bagginsbill opened this issue on Apr 29, 2008 · 496 posts
bagginsbill posted Tue, 29 April 2008 at 9:37 AM
Somebody who knows what they're talking about (on this subject it is not me) can correct me.
I believe the main point of Pro is to better integrate with other apps, where you intend to render. No?
In other words, if you DO render in Poser, you don't have much need for Poser Pro.
If you DO NOT render in Poser, this is supposed to make it easier to move your content, no?
For me, the neat new feature of Poser Pro (if you are rendering with it) is built-in gamma correction. Click this link for Poser Pro info on gamma correction. Open the "rendering" menu.
For ages I have pondered why Poser renders look wrong. I blamed the lighting model. I was wrong. It is because of the need for gamma correction.
Ever notice how you have to put in a ton of lights to light a scene, or use IBL to provide lots of "ambient" lighting to cover all the surfaces at all angles? Well in large part that is not the fault of lighting. Its the fault of your monitor. You are not seeing the true colors. You're seeing severely darkened surfaces. If a surface is "lit" at .5, you're actually seeing it at a level at .21. If you're surface is lit at .2 (for which you should be able to see something) your monitor displays an energy level of .029. This is pretty much invisible to you.
As a result, all the "shadows" look way too dark. All the reddish skin tones look gray.
Compare these two quick renders. I'm using a very low IBL (at intensity 20%) and a single infinite light from the side at 45%. On the left is without gamma correction. On the right is with gamma correction.
For years we've been adding lights, cranking them up really high, and messing with shaders to compensate. This created a very unnatural look, and skin often gets the yellow blowout effect. The reality is the images need to be adjusted to view them on a computer monitor.
When I looked at renders from other programs, it always seemed, particularly in an outdoor scene, that they had more "presence" - a sense of natural lighting and 3-D - that I just wasn't seeing in Poser renders. Anyone using PPro and built-in gamma correction is going to have to re-learn how to light a scene. I've been playing with it for a few weeks. This test render is nothing to be impressed by.
Of course if you're rendering in some other program, this is a moot point.
Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)