A common adjustment we make to digital photos is to "white balance" a photo, either in-camera or in postwork. White balancing adjusts the colors of the image so that white things look white, despite the fact that the environmental lighting actually has a color cast to it.

For example, if you're outdoors with a lot of sky showing, everything will have a blue tone to it. This makes portraits look ugly, so you always want to white balance that situation. Similarly, indoors with a light bulb, everything has an amber tone to it, and I usually like to cancel that out, too.

In our renders, when we use an IBL light probe with strong color in it, this often gives a render that looks like a photo that has no white balancing. Of course, you could take that render into a photo manipulation tool and white balance it after the fact.

Or - you can do this trick. Instead of plugging your IBL image into the Light Color, plug it into the Light Intensity.

Any Poser material node that has a numeric value is basically a gray-scale quantity, and if you plug a color into that, it gets converted to gray-scale automatically. No fuss, no muss.

So the Light Intensity channel will automatically white balance your environmental lighting in your render.

Both renders were done with only IBL lighting - no other lights were used.

Click each to magnify and do a flip-test comparison. It's pretty striking.

Thank you :)

BTW... I have played with edge blend on IBL to boost contrast and give that kind of early rennaisance "abstract shading". Any ideas or opinions concerning edge blend and other effects on IBL?

Thanks for the tip, bb.

In your examples, are you using AO on the materials? I'm wondering why there is a lighter line on the floor plane where it joins the wall plane behind the cylinders.

Quote - Thanks for the tip, bb.

In your examples, are you using AO on the materials? I'm wondering why there is a lighter line on the floor plane where it joins the wall plane behind the cylinders.

Not material, but light-based AO, and that is an artifact you see. Poser light-based AO is still not perfect, even in Poser Pro.

how could they fix that? 

To get AO light based render in poserpro ( and in poser 7) without artifacts, I uncheck the smooth polygons in the rendersettings. I haven't noticed any artifacts so far.

best regards,

Bopper.

But if I uncheck smooth polygons, then I can actually see the polygons in my test renders.

As far as I'm aware (and I think nobody has tested more than me) I cannot find a universally acceptable set of circumstances under which light-based AO always does what I want.

That's a nice technique bagginsbill but it sorts of negates the point of introducing some colour warmth or otherwise into a shot, to get away from the pure white CG lighting look, don't you think?

Of course it negates the point of colored lights.  :)

Isn't that what I said?

Look, when we take a photo, we often do not want all the tone that comes from it. We white balance the photo. But sometimes we do want the tone that comes with it. So we don't white balance it.

I recently took a photo of some snow outside at night with a mercury vapor streetlamp for light. It was totally orange snow. Is that helpful? Is that the point? For me it was not at the time. Well, if it isn't, how do you fix it so it isn't orange anymore? That's all I'm showing.

I'm not saying you should remove the color. I'm saying you can. As an artist, you need to decide which techniques to use and when to use them. However, if you're an artist who doesn't know techniques like this, then you are a LIMITED artist.

Also, if you want the color to be what you want it to be, then use this technique and one more step. Connect the image to the Intensity, and then put what color YOU want in the Color channel.

Jeebuz! You just solved probably half my Poser light anxiety in one post. Thank you for this!

Err, right.

Quote - Err, right.

Yes. "Err, right", as you say.
It's right when you want to use multiple lights, like I do, and have at least one of them an IBL. Without interfering with the color too much. Localized and specifically targeted color can be brought in through other lights where need be.
CG lighting is never going to be right by just tossing in a light and going for it, no matter what you do or what kind of scene you have. You have to use multiple lights, if even only three, and you have to be able to have total control over them. What bagginsbill posted here is one way of gaining more control, which can never be wrong.

I wasn't referring to your post. But yes, a little colour somewhere is usually a good thing.

Whitebalancing is more than just removing colors.

Remember, your vision is a highly evolved piece of organic machinery that adapts very easily and very quick to changing light conditions.  You percieve white as always white under any lighting; only when you take a photograph without white balancing do you actually see the true color condition of your scene.  And in the old days, photographic film did not lie.  You only manipulated post development to bring up, subtract or add back your colors.

Quote -
Whitebalancing is more than just removing colors.

Right, which is why I put quotes around it the first time I said it.

The math being applied here is not the same math as used in white balancing. On the other hand, white balancing is tricky, involves two parameters that require adjustment, and is often inadvertantly subjective due to what color things look like ON YOUR MONITOR.

Meaning, the end result may look white to you after fiddling with white balancing, and it still has a color cast to it.

Meanwhile, the technique I'm showing here absolutely puts white things out with no color tone at all. You don't have to measure anything or even get involved in the process.

Quote - Remember, your vision is a highly evolved piece of organic machinery that adapts very easily and very quick to changing light conditions.  You percieve white as always white under any lighting; only when you take a photograph without white balancing do you actually see the true color condition of your scene.  And in the old days, photographic film did not lie.  You only manipulated post development to bring up, subtract or add back your colors.

Exactly right, and this is the reason I show you this tip.

Every time I've seen somebody use a big-sky IBL, unbalanced, the render looks so blue as to be ridiculous, and I mean that literally, as in it was worthy of ridicule. I feel sorry for people who lack that much perception that they produce a render that is wildly unrealistic, totally naively ignoring the facts of human perception.

Outdoor photographs are 99.9999% of the time white balanced to remove that blue cast, so that the photo resembles a human's perception of the lighting at that place, not the actual lighting at that place.

Quote - That's a nice technique bagginsbill but it sorts of negates the point of introducing some colour warmth or otherwise into a shot, to get away from the pure white CG lighting look, don't you think?

I just noticed what you said here. You're actually supporting the technique, based on what you said. You just don't realize it.

You said "it sort of negates the point of introducing some colour warmth".  This implies that you sometimes would like to introduce some colour warmth into an image, correct? And so if you'd like to introduce some warmth, you'd clearly want to stay away from any IBL that had a blue cast to it, right?

So let's say that the IBL in your kit that is your most favorite, producing the most lovely contrast and shapes on your figure, actually turns out to be an outdoor one with a blue cast. You might think you shouldn't use that one, eh? That would be a mistake.

If you removed the blue cast you can use it for neutral lighting. You can even use it to produce an amber cast, if you like, by putting an amber color in the light's color.

Quote -
So let's say that the IBL in your kit that is your most favorite, producing the most lovely contrast and shapes on your figure, actually turns out to be an outdoor one with a blue cast. You might think you shouldn't use that one, eh? That would be a mistake.

That's pretty much where I'm at, which is why I appreciated this. I have several really nice IBL images, but simply editing out the unwanted color or desaturating them before loading causes them to lose some of their "punch".
So this is the next best thing, really.

This is not a Poser render kids. Don't try this at home.

Speaking of semantics, i.e. the meaning of words, what does that last statement mean?

"This is not a Poser render kids. Don't try this at home."

Does that mean you think it is not possible to render like that in Poser? Or you want to know how to render like that in Poser? Or does it mean you think I'm not 48 years old? LOL

Or did it mean something else?

Well, I'll formulate a reply to that tomorrow. It's far too late here to start discussions like that. Stay tuned.

Quote - Speaking of semantics, i.e. the meaning of words, what does that last statement mean?

"This is not a Poser render kids. Don't try this at home."

Does that mean you think it is not possible to render like that in Poser? Or you want to know how to render like that in Poser? Or does it mean you think I'm not 48 years old? LOL

Or did it mean something else?

no way to get this kind of shadows in poser.  

or is it :) 

Top man Mr Bagginsbill... so simple when shown... but what a bugger to work out when you don't know what you're doing... this is a really good solution! 

Bagginsbill, what did you do, look in my little gallery and decide to address the problem I've been having? :P

Seriously -- this is the ANSWER to the very issue that has been plaguing me! Thank you!!

This is a Poser render, kids, and you should try this at home.

Took me longer to find a suitable sci-fi model than to actually set up the render and run it.

So Mr Bill... what model is it that you found... looks really cool!.. and in Poser as well! 

Attached Link: http://www.sparkyworld.co.uk/3d9own.htm

Funny thing is Mr Sparky has this all set up with very nice color maps and such. I had to remove all that to get this style of render.

I think this is called a "maquette" render. You see it a lot in modeling forums where people are showing a WIP and they don't have textures or don't want to distract the evaluator's opinion with textures. It's very common among the high-end 3D apps to render this way, as it seems to be some sort of badge of honor to produce a beautiful maquette render.

For some reason, people think only kick ass rendering engines can do it. So I guess Poser is a kick ass renderer.

And all that, you used just the IBL AO white balancing setup.  Can we use any IBL image or is it simply for those who have Poser Pro?

Thanks BB... what a top model... I can't believe it's free as well.. thats Mr Sparky too! 

its not the same bagginsbill. he has a very very blured direction light

Thanks a lot man, this saves me the trouble of using PS just for that.

Quote - its not the same bagginsbill. he has a very very blured direction light

So? Are you asking me to prove we can do that in Poser? It's not hard.

Quote - And all that, you used just the IBL AO white balancing setup.  Can we use any IBL image or is it simply for those who have Poser Pro?

That was Poser 7. You can use any kind of IBL image.

You can also skip IBL images, which makes them not * I * BL anymore. An image based light without an image is a node-based light, I guess, or NBL. Anyway, I published lots of NBLs with VSS. They're not hard to make.

Quote - its not the same bagginsbill. he has a very very blured direction light

To ice-boy: I studied the images again. I am still learning, but I now can see what you pointed out.
It's wonderful that we can learn from the eyes of others.

Thank you so much for your post. : )

Quote - > Quote - its not the same bagginsbill. he has a very very blured direction light

So? Are you asking me to prove we can do that in Poser? It's not hard.

it could be maybe done wiht a spot light and 20 blur with raytraced shadows . but i dont think it would look soft enough. there would be pixels

 Oh now THIS is a cool trick!

My favourite light set is the Poser 7 HDRI set "Albany Nights" . but sometimes it's just TOO yellow - it's great for torchlights ect, but less when there's a window present or anything. This way I can use my lovely lights AND have a less yellow hue - and all without doing the colour corrections afterwards in Photoshop!

Neat!

Aboutht eh sciFi render. Poser does nice looing Ambient Occlusion IMo. Sometimes you need to turn it down (if the hair for instance gies off ugly shadown) but all in all AO works nicely in Poser, and Bagginsbill's picture clearly showed.

Dunno what the other pic is rendered in. I know that I haven't the foggiest idea how to set up AO ect in my other 3D programs - but in Poser it's just a few clicks, and voilá!

Quote - > Quote - And all that, you used just the IBL AO white balancing setup.  Can we use any IBL image or is it simply for those who have Poser Pro?

That was Poser 7. You can use any kind of IBL image.

You can also skip IBL images, which makes them not * I * BL anymore. An image based light without an image is a node-based light, I guess, or NBL. Anyway, I published lots of NBLs with VSS. They're not hard to make.

Whoa!  That's nice to know BB; I mean, you can come up with everything Poser.  The Artistic Lens, The VSS, wow what will you think up next -- lol.

Thanks again,

JB

Quote -
I think this is called a "maquette" render. You see it a lot in modeling forums where people are showing a WIP and they don't have textures or don't want to distract the evaluator's opinion with textures. It's very common among the high-end 3D apps to render this way, as it seems to be some sort of badge of honor to produce a beautiful maquette render.

Actually, it looks more like an AO pass than anything else - they are great for showing off the details in the model without worrying about textures etc.  If you want to see some awesome maquettes, take a look at some of the stuff that comes out of ZBrush :biggrin:

Quote - Speaking of semantics, i.e. the meaning of words, what does that last statement mean?

"This is not a Poser render kids. Don't try this at home."

Does that mean you think it is not possible to render like that in Poser? Or you want to know how to render like that in Poser? Or does it mean you think I'm not 48 years old? LOL

Or did it mean something else?

Obviously my attempt at humour was lost on you. Never mind.
It seems I've committed the mortal sin of daring to pose a question in response to your original post and that you've taken that as some sort of challenge. As far as your age goes, I don't know how that's relevant, but anyway.....

My image took a matter of seconds to set up and uses no lights, no images, no nodes, no surfacing tricks, just a background colour.  Your image is not bad, but no cigar. You'll have to turn on Poser's radiosity to do better. Yeah, try this at home kids.

You can keep having the argument, semantic or otherwise, as long as you want, but I've spent too much time with this already, so will bid this place good-bye and go and enjoy my long weekend in the perfectly rendered real world.

Quote -

My image took a matter of seconds to set up and uses no lights, no images, no nodes, no surfacing tricks, just a background colour.  Your image is not bad, but no cigar. You'll have to turn on Poser's radiosity to do better. Yeah, try this at home kids.

Yeah, you used a backdrop color and global illumination. LightWave would be my guess, with Final Gather, maybe just backdrop only. Could be modo, too, or maybe Cinema, but it looks like a LW render to me.

I could do that all day long, too, with LW. That's your basic model presentation "clay" type of render - no effort, no setup at all other than loading and dialing the light to 0, selecting a backdrop or sky color, and turning on shadows and GI.

However, I didn't heed your warning. I did do this at home. For that matter, I do this at home quite a bit, and it's not really caused any noticeable harm yet.

I think what bagginsbill is on about is doing it in Poser, which is exceedingly difficult to get that look. While I myself don't have the patience much of the time to try to get a decent render out of Poser, and will use LightWave for that, loads of people here don't have that option. I'm pretty sure he's trying to help them out, not looking for a confrontation with you.

As for my comments, why I was happy to learn about this, I occasionally try to get good results from Poser, if I happen to be in the mood to deal with it. For the same reason anyone does anything difficult - just because. But also I sometimes try to establish the type of look I might want before exporting everything. I think they call that pre-visualization. And Poser is quite a good tool to use for it, due to its ease of use and speed.