I've turned off all lights in my scene so now everything is black.  I add a new infinite light and it won't light anything up in the preview window.  This is sooo confusing.  So instead of a infinite light I add a new spotlight yet I can't see it light up anything in the preview window.  Anyone know why?

1 Diffuse IBL (off)
7 Point lights (all off)
2 spotlights (all off)

I can't see the light from new lights in the preview window.  This is driving me nuts.

**Update: ** I just made a totally new project, added the same amount of lights.  The same problem exists. If I add anymore lights after 8-9 the new lights don't give light in the preview window.

I wonder if there is a setting somewhere to increase the amount of lights that can be used in the preview window.

Question: Is poser considered a professional level application or is it just for hobbiests? I've been hired by contract for a company to produce quality content for their website.  Am I using the right program or should I be using something better than poser?  I'm running into so many little problems that I never ran into in 3d studio max, zbrush, photoshop, milkshape, etc.

8 lights is the limit for OpenGL display, AFAIK.
There might be a way to increase that, but it would be through your systems OpenGL settings, rather than Poser. There might not be either, not sure.

Quote - 8 lights is the limit for OpenGL display, AFAIK.
There might be a way to increase that, but it would be through your systems OpenGL settings, rather than Poser. There might not be either, not sure.

Hmmmm strange.  If I can only have 8 lights on maximum at a time that is TOTALLY fine.  But that is not the case.  I have all the lights off so only 2 are active, yet I can't see them give off light in the preview window.

It seems the FIRST 8 added are the ones that can give light in the preview window and any lights after that don't give light whether the first 8 are on or off.

Man I'm so close to submitting a job application to e-frontier. Get those shit developers out of there. I'd love to clean this program up and make it professional quality.

I know when you use light sets you need to us rapply library presets (1 plus sign ) as opposed to select (2 plus signs in order for the new set to REPLCE the old set- don't know if that helps

Just switch off openGL if you need more than the 8 lights possible.
There is nothing Poser can do if your card isn't able to handle more lights and you forced Poser to use openGL.

Quote - I know when you use light sets you need to us rapply library presets (1 plus sign ) as opposed to select (2 plus signs in order for the new set to REPLCE the old set- don't know if that helps

You mean re-apply library presets?  How does one do that?  I don't see any plus signs next to the light objects.  Am I supposed to look in the hierarchy editor or something?

The light display limitation is a limit of opengl, not just poser.. any application with opengl preview has the same light limits.

Nice to see you've become a poser expert after a month and a half, btw...

Quote - The light display limitation is a limit of opengl, not just poser.. any application with opengl preview has the same light limits.

Nice to see you've become a poser expert after a month and a half, btw...

Guys I see that I'm able to choose between "OpenGL" and "SreeD"  ... Both give the same negative results.  I have 11 lights in my scene.  10 of them are "off" and the 1 that is on won't give off light in the preview window.

I understand that openGL has a light limit of 8 that is totally fine. But what if I have 26 lights in my scene in which 18 are off and 8 are on?  I expect the 8 that are on to all give light in the preview window, while the 18 that are off won't give any light. 

As noted, you are hitting the limit of the number of lights that preview can visualize for you.  This is what spot renders are for ;)

Quote - As noted, you are hitting the limit of the number of lights that preview can visualize for you.  This is what spot renders are for ;)

Yup I understand that the limit is 8.  But see I have 11 lights in my scene...  10 are switched to "off" so technically I should be able to add 7 more new lights and switch them "on" to see their effect in the preview window. This is not the case due to bad programming by e-frontier developers. 

The first 8 added to the scene are the ones that can be visualized in the preview window. Any light you add after the first 8 won't visualize in the scene.  This is just ridiculous unless i'm doing something wrong.

It seems I have to delete the lights instead of switching them to "off"".. Experiment with my new light, save its settings in notepad.  Apply my old lights, add a new light and copy the settings from notepad back to my new light. sigh

Lights that are off technically are not off... they are mmmm just giving light with a 0.00% value, as opposed to a "fully lit" light, which would give a 100.00% value.

'off' must be just setting intensity to 0. A zero strength light is still a light.
Technically, OpenGL limit is 8 lights per facet, not 8 lights per scene. Try setting the inactive lights' ranges so that they don't reach any facets. That might work.

Edit - X post, sort of

Probably behind the scenes setting a light to "off" doesn't actually remove it from the list of lights the preview engine is keeping track of ^_^  It's kind of hard to say for sure whether this is Poser's fault, but I can tell you that Cinema 4D R10.5 does not behave that way; preview is automatically adjusted to show enabled lights and remove disabled lights, when you go over the limit of 10.

Quote - Probably behind the scenes setting a light to "off" doesn't actually remove it from the list of lights the preview engine is keeping track of ^_^  It's kind of hard to say for sure whether this is Poser's fault, but I can tell you that Cinema 4D R10.5 does not behave that way; preview is automatically adjusted to show enabled lights and remove disabled lights, when you go over the limit of 10.

Yup 100% sure its cuz of lazy programming practice OR there is something I'm not doing right.  I wonder if I should just switch to VUE. I hear that VUE can handle poser figures and stuff.  Do you know if that is true?  Poser is turning out to be the AOL of 3d applications.

BTW all that feedback you gave me on shading really helped the quality of my renders.

Vue is certainly more powerful, yeah.  Also it's a lot more expensive, and it doesn't integrate perfectly - transparency mapped polygonal hair can look wierd; dynamic hair usually looks very wrong as I remember; and you still may have this same issue there, dunno.

Glad to help :)

Quote - Vue is certainly more powerful, yeah.  Also it's a lot more expensive, and it doesn't integrate perfectly - transparency mapped polygonal hair can look wierd; dynamic hair usually looks very wrong as I remember; and you still may have this same issue there, dunno.

Glad to help :)

I'll stick with poser then. I guess this is a small price to pay ;)

I see your question was answered. But want to add that with Poser 6 and Poser 7 you don't need that many lights in your scene in order to get good lighting for your renders.  One to Four lights should be able to  give you desirable results.

Quote - I see your question was answered. But want to add that with Poser 6 and Poser 7 you don't need that many lights in your scene in order to get good lighting for your renders.  One to Four lights should be able to  give you desirable results.

Just doing an experiment.  I'm trying to stay away from infinite lights as much as I can but only use 1 diffuse IBL.

Here's one I did with 17 lights quite a while back...
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1400873 (nudity)

Don't credit me for the modeling of the bathroom, which is quite nice and not my own work (see credits)

Quote - Here's one I did with 17 lights quite a while back...
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1400873 (nudity)

Don't credit me for the modeling of the bathroom, which is quite nice and not my own work (see credits)

Damn that looks real good :)

Off topic but I just noticed that you made that swirl lamp. Nice. I'm using that in my scene actually.   I need to read your notes about it being used commercially.

For any of my stuff, I don't mind if you use it in a commercial render; but don't redistribute or resell the original model or derivative models.

Quote - perhaps i dont understand the threads details. here is a p7 scene with 17 lights, and i delete one light, and the preview window appears darker my apologies if i dont understand whats going on

Here try this.

Create a new project all together.

Add 8 lights to your scene.   You'll notice you can see their effect visually in the preview window.

Now add a 9th light.  You will not see the effects of this 9th light in your preview window.  If you turn off the first 8 lights. You still shouldn't be able to see the effects of this 9th light in your preview window.

my results are as you expected sir and now im gonna turn off the lites in rl ^ ^

Quote - my results are as you expected sir and now im gonna turn off the lites in rl ^ ^

night