...who contribute to this forum and also the free stuff for your contributions and advice. It has been invaluable to me in my quest to learn Poser. Though I have a few contributions myself, they are nothing compared to the wealth of information, kind advice patiently given (many times soon after posting!) and feedback for my amatuerish efforts. I certainly don't consider myself an expert, or even intermediate, but I've come a long long way from the frightened user who closed Poser after the first opening. Having used DAZ Studio rather extensively, Poser was tremendously intimidating and sat on my HD gathering dust for months. I can't recall what prompted me to open it again, but I'm extremely happy I did!

Learning to use the cloth room was much easier than I thought and I adore using dynamic clothes. So much so that I've learned to model some and offered for free. But the real 'fear' was the Material Room! I'd seen many gorgeous renders done in poser and wished to be able to at least come near to some, but that room was like a dark cave.....beckoning.....but dark shadows can be scary!

But I faced those fears and took those first tentative steps into the unknown. And wonder of wonders, found a ray of light in the posts by bagginsbill. Mind now, all the math used is still Greek to one who cannot get past basic math! I'm talkin' add, subtract, multiply and divide. That's it for me! But taking it a bit at a time, small doses and asking questions, plus some help from kind members here, the MR isn't scary anymore.

As I said, I'm a long way from mastering this program, but I wanted to post this, my thanks and gratitude, and show a render I recently did. I know it's not the best, but it turned out much much better than I dreamed it would. I'm rather proud of it and I want to share it with you.

I used V4 in my dynamic evening gown (available here in FS), wearing robrose's lovely necklace and earrings (#22), Stylish Shoes from DAZ and AprilYSH's Portia Hair. The props are from the Satin Studio by Richardi (also in FS) and I used a velvet shader on the dress, obtained from FS as well. I can't remember who offered it tho. Another is a great tutorial by SaintFox on lighting that was very educational. Last, but definitely not least, I used bagginsbill's stocking shader as well and that was the finishing touch it needed.

The only postwork was a small pokethru (found the method for prevention after I had run the sim!), and a bit of cloning on her toes as I always have to hide them in these shoes and for some reason, they're the only one's I have! A bit of softening on a small part on the backdrop and all that was left was composition; the bauble is from the Red and Gold pack by kimber89. The pose, by the way, is one from the BL Mega Poses sold here. I did some dial spinning and gave her a nice face, saving it as a morph in Poser. I've called her Angelina.

Lovely. I wish to echo your sentiments. 

How goes your sweater/skirt project?

:)
Not bad :)

Thanks for the compliments!

@ SSAfam1: I've worked some more on the sweater, but haven't yet decided, nor started on the skirt. Actually, in the process of making the domains and stuff for the sweater, I got sidetracked and kinda, sorta, stuck in the Material Room! I was learning new stuff and trying new things....I just haven't gotten around to making the skirt...LOL! And of course, real life around here tends to get in the way, but I haven't forgotten about it. I hope to get Hex out this weekend and get that skirt made!

"and a bit of cloning on her toes as I always have to hide them in these shoes and for some reason,"...

A common problem, with (usually) an easy answer...

Select the toes and make them invisible (in the "Properties" palette, unclick the "visible" option - no need to go to the Mat Room for that)..

Cheers,
Diolma

Yes, diolma, that is what I do, as her toes stick out of the shoes once they are conformed. So I make them invisible, but that leaves ugly places above the top of the shoe where the very tops of the toes would have been. So a tiny bit of cloning needs to be done to get rid of that. I do this in PSPX. Had no idea it could be done in the Material Room!

Very beautiful!

I agree that this community is wonderful!!

Thanks, Acadia! You are also one of those people who deserve thanks. And I want everyone to know this. She offered her help over the phone and as it turned out, it cost a bit in long distance on my sister's cell phone (I didn't know this at the time) but it was worth every penny! I don't regret it at all! (I've paid my sister back, btw). Yet another reason why this community is so great!