Question: What is a must do technique?

Answer: Something that you just HAVE TO DO, and leaving it out would hurt the quality of your render.

Hey guys. I just thought for fun every member of the community could offer one MUST DO technique for a poser render.  A MUST DO technique that no artist should leave out of their 3d work for poser.  This way we can share ideas and help each other improve our work.  Who knows what vital or simple things we are forgetting to do to enhance our rendering. 

So here we go.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE
Ambient Occlusion Nodes for skin/floor/walls/surfaces,etc

Thanks to Acadia for first pointing this one out.

Check out this tutorial

• www.physicalc-software.com/tutorials/ao/

Check out this thread.

• www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

These helped me a great deal and I think the above techniques are MANDATORY for any render and most circumstances.

Zanzo

I'v got lot's but if i had to choose one,

MAKE SURE YOU:

Always, always run your render through photoshop, even if its just to convert it to jpg or whatever. Ideally you should also level it, adjust its curves and crop it to get rid of dead areas. A bit of color correction like this can make your renders go from 'nice' to 'stunning.'

And incidently avoid poser's built in jpg saver, photoshop does a much better job of it (better quality/smaller size) Save your renders as tiffs/pngs etc and convert them from photoshop.

Photoshop's lens filters can also be used to do fast DoF.

Hmm. Not so much to do with rendering but before I render I ALWAYS double-check my main figures with the posing camera zoomed in to look for bits of body poking through costumes or hair intersecting the body. Saves a lot of time in re-rendering or postwork afterwards.

It's been a while since I've done a proper full render in Poser as I'm a Vue 6 user, but the same principle applies in both programs... LIGHTS! Yes, textures & pose are also key but if your lights are wrong the image just won't cut it in my opinion. Whether you work with IBL, HDRI, spot or point etc, keep working until it looks right. I find that alot of new users to Poser don't get the most out of their lightwork so their render doesn't have the appeal it should have, ie looking too flat, too dark or washed out. The importance of shadows all comes into play here as well, especially if you're looking for realism.

Throw an offsetting color map (one that has been treated with the photo filter of your choice and you may wish to adjust levels for effect) into the translucent node. Set your diffuse color to around .7 and your translucence node to around .3
This gives the skin a much more realistic appearence in my opinion.
Also good specular maps are an absolute necessity

if you use a background pic;

check the lighting level, color, and direction, and match them in Poser. Makes everything blend.

I just hit the "Make Art" button and pray

These are three of the most common mistakes I see in beginners work.

1). Get the shadows right. You don't have to leave the Shadow intensity of a light at its default value. You may need to touch-up the shadows in postwork.

2). Get the eyes right. rarely should they look straight ahead. Think of dilating or contracting the pupils. Look at the eyelids. Pay particular attention to highlights in the eyes.

3). If the elbows, knees, or thighs, are bent to any degree, they will probably need postwork.

To expand Les's point about shadows:

ALWAYS set the Shadow Min Bias to POINT ONE to eliminate nostril glow!  Use Depth Mapped shadows as LITTLE as possible!  They do NOT act like real shadows, but have uses far and few between.

NEVER use shadows set at ONE!  In deep space without back-shadow or radiosity is fine.  In the real world, there are almost NO jet black shadows! 

With Raytraced Shadows, NEVER use Shadow Blur Radius at ZERO unless the scene is Deep Space!  Outside is ONE, harsh lights are ,75 to two, and interior lights with frosted lights range from six to twelve.

The Closer, the BIGGER the Shadow-Map! Portrait range=1024    10-30 feet=512 usually works fine   more than 50 feet=256 size is fine.

Basic Poser lights just...suck. Period.

another thought on eyes; you can use Object: Point at to 'connect' the characters in multiple-character renders. If they're fighting, have them looking in each other's eyes (point at the other character, then the body parts, eyes.  Also, play with the emotions in tense scenes like that; a little anger, disgust, fear, whatever, makes the viewer understand what's going on. Don't see it as often as I'd like...;)

Also, you can have the eyes point at the main camera, to have the character looking at the viewer. It can help too (also, a little  pupil dialation conveys interest as well)

Always save.
Save before loading an unknown object. Save before changing the light setting. Save before starting the render. Save after posing 26 finger joints. Maybe even in between.
I would have spared me many frustration, if I always had done so. ;)

The sticky note on my monitor says:

Always uncheck:
 
"Reflection_Lite_Mult"
and
Reflection_Kd_Mult"

These are in the Material Room.

*T"hese are three of the most common mistakes I see in beginners work.

1). Get the shadows right. You don't have to leave the Shadow intensity of a light at its default value. You may need to touch-up the shadows in postwork.

2). Get the eyes right. rarely should they look straight ahead. Think of dilating or contracting the pupils. Look at the eyelids. Pay particular attention to highlights in the eyes.

3). If the elbows, knees, or thighs, are bent to any degree, they will probably need postwork."*

Spot on lesbentley.
I sometime think some artists don't notice these things, and sometimes think they don't care.
Not sure which it is.

Here's a good MUST-DO list:

1. Always try to have your characters posing in front of a ruined temple or other fantasy prop. This seems to be the most popular genre here, so you're image should get plenty of views.

2. Always use a pre-made pose. Don't worry about things like skin poking through the clothing or feet hovering above the floor- these are too complicated to fix anyway.

3. Always make nude images. Sure, people like seeing nude images, but this helps you avoid the issue of clothing: you don't need to learn how to conform clothing and you don't need to learn how to avoid possible poke-through.

4. Always have your characters stare blankly into space with a blank expression. It's very rare that real people actually look at an object in space and it's even rarer that they have an expression on their face.
   Just look at any runway model and you'll see what I mean- those women never have an expression on their faces!
   If you follow rule #3 and always make nude images, no one will be looking at your character's face or eyes anyway. ;)

5. If you use a background image, it's not necessary to adjust the lighting so your models match the background. Poser's default gray/ orange/ white set is usually good enough.

6. Don't try to make your own character by adjusting the morphs or mixing textures. This is too complicated. Besides, people enjoy seeing the same texture set used over and over and over again.

7. If you do your post-work in Photoshop, remember to follow these steps:
   a) Export the image from Poser as a TIFF.
   b) Open the TIFF in Paint Shop Pro and convert it to png, making sure to keep the format "lossless".
   c) Open the png in Corel Painter and convert to BMP.
   d) Open the BMP in Photoshop. If this doesn't work, open the TIFF file.
   Remember, it's common knowledge that Poser 3 can't actually export the image as a Photoshop file. This is a feature Curious Labs will be adding to Poser 4.
   And the most important MUST-DO: never, ever look at other people's images. Don't talk to them about their technique and how they made their image. Don't try to learn from other people.
   Never try to improve your own work. Never experiment and never try something new.

Quote - It's been a while since I've done a proper full render in Poser as I'm a Vue 6 user, but the same principle applies in both programs... LIGHTS! Yes, textures & pose are also key but if your lights are wrong the image just won't cut it in my opinion.

I would almost go as far as saying "delete your entire light set library". When you move into a new house, do you copy someone else's placement of lights? Or would you look at your new house and think "where do I have my desk, my kitchen area, my reading armchair" and place the lights accordingly?

Lights bring definition, depth, mood and focus to your images. That's way to important to leave to a pre-fab light set someone made who hasn't even seen your scene.

Quote - > Quote - It's been a while since I've done a proper full render in Poser as I'm a Vue 6 user, but the same principle applies in both programs... LIGHTS! Yes, textures & pose are also key but if your lights are wrong the image just won't cut it in my opinion.

I would almost go as far as saying "delete your entire light set library". When you move into a new house, do you copy someone else's placement of lights? Or would you look at your new house and think "where do I have my desk, my kitchen area, my reading armchair" and place the lights accordingly?

Lights bring definition, depth, mood and focus to your images. That's way to important to leave to a pre-fab light set someone made who hasn't even seen your scene.

An exception, for me, is that it is often useful to have light sets with caustics or gels. I usually use one of these as a starting point when I am playing with those techniques. Also, I find I use bagginsbills default lights a lot when working on designing figures, since they look pretty good, and give me a consistent lighting set which is fairly neutral. Finally, I will usually at least try out a lighting set which comes with a scene or environment, since often the lighting is designed to mimic the actual lights in the scene. That being said, I usually end up doing my usual of an IBL and a couple of spots/infinites.

1. Always (OK, almost always) use an IBL light, usually at a low intensity. Poser doesn't really handle ambient light very well, and an IBL will keep dark corners from being too dark.
2. Use the shadowcams to see where the shadows will fall, even for ray-traced shadows.
3. Use AO on any surface which has something sitting on top of it. Don't use it for something that won't be visible.
4. Use shadow blur, even on ray-traced shadows, and use shadows (usually) at less than 100% strength.
5. Don't be afraid to make bits of the scenery non-shadow casting if it will make the picture better looking.

Never use Poser on a laptop in the bathtub.

(Bad stuff follows.)

Never, never, never ever forget rule No. one - in painting, drawing, photography, 3d art, even classical sculpting:

Light shows,
shadow explains.

ROTFL  :lol:

Quote - Never use Poser on a laptop in the bathtub.

  :thumbupboth:

Some thing an old art teacher told me that has always stuck in my head .(err about 30 years now lol)
'Black is not black, but has every colour inside it.'
so show some of them with a spec or high light, even black velvet has colour in it when looked at, so try not to make all your blacks flat, unless its a black cat in a black cave with a black light

another thing i just discover today :
before starting a "render make movie task" of long scene (300 frame), you MUST ASK YOURSELF

• HOW many time it shoud take my to my computer to render
• WILL i need to use my PC during the long render process
• IS my time rendering estimation be correct ?

Also, today, this morning (after preparing a scene yesterday evening), i start the rendering process of a animation of 300 frames, in 640x480 pixel.
I startd it at 9'oclock AM, just befor go working, so i thought it will take 3/4 hours to render the movie (i also made some tiime test).

but...

my time test will be done with nude character (just mat texture)....

and my new scene include 4 body clothes conforming with dynamic moves....

then....

5 hours after starting, the render process just complete 30% of the animation whereas i need to use my computer !!!

@ usamike--

It's like Scotty, the engineer from the Enterprise says, "Estimate how long it'll take and then multiple by FOUR! If you get it done shorter than that--you're a miracle worker!"

When rendering a face shot switch your camera to the "Face Camera", when doing a body pose switch to the "Posing Camera".   I used to use the posing camera to zoom into the face but the render doesn't look as good since the settings on the face camera are made to bring out the face. You could of course manually adjust the camera settings for the pose camera but to keep it simple just switch to the face camera when doing face renders.

i'm sure there are ways to expand on this basic concept.

In terms of rendering an animation, to work out how quickly things are likely to go, figure out the average length of rendering a single frame, and then multiply it by the number of rrames... expecting a 300-frame render to take only 45 minutes means that each frame would render in just 9 seconds - which is just about doable with a good computer and on preview settings, but just sint' going to happen with firefly unless you have an incredibly good render farm.

JonTheCelt

maybe most of you could be interested in this 2 threads :

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2733837
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2732765

also, what could we add in the MUST DO list ?

i think of this :
Before make a final render, ALWAYS to do a PREVIEW render to be sure there is no tweak body part are go weird !! Yesterday, i wait 12 hours for a render of my animation, and when it done, i sweept (no but, i could do !!) because the head did strange moves in my animation :
http://www.dailymotion.com/mike_amiens_usa/video/x4pqzg_aikoscence-peut-danser_3d

What an unexpected broken neck i did !!! Poor pretty girl.