to say depth map shadows were not accurate. I talked about the standard settings, when you do a quick render with depth map and another one with raytraced, you see that depth map are not 'aligned' with the subject.

btw, your demonstration is really accurate LOL

Exactly what I mean, the quick switch between the both shadows don't really works...
everything need just a little bit more attention..
I am working on Poser time machine, I need the shadows exactly good that why I did my class before..agent Smith will bring us soon in 4th dimension... lol :)

Cath

Geees Cath... 4th dimension... then we'd have to calculate shadows where the sun never shines... well in extreme poses anyway... thanks for all this good information.

As usual, excellent stuff Cath!!