Quote -  Start out simple, use a standard lighting setup in white (key, back, rim) - forget about all the tricks you have learnt and build it up slowly. All my old light sets (especially bought ones) dont work anymore, they look awfully bad. Set up one light after the other and dont forget the shaders - P8 thinks different. The results are more straightforward than ever before. This one above was really easy to do and I am using white planes for the lighting (somehow area lights) and a skydome for a general light.

I'm not sure what you're doing, but all my old light sets work perfectly fine in P8, they look even better when rendered in P8 the before. SM didn't do that much about the regular lights at all. Every light set I've created in pre-8 versions work well in P8, every light set I've created in P8, works well in previous versions.

You don't have start thinking differently then before, P8 lights work the same as before.... unless you use IDL. But you've not stating that you do (but I've got the feeling that's what you're talking about). If you use IDL old sets don't work well, you to start thinking differently. If you don't use IDL (and enough people don't) there's no reason to think differently, most likely your renders look better then before.

Quote - Looks GOOD!

Since I haven't seen the threads that claim otherwise...

What is different in Poser 8 (yes I know about the IDL and such but what does it mean for such a render? What must you do differently?)

As long as you don't use IDL you don't have to do anything differently. My cars still look nice and shiny without IDL, using 'old' light sets or 'old' light techniques. I'm not using P4 or P5 techniques, those are already outdated since P6. But everything I've been doing since P6 still works fine...... even better!

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk