I thought I'd try to at least get to grips with lighting before I embark on my journey to find the real artist I left for dead a few years back.  After some wise suggestions in my "Why all Sam Therapy's pictures suck" thread, I think it's a necessary step.

Considering a lot of my pics are outdoors (apart from the ones that aren't) I need to know the best approach(es) to lighting a scene well but at the same time allowing me to complete a render before the sun goes nova.  Bear in mind also that I'm using P6 so some of the fancy ass stuff available to some of you lucky(?) people will not be an option for me.  I also have a stone age computer with a paltry 1GB of RAM and an ancient Athlon, so please be gentle with me.  If you mention AO It'll probably pass out.  As for IBL, does it really convey any advantages if I'm using a complete environment for me render?  After all, the sun is a great big glowing thingy in the sky, right?

See what I mean?  I need the info.  So, please point me in the right direction and I'll see what I can do.

TIA 

I'm still using Poser 6 :) Nothing wrong with that version at all.

Unfortunately there really is no shortcut to learning lighting. I will tell you that lighting in Poser 6 and up is infinitely easier to learn than it was in Poser 5.  Basically you can get a very nice lighting set up with between 1 and 5 lights total.  The gurus like Bagginsbill can do it with 1 light. I find that I can't get a good looking light set up with anything less than 5 usually. Sometimes all are infinite lights, other times it's a blend between infinite, spot and point lights.... point lights if I'm using candles or a brazier.  

Here is a link to some bookmarked threads on lighting.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2734086

I think some of the RDNA ones are broken.  But if you tack on the thread number found at the end of a broken link to this new string, it will get you to the thread.

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?p=

I'm proud to say that while I never understood lighting in Poser 5, that I managed to finally understand it in Poser 6 and now I make my own lights for my renders.  

Nerd's volumetric lighting tutorial in the turorial area here (and in the bookmarked thread) is fabulous!

Oh... and Poser 6 and up can only display a total of 8 lights at one time. Those 8 lights include lights that you have in the scene but have turned off.  

If you have more than 8 lights in the scene IE: lights made for Poser 5 that have 30 lights, the lights will still render fine, but the scene will preview very dark.  Not to mention it takes forever to render all of the shadow maps, so I tend to stick with lights made for Poser 6 or make my own.

Okay, Sam, I'm a novice like you. I have learned one or two things about lighting in Poser though, so I'll share what I do know.

First and most importantly: you need to fix your materials so that Poser can process them properly. This is the main "suck" factor in Poser images: people trying to make up for Poser's inability to process materials correctly by throwing more light into the scene. There are lots of threads on here regarding gamma-correcting materials and Bantha has written a wacro that I'm pretty sure you can use in Poser 6 as well to automate the process of GCing your materials.
If you want a little hand-holding, I'm happy to provide that for you. Once you've GCed, you never go back.

Outside lighting? Use BagginsBill's envSphere. It gives much more than just a proper lighting, but it provides something for reflective objects to... err... reflect.

Do those two things to your scenes and you'll be blown away by how much better things look. Then, all you need is 3 lights. Some people only use one for outside. Your processor will thank you. I only have a gig of RAM (still, Santa got me a massaging office chair seat instead... guess he wasn't listening [AGAIN] lol) and only the really high-setting renders take really long. Like setting raytracing on for hair and ambient occlusion on and rendering to 2000 x 2000... but that gives me a really nice pictures. Those I let chug overnight.

Ta for the replies.

First, I never, ever use depth mapped shadows Linda, so that ain't a problem for me.  I get the lights limitation and it don't bother me in the least.  I reckon real men only use 8 lights at most, anyhow. :lol:

Used volumetrics in P5 - and early on in 6 - grew a beard.  Little Sam don't like the beard on his skin so volumetrics ain't that high on my list now.  :)

 RV, I always use a skydome of my own making for outdoor renders and I always put my subjects in a scene with stuff around them so there's no prob about having something to reflect.  I will, however, nick BB's lights, simply because he really knows his stuff.  Plus, he's kinda abrupt - just like I am in real life - so I can relate to the gent and (hopefully) his ways of sorting stuff out.

Tell me more about GC.  I have GC setup correctly in Photoshop and all the latest bells and whistles for me monitor, so what's the news here? 

Oh yeah, I use a CRT, too.  Iiyama VisionMaster Pro 454.  Miles better than any LCD/LED/TFT, IMO. 

GC.

I'll give you the novice version, okay?

Gamma correction would appear to have something to do with hardware and like that, but when dealing with Poser it actually has to do with what I consider a shortcoming in Poser (which they fixed in Pro but decided not to in 8.... don't get me started).

It's about colourspace. There's two types that concern us here: linear colour space and sRGB (or standard red-green-blue)... this from the wikipedia:
sRGB is a standard RGB (Red Green Blue) color space created cooperatively by HP and Microsoft in 1996 for use on monitors, printers, and the Internet.

Why is a bit beyond me, but for whatever reason the colours we use (from like the Microsoft colour Picker in Poser or colour images like textures - imageMap node stuff - all need to be converted to linear colour space, processed and converted back to sRGB. This is all to make Firefly happy. Cobalt dream put it this way:
Why use a linear workflow?  The colors you see on your screen are in non-linear sRGB color space.  The calculations a renderer makes are linear and produce linear results.  If you don't anti-correct colors before they reach calculations like how to shade and highlight a surface, then they make the wrong calculations.  If you don't correct the final result, then the render will be in linear color space and won't appear properly on your screen.  That means we want to anti-correct all our color inputs and correct all of our outputs.

So, it's for that middle bit - the processing - that we convert all colour information from sRGB to linear.
Then, of course, the colour information needs to be converted back to sRGB so that it displays correctly.

I hope this information doesn't freak you out too much... but it IS the unvarnished truth and the basis for 99.999% of the suckdom of non-Poser Pro images.

To my knowledge, Das Studio doesn't appear to have this issue. IF that's true, marketing or whatever, it seems a bit weird that a free product like DS should have the capacity to GC within its renderer and Poser only offers it in a Pro version.

Hmmmmmm.

Nah, RV, that actually makes a lot of sense.  It's what I told my younger brother to do before the fitted a new lens to the Hubble scope:

"You know the error, so why not just correct in software?  You know - just plug in the factor and subtract it."  He didn't do that - they sent up the NASA mission instead - but they did use the basic idea to discover the latest Geo Alike planets.  And yes, you can thank me.  :biggrin:

And I'm not a scientist. 

I should have mentioned that you can gamma-correct your rendered images in Photoshop or whatever, but in truth you've already introduced false information into your image which is going to be difficult if not impossible to compensate for through post-processing.

It's like not having your light setting right (day or night or whatever) in your higher-end digital camera: yes, you can generally fix the image somewhat afterwards, but it'll never look as good as if you'd taken the picture with the settings right to begin with.

Okay, looks like you got my point - we were cross-posting.

Now, HOW the heck do you gamma-correct materials?

There is no really quick way: the fastest method for simple materials is using Bantha's wacro. You bring up the obj in the advanced tab material room... I generally arrange whatever imageMap nodes there are over to the right, but that's my OCD showing, I guess. Then you apply the GC node set by runnng the wacro. He provides two, but I've only ever used the first one.

At this point, I don't use this against reflective or refractive materials. There is still a lot of discussion about exactly what the best, standardised approach should be for these types of materials. Still, making these changes will greatly affect the quality of your rendered images: try it, you'll like it.

Oh, and Those-Who-Know, jump in any time, here. I'm delighted to stand corrected on any points I've made.

So, if I get the general idea, it's similar to introducing EQ to the mix after you have balanced everything, if you GC afterwards?

In other words, get it right in the render first.

I'll hunt down the wacro from Bantha tomorrow.   

Here you go:
www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

Awesome.  Thank you. 

Sam, it'd be a PITA, but you could probably fake AO in photoshop if you were bored and had a lot of time on your hands.  If you could see a model without mats on it with AO and without it, you'd be able to see the difference.  Basically it is like a softening and a darkening on interior edges mixed into one.

I'm no expert on this but my stupid assumption is you probably want an infinate light for the sun (with the color depends on angle of the sun in the sky) or the moon (something else for stars or city lights) and an IBL to make up for the fact that poser can't do a good job of handling the amount of extra light refecting around off objects.

Now I need to run away before someone who actually knows something sees this.

Quote - Sam, it'd be a PITA, but you could probably fake AO in photoshop if you were bored and had a lot of time on your hands.  If you could see a model without mats on it with AO and without it, you'd be able to see the difference.  Basically it is like a softening and a darkening on interior edges mixed into one.

I'm no expert on this but my stupid assumption is you probably want an infinate light for the sun (with the color depends on angle of the sun in the sky) or the moon (something else for stars or city lights) and an IBL to make up for the fact that poser can't do a good job of handling the amount of extra light refecting around off objects.

Now I need to run away before someone who actually knows something sees this.

 I dig it, Winter.  I know exackerleh wotcha mean re AO.  Tother stuff, I hope to pick up here.  BTW, nice birdie.  :)

Hey mon,  I came across a great video that explains gamma correction for us beginners

check here:

www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php

Working in Linear gamma really is the key to great looking graphics both in Poser and image editing programs

 Also, if you want to get some info on compositing, check out 3D Ninja's "Basic Tutorial, parts 1 and 2 over here:   (scroll down)

the3dninja.com/blog/

Although, many of the things mentioned can't be done in Poser 6, you might find the information quite useful

take care

Here is another site which explains gamma correction and linear workflow.  It is interesting read.

http://www.ypoart.com/tutorials/tone/index.php

Once you come to terms with how important Gc really is in Poser, you will need to break the material room and take very close notice how the 'wiring' is connected for every piece of material.  It is a PITA, but a necessary evil.  Robyn mentioned BB's envsphere and you replied that you use a Skydome.  That is quite all right, except the difference between the products is the ability to control Gamma.  Skydome does not give you that option.  As I mentioned, once you grasp this reality, you will be scrutinizing everything you place in your scene. 

And as a recommendation, any material exhibiting a Diffuse_Value = 1 should be dialed down to between 0.7 to 0.8.  Everything does not reflect diffuse lighting at 100%.