That math function isn't doing anything. My shader doesn't (cannot in fact) use the built-in diffuse channel of the root node. But if you shut it off, then previews stop working and you can't see your figure. So I plug the color map in to the root, and set the Diffuse_Value to 0 by connecting a Math node that equals zero. This tricks Poser's preview renderer into showing you the color map in the pose window. That part of the shader has NOTHING whatsover to do with how the skin looks in a render - only in preview. If you were to put AO there, it would do nothing.

The place where AO goes is into the Diffuse node. If you look through the shader more carefully, you'll see that I already have an AO node in there and connected in the right place.

Did you think there wasn't any AO? Are you not getting it when you expect to?

You can adjust the AO values, but I find that sometimes Poser doesn't generate any AO - depends on the Pose and camera angle and render settings. It's a little bit buggy that way. Which Poser, 6 or 7 or Pro? They're all different, too. Also, how many render threads? I've found so many bugs relating to AO that I could go on and on asking you questions to narrow it down.

But I'm just speculating about why you asked, really, since I already have AO in the shader.

Its in the eye shader too.

Sorry, didn't really look through that shader. It was a little daunting when I saw it.

The test render didn't appear to have any AO, that's why I asked.

I'm using Poser 7. I tried your included lighting (outdoor field) and the figure looked like it was glowing from the inside.

I don't understand what you mean by Render Threads.

Your render threads are set in your poser preferences under render, bottom left side. That is the number he is looking for. How you have it set.

My threads are set to 1. Since I only have a single core processor. But I fail to see how this would affect the appearance of the render. After reading about it in the Poser manual, this is used for render speeds.

this was rendered very fast. 2 minutes for this. every shader is using GC. i dont even render without GC anymore.also without AO. it is not very bright so i dont need AO.
i think the main light should have been more bright.

3 lights. main light,20% IBL and 50% backlight.

i like this dramatic lightining. i like the shadows around the eyes.

Quote - Sorry, didn't really look through that shader. It was a little daunting when I saw it.

It is daunting, I agree, and I left it in a very messy state. :biggrin:
The next version will have easy-to-use parameters somewhere so you don't have to open the Template Skin shader to adjust it. I'm still not clear on where they should be, exactly, which is why they don't exist yet.

Quote -
The test render didn't appear to have any AO, that's why I asked.

Right, and my questions were related to why you might not be seeing AO. Since there is an AO node in it, the reason you don't see AO has to be something else. There are many AO bugs in various versions of Poser. I don't bother explaining them all, any more than a doctor might explain the hundred diseases that give you painful, itchy skin bumps. I'm asking a few questions that help me narrow down the possibilities.

I understand that the number of render threads has no theoretical relationship to how AO should appear. But we're not dealing with CG theory here, we're dealing with Poser. Just to give you a sense of how much you don't know about Poser's AO misbehavior, let me tell you that all of the following can cause it to change appearance or disappear, even though, in theory, they should have ZERO impact.

Camera position, viewing angle, focal length, and hither.
Light type, position, intensity, angle, and color.
Shadow settings, raybias, intensity.
Render settings bucket size.
Render threads.

The AO node is supposed to be about nearby geometry and nothing else. Unfortunately, that isn't how it actually behaves.

In addition, the following things are expected to have an impact on AO strength and quality, but there are situations where the impact is much larger than you might expect from theory, again because Poser has bugs in it.

Irradiance Caching
Pixel Samples
Min Shading Rate
Smoothing
Displacement

Then, of course, we have the impact of the AO node's own parameters, as well as how you connect it to the rest of the shader. Fortunately, I'm handling that so I don't have to ask any questions in that regard.

Quote -
I'm using Poser 7. I tried your included lighting (outdoor field) and the figure looked like it was glowing from the inside.

Perception is highly affected by surroundings. If you did not render the figure against a bright, outdoor photo, it sure would look like its glowing because the brightness of the figure is out of context. Go back to my very first post about the beach scene. If you take that figure out of the beach environment, and render her in an indoor scenario, she'll look ridiculously bright.

Perhaps you want to post a test render so I can judge whether or not I need to adjust something.

Also, did you use the PR1 prop or the PR2 prop? Because my first preview release (PR1) has the skin brightness turned way down, and I was using lights that were too hot for other props and figures. Since then, I changed the shaders and released PR2, which glows a lot more with less light. But I didn't release a new set of lights. The point of PR2 was to bring the overall brightness more in line with the rest of the props and shaders you may want to use, by expecting less light. As a result, my original lights need to be turned way down.

ice-boy - Your renders look great.

For those who might be interested in understanding AO issues more deeply, have a look at this thread.

Ao causg bamding shadows (sic)

I posted many things in that thread that are incredibly important to know if you're trying to get the best results from AO.

The AO node "Strength" parameter does nothing. Read here to see what to do about it:

Subtle control of material based ambient occlusion

Here's a thread with more useful how-to information and some very clear demonstrations.

Realism Tip - Use the Ambient_Occlusion node

i used VSS then i saveed the skin shader. i saved it two times. first with AO and then without. when i use one infinite light i think that AO looks ugly around the eyes. plus with one infinite light you dont need AO IMO.

it still doesnt look great. your lights are better but the render time is longer. i dont have the patience he he :)

while your skin shader is fantastic and the most realistic skin shader that is for poser, i think the best thing that happened in the last two weeks was your gamma correction tutorial. i think GC is groundbreaking he he :)

Quote - ice-boy - Your renders look great.

i didnt change the settings of VSS 2. 
i guess the apollo texture has the right colors.

Bill, I asked you if you had a sense of humor and you replied:

Quote - Huge. And subtle. :)

The post after this one will have an image that I hope doesn't:
A.) Violate the TOS
B.) Get me tossed off the forums
C.) Bill gets a big chuckle out of it.

If the image violates the TOS, then by all means delete it and this post also.

If both post survives, please don't be critical of anything but the shaders on the skin or my question that follows. The car was purchased content and the interior leaves a lot to be desired. The background is the one sided primitive, colored black and the reflection removed. What I can't figure out is how to get the right side windows so you see the black primitive without it changing the color so drastically compared to the left side windows. Granted there is no lights facing forward or from behind. The lights are the supplied indoor 2, cut 5 percent in intensity. But I assumed to much and thought that all glass would react the same. But it doesn't. I am a complete rookie with Glass and Mirrors. One other thing that looks odd in a larger image is her right fingers have a tinge of blue, compared the the rest of her skin. I assume this is because they are so close to the bright yellow. But that is a huge assumption on my part. But lets get back to the main reason for this post...

Bil:
From this side of the pixels in various threads here and over in the node cult it is obvious to me you have poured your heart and sole into not just VSS, but the material room in general. Then taken a ton of information from all your hard effort and shared it freely and willingly with the masses. A few of those masses understand the technical levels of your work, but most don't. Those that don't, you've taken the time to try to help educate...sometimes with results, and sometimes that effort ends up futile and frustrating. Well I thought maybe it was time to see if Vicki could work a little on that frustration.

Thanks for all you do. It is appreciated more then I think you realize.

Gary

grichter:

I LOVE IT! That's really funny. Thanks so much.

Her skin looks great, if I do say so myself. :biggrin:

Great pose and expression. Totally believable.

(We can work on the paint and glass and rubber another day.)

Camera position, viewing angle, focal length, and hither.
Light type, position, intensity, angle, and color.
Shadow settings, raybias, intensity.
Render settings bucket size.
Render threads.

Bucket size! You gotta be kidding me. No wonder I've never been able to get a satisfactory result from Poser. I'm accustomed to Max, and AO works every time and properly with predictable results.

From: Ao causg bamding shadows (sic) by bagginsbill

I have never been satisfied with AO in Poser. I can only use it effectively for very minor small areas like nostrils or eye whites.

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Also, did you use the PR1 prop or the PR2 prop?

The PR2.

Perception is highly affected by surroundings. If you did not render the figure against a bright, outdoor photo, it sure would look like its glowing because the brightness of the figure is out of context.

That makes perfect sense. And the 4 glasses of wine I had just before didn't help my perception either.

Perhaps you want to post a test render so I can judge whether or not I need to adjust something.

Ask ye shall receive.

Mmm. Well she doesn't look excessively glowing to me, but its hard to judge the whole because the photo is so overexposed and she doesn't show a shadow.

If I scroll the image down my screen so I only see her from the knees up, I'm not thrown by the lack of shadow on the ground. But the overexposed, oversaturated photo just doesn't work here.

Are you using my lights as they came?

The best type of photo to use is one where there are other people in it, so you can judge if the rendered figure looks like them or not.

i used your eyes from apollo. but because of all reflection the render time was to long. so i changed some things so that it renders faster.i played with the red in the skin settings.belt is your lame shader with  little GC.

Well she doesn't look excessively glowing to me, but its hard to judge the whole because the photo is so overexposed and she doesn't show a shadow.

I just threw a quick pick in the background. I'm not going for any kind of final product here. Once the figure is put into context as you say, it doesn't look glowing to me either. However, lighting has a huge impact as always.

My last 4 renderes in my gallery all use your script, bb. Images are a bit too big to show here in the forums. Used PoserPro HDR lights in the last two ones. The AO shadows dramatically improved after I raised the irradiance caching to 100, but that's why lasted a little longer.

In any case someone's interested:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=14279

I'm not satisfied with this gamma correction thing in PoserPro, tried it several times with different textures and always got weird results, seems it not only influence diffuse, also specular and bump and displacement.
And I can't correct something because in PoserPro all those channels are showing funny and different amount numbers in the MAT Room than what stands in the MATs. :(

Quote - i used your eyes from apollo. but because of all reflection the render time was to long. so i changed some things so that it renders faster.i played with the red in the skin settings.belt is your lame shader with  little GC.

Yea I didn't put the full-blown eye shader into VSS by default. I made the VSS eye shader much simpler and cheaper to execute. I will supply those more complicated eye shaders from AMUCFS as a VSS material you can load if you want.

I'll also be putting in some non-GC shaders - for those using built-in Poser Pro GC.

Quote - My last 4 renderes in my gallery all use your script, bb. Images are a bit too big to show here in the forums. Used PoserPro HDR lights in the last two ones. The AO shadows dramatically improved after I raised the irradiance caching to 100, but that's why lasted a little longer.

Nice renders. So I take it you like the VSS shaders? :)

I always do final render with AO IR=100 - much cleaner.

Hey - did you guys see my entry in the Poser Primitives challenge? <--- click it

I'll be including all those shaders in VSS, too. Glass, painted trim, stained wood, deck wood, redwood fence, concrete, grass. All procedural - no images used.

I couldn't have finished it without VSS, because there were so many fricking props that had to change whenever I wanted to adjust a shader. For example, the deck is 102 boxes. VSS updated them all with one click whenever I adjusted that wood shader.

Allow me to applaud BBs painstaking hard work, prompt replies and diligence on this excellent utility for the Poser community.

My hat is off to your patience,and generosity. Renderosity should have a feature about this not to mention one of the longest threads I've seen in a while.

Bravo bagginsbill!

Quote - Hey - did you guys see my entry in the Poser Primitives challenge

Looks amazing -- as usual, your mastery with materials takes it over the top. I also want to thank you again for generously giving us this great shader system and the light sets. I'm loving the results I get and I use it for most of my renders now.

just messing around, so far, and i'm not at the computer with my tests, but i found something that struck me as important enough to post.  not sure if it's of interest, but i figure i'll err on the side of saying something.

so i played with lights first.  i first noticed that you only use infinites in the indoor sets, and they seem (at an eyeballing level) to have more accurate shadows that spots.  unfortunately, more than one infinite for me is both unrealistic and very limiting, so i tried playing with the spots i like to use for indoor / studio type scenes (i.e., using something of the inverse square falloff shader you posted in another thread).  i still don't like the raytraced blur in P6,  even infinites to me seem way too sharp at the base and comparatively way too blurred as they become more distant, and spots seem even worse.  all that said, i haven't worked with a photo, so maybe i'm off. 

anyway, i tried going down to really low ambient light with a tight spot and my own totally inexpert skin shader.  i actually liked the shadow better that when there was more of it. then i finally ran VSS on the figure. 

it happened to be V2, and the eyes seemed to mess up somehow (very unimportant), and the Eyebrows messed up because V2 is crazy.  i like her as a test figure because she's fairly light weight and i've got some nice textures for her, and i actually like her shoulders when they're down, but she's whack.  iirc the casing correctly, she has an Eyebrow, an EyeBrow and an UpperEyebrow material.  point being, one eyebrow seems to do nothing and the other needs to take face shader, and the only difference is casing.  i believe UpperEyebrow is the part that gets transmapped, if you have it.  anyway, she ended up with big black caterpillars. which sucks for her, because i think the materials are stupid and not to be accounted for.  i just thought you might want to know.

the thing i thought might actually be important is that i lost a lot of my  shadowed area (where the spot didn't go), as far as i can tell.  she's appears very ambiently lit, and even though the scene has a tight spot centered on her head, you can see her whole body clearly as you could not before.  i could totally be lighting her wrong, so i'll play around with the lights and find a good neutral material for the floor and wall.  

Hi hi!

She's bright because of gamma correction. We're so used to Poser renders looking dark and muddy, we think correct lighting is wrong-looking. LOL

You can decrease the GC - find the node with 2.2 in it and decrease that. If set to 1, there will be no GC.

Were you, by any chance, rendering in Poser Pro with GC turned on in PPro? If so, you must turn it off in my shaders, because then we're doing it twice!

Sorry, I missed the difference between PR1 and PR2. I have PR1 and I thought I had PR2.

i understand, but no, i'm just in Poser 6 and the original isn't muddy, it's properly dark, as far as i can tell. unless i'm totally misunderstanding my light (possible), it's as if you put someone on a dark stage, put a tight spot on just their head, and their whole body lit up impossibly evenly.  she's not too bright overall, she's too bright where she should be shadowed.  it's as if she's barely reacting to the light, and mostly shading on her own.

i should (finally) go home soon, so i can tell you my light settings then.  but really, i'm going for what should basically be dark in any world. 

sorry for the double post, but i wanted to warn you that it might be a while because i want to test a few things.  first of all, i want to turn back on atmosphere, because that will show more clearly where the light is.  i know from the other renders that this will take ages.  then i want to try it without the bit of IBL (10%) and bit of shadowless inifinite (5%) i added to try to fake bounced light and create a tiny bit of ambient light.  maybe this should just be lower, though even 15% off of pitch black is pretty low (and neither light is pure white).  and then i want to try it with out the GC, because if that's the problem, and i can get the results i want without needing to change every material in the scene to react to light like my main character, that might (in some cases) be preferable.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1679179

Attached Link: Some image I found with a single spotlight

However, I am now fully aware of and convinced of the absolute need for GC. I don't care if you do it in shaders or in post work, but you cannot achieve realism without it, because what you're seeing is not what you generated. What we see on computer monitors is SEVERELY darkened and the darkening happens most to our midtones. Thus we raise our light levels to bring the midtones to appear to be nicely lit, and this throws the highlights into the stratosphere.

This is why Poser renders look like Poser renders, unless they have wacky compensating shaders such as face_off's or mine. The yellow bloom on so many renders is entirely because the artist was unhappy with the overly-dark midtones, and boomed the lights real hot to compensate.

I should probably draw some pictures of what the math is behind all this.

By the way, if you use any other things in the scene to "judge" where the light is and how strong it is, you're just doing more of the same.

Of what use is it to judge the light strength from a prop or atmosphere shader that is not doing gamma correction?

You do realize, for example, that if you start with just enough light on, say, a one-sided square, to get it to render ALMOST white, and then you cut the light intensity exactly in half, what you see on your PC screen is not 50% darker, but 79% darker, right? I hope this is clear. I"m not making this up. How about 33% intensity? Do you realize what that looks like on your monitor? It is 91% darker - i.e. only 9% as bright as the original, instead of 33% as bright.

For years, we've been discussing how difficult it is to light a scene well in Poser. Guess what - Poser lighting had nothing to do with it. It's that Poser never did the gamma correction at the end, like all the other renderers are pre-configured to do.

I knew of gamma correction for years, but I did not understand the incredible impact it has. I thought it was a "final tweaking for artistic reasons" kind of thing. It's not.

When you throw a single spotlight on a figure, even one with a pretty strong falloff cone, it still lights the figure very well. But looking at that on a computer monitor makes you think it falls off really fast. It doesn't.

Two years ago I posted a long time (because I was a noob) about how Poser did something wrong with lighting - how when I turn a polygon 45 degrees away from a light, it got MUCH darker than it should. I was basing this on comparing the render to my experiments with actual pieces of cardboard. Then I fiddled with the Clay node because it let me make that seem like it was less dark.

In reality, the excessive darkness was entirely because I'm looking at it on a computer screen. As soon as you GC any Poser image, it looks right.

Remember, though, that almost every Poser image has been overexposed, in order to try to shift the low and mid tones into visibility. The result is that the highlights have clipped and gone completely past what the screen can display. That's when you see the yellow bloom.

Related to this is the excessive high settings we use on IBL, to perform fill lighting and ambience. I've typically used intensities of 35% to 60%. In reality, that is a SHITLOAD of ambient light. When I render with GC, IBL of 5% to 20% is typically enough to make the ambience of a sunny day indoors!

Have a look at the linked photo I found. I can clearly see the girl's blouse all the way down to where the falloff cone is way darker than the center of the spotlight. By the way, did you know all digital cameras do gamma correction? Nobody would buy one that didn't, because the photos would seem too dark on a computer.

Cool raven.

Looks overlit, though. I expect more definition. Using PR2 is good. Using indoor01 as I sent it with PR1 is bad.

Try your own lights, or reduce my light intensities.

I need to send new lights that are not so hot.

The background is alternating black (0%) and white (100%) intensity pixels. From far enough away, your eyes can't see them any more and you'll experience a 50% gray.

Then stand far enough away that that happens. For most people 8 to 15 feet is enough.

Then decide which splat looks like its the same brightness as the background.

WARNING:

If you have an LCD monitor, make sure you are not angled away from the very center of the image. LCD monitors produce wierd brightness anomalies at different viewing angles. Try to stay centered. Imagine a pencil sticking straight out of the center of the image. If its not pointing at your nose, move your head or the monitor. To be safe, when you get in position, move your head around - you'll see some of them change brightness against the background. Try to find the midpoint to minimize brightness anomalies.

Then, decide which splat seems most like it has disappeared.

For me, it is #4, or sometimes #5.

You may be surprised to learn that even though some of the splats appear much darker than the background, they are ALL BRIGHTER THAN THE BACKGROUND.

That's right, every one of those splats is more than 50% white.

You are seeing the need for gamma correction.

#4 is 71% white, corresponding with a gamma correction of 2.2.

#5 is 68% white.

If you are on a Mac, you may think #7 or #8 matches. That's why stuff looks different to you. If you think 7 or 8 matches, then change the gamma in the shaders to 1.8.

Nobody should think #9 matches. If you do, then you are not seeing what the rest of us see, either because your monitor/video card has been calibrated very differently, or you have strange eyes.

More perception warnings. Windows VISTA Image Viewer/Windows Photo Gallery are F'ED UP badly. Do NOT judge anything using those pieces of crap. I don't know WTF is up with that but its really annoying. Mine is showing tan where there should be white.

hi, can I have the link to the latest and greatest version of VSS please. (it is not on the Original Post).

Time to do a render.

::::: Opera :::::

found it.

http://poserbagginsbill.googlepages.com/vsshomepage

::: og :::

My Dell monitor show #4 as being the same. I'm having a hard time understanding your post where you mention:

*You do realize, for example, that if you start with just enough light on, say, a one-sided square, to get it to render ALMOST white, and then you cut the light intensity exactly in half, what you see on your PC screen is not 50% darker, but 79% darker, right? I hope this is clear. I"m not making this up. How about 33% intensity? Do you realize what that looks like on your monitor? It is 91% darker - i.e. only 9% as bright as the original, instead of 33% as bright.

Is there some math equation behind this? Also how does percentage and GC figures like you mentioned corelate?

#4 is 71% white, corresponding with a gamma correction of 2.2.

You say that Poser renders look dark but aren't, and that its the fault of the monitor that clips the shadowed areas. The thing is I've printed a few of my renders and they come out just as dark off my printer. I've tried other printers as well so its not only my calibration. If I'm understanding what you're saying that GC is only needed if you are viewing on screen than GC won't be needed for print production.

Mmm. You're under the assumption that printer drivers and other things do something different.

All devices understand color spaces, and the general assumption by printers and scanners is that you are going to start or end with an image that has been adjusted, via gamma correction, to look right on your screen. In other words, the printer is trying to reproduce what you see on the screen. It does this by applying the same amount of darkening to an image that your screen does. Digital cameras lighten (gamma correct) the photo assuming you will look at it on the screen. Scanners lighten what they scan so it looks right on your screen. Printers darken what they print so it matches whats on your screen.

GC is not needed to print. But your printer assumes you've already GC'd your image, so it un-does the GC before printing.

I'll prepare some visuals - graphs and charts - to more fully demonstrate the phenomenon.

Yes there is a math equation - it is trivial.

Let's assume for the sake of simplicity that your monitor pixels accept voltage from 0 to 1 volts. A voltage of 1, by definition, produces the brightest possible glow from the pixel. What brightness, relative to the maximum brightness, is produced by a 1/2 volt signal? The answer is not .5.

Brightness of pixel = V to the power 2.2

I'll use two asterisks to represent raising a number to a power, since I can't type superscripts into this editor.

BoP = V ** 2.2

So when V  is .5, BoP = .5 ** 2.2 = .21
When V is .333, BoP = .333 ** 2.2 = .0892

Here's my first try. Used the background image in IBL, plus a few other lights with depth-mapped shadows.

::::: Opera :::::

High Dynamic Range Images (HDRI) are NOT gamma corrected. Because the only reason they exist, for the most part, is to use them as input data to a computer graphics program, they are not meant to be viewed directly, but rather to be used as data. For that reason, they record the actual accurate brightness, not a gamma corrected brightness.

Let's look at one of the HDRI's that comes with Poser 7 - the Pond panorama.

I've attached it to two one-sided squares, and rendered them in Poser.

The upper one is rendered straight out. The voltages it is sending to your monitor are in exact linear proportion to the measured brightness at the time the photo was taken. All the darker areas are too dark, because your monitor doesn't generate the correct amount of light in proportion to the voltage. Also, you're seeing hue changes do the relative amounts of red, green, and blue being incorrectly generated by your monitor. This image corresponds with what you typically produce in Poser without GC, or what you get from a professional digital camera where you can tell it not to do GC.

The lower one has been gamma corrected by the power 2.2. Thus it compensates for your monitor's behavior, and presents to you the right brightness coming out of your pixels. This image corresponds with what you typically get from a consumer digital camera, or you would get from a render with GC applied by the software.

Quote - Click for full size/resolution.

Here's my first try. Used the background image in IBL, plus a few other lights with depth-mapped shadows.

::::: Opera :::::

Holy crapoly, opera, you are a MASTER! That looks really really good to me.

Did you adjust anything? What should I change? Do you like what you produced? Am I done?

My opinion about the above render is that it has the potential to be stunninginly real, but it does not yet convince. She is too perfect.

It needs some displacement or bump, plus some asymetrical features, wrinkles, imperfections. I don't think the lighting is right either. Hope to get suggestions on that part of it.

I'm going to move the hair differently, also.

::::: Opera :::::

BB I hope you will be happy to hear that I did not even open up the shader tree! This is all you.

The best thing about VSS is the amount of tweaking, dithering, and general fussing it eliminates.

::::: Opera :::::

Attached Link: Can the Poser 7 Pro feature Gamma Correction be emulated in P7 or P6 with Python

You also need to gamma correct her hair.

ice-boy has already taken all this to heart, and refuses to use any shaders without putting the GC logic into them.

I hope he doesn't mind me messing with his render here.

On the left is what ice-boy rendered using GC shaders. On the right is what it would have looked like if he'd not used GC shaders and raised his light levels to compensate. This particular shade of blue is one of those colors that is severly changed by your monitor. You only see the true hue if you use gamma correction.

The GC'd image does not look anything like a typical Poser render.

I posted instructions on how to take a typical existing shader and make a GC shader out of it at the link.

Have a go at putting GC on the hair, opera, because the dark part is way too dark.

I'll take a shot at GC on the hair, but you won't hear back from me until next week -- family reunion, leaving in an hour for that.

::::: Opera :::::

its pretty simple.

this is realistic.

this is not

i am right now looking out of my window. and i see a simple street light. it has a ball(sphere) on top of it. it is white. it is a sunny day. and the bright part doesnt fade away to the dark side. its a more sharp line.

google a ball or a sphere that is on a street at daytime. you will see.

you have to options. you can tweak you shaders all day. you can tweak your lights all day. and of course after you render a figure with at least 3 lights(minimum) you will still need some tweaking in photoshop.or you use GC and you make it easier for you.

plus if you go to the link then you will see how he did a great shader where he connects the diffuse with the specular together. so no more alternate specular.

look. almost like ambient light.

GC is the future of realistic poser renders.