Attached Link: Gallery

I haven't used Poser for any final renders for over 3 years because I could never really get my head wraped around Poser lights. Well as a part of upgrading to PPro 2010 I told myself it was time to finally figure Poser lighting out. The attached image is my first attempt with PP 2010. You can take a look in my gallery (link above) to get an idea as to the type of lighting and soft shadows I am looking for.

This definitely needs a lot more work, but it's also the best image I've ever gotten out of Poser (Woot!)! I rendered it using IDL with 3 distant lights, and BagginsBill's envShpere. Some of the shadows just aren't comming out the way I would like (like the gold band on V4's left leg that has almost no shadow, and her feet that have gone missing), and I was hoping one of the gurus here could point me in the right direction.

The three lights are set to cast shadows and raytracing:
The main light is in front of V4 - above her to her right at 47%  intensity
A fill light in front of V4 - "below" her on her far left at 10% intensity
And a back light above and slightly behind V4 at 5% intensity

TIA for your assistance!

 

Here are my render settings

First thing -

drop to just the main light, turn on gamma correction in render settings and render again.

Then we go from there.

What is your Poser display unit set to, and what is the shadow ray bias set to on the main light?

What blur setting on the main light shadow?

What samples?

Thanks bagginsbill!! Attached is the new render with only one lighy and GC turned on (at 2.2). The display units are set to feet, and the light settings are in the attached image below (render settings unchanged other than turning on GC). DR

Here are the light settings

Hmm. I expected a bigger luminance boost from the GC.

I'm pondering why you don't see any shadow from the band. Is this just a coincidence? Is the light angle causing the shadow to fall exactly behind the band where we can't see it? Or perhaps you have "cast shadows" disabled for the gold band?

I see the shadows from the figure on itself, under the chin, and falling on the stone, too. But it's very weak.

You didn't show me the light parameters so I can't verify the color of the light and the intensity. You said it's at 40% for the main light.  Is it white?

When I render with a 40% white light, with GC 2.2, and the properties set same as you, I get a lot of light in my test scene, attached.

It's the Shadow Min Bias - too high. You can't cast a shadow within .8 inches of anything.

Drop it to .2.

Look at my test band shadow with bias = .8.

 

Versus bias = .2

i can see the shadow. he has a very low contract. he needs to drop a little the sky color and make the main lightbrighter.

I kind of assumed this was not outdoors, but in a temple, so the EnvSphere should not have a sky in it.

Is it outdoors or indoors? If outdoors, then the main light should be way brighter.

Thanks BB! I won't be able to test this until much later tonight - but it looks like you found the answer to the problem of no shadow on the leg (and elsewhere).

Yes, this is an outdoor scene with no walls or structures in front of, or on either side of  V4. I'll check the light settings, as I recall it isn't white, but a very light gray? I used a light set that came with the structure, and made modifications from there - but didn't change the colors.

I think I need to check the shaders for the building as well, they might be using a displacement map that is reducing (difusing) the intensity of the IDL?

Well first just set your main light to around 75 to 85% and make it white.

You'll see a huge difference.

And that's all you should use for outdoors. The other lights (fill lights) are not necessary or correct for outdoors, since you are using IDL + GC.

That did it! I tried .2 fo shadow bias and the shadow was there but very weak. This render is with a value of .05 and it is much stronger. The light is set to white at 85% with a shadow strength of 1.

Her feet still blend into her legs and don't show very well - I'm guessing this is more of a shader issue with the boot materials than the lighting?

Thanks for your help!!

Great!

I run my light bias at .02 most of the time. I've been doing that so long I forget what it looks like if I don't.

The lighting is much more clear now. I forgot to say earlier why the white light matters.

When GC is enabled it changes how color values are handled not just on the output, but also on the input. All incoming material is converted from sRGB color space to linear via anti-gamma correction. This includes the little color chips for parameter on nodes as well as any texture maps you're using. Even the color chips on light nodes are converted.

You said you had a 40% light with light gray in it, but didn't say exactly what value of gray. But just as an example, suppose the gray was RGB 200,200,200. That's about 78% luminance. Combined with the 40% intensity, you multiply them to find the effective luminance before GC was 31%. But when GC is enabled, the 78% gray was anti-gamma corrected to about 59%. Coupled with the 40% intensity settings, the effective luminance after GC was 23%. So by turning on GC, you dropped your main light effective luminance from 31% to 23%. That's a decrease of 25% in brightness. That's why I saw less improvement by turning on GC the first time than I expected. Even thought the final gamma correction raised it back a bit, the net result wasn't very different.

This is why it is very important to get in the habit of only using white (RGB 255) lights. The only time you should not be using white is if you're actually trying to make a colored light. By that I mean something that it isn't color neutral, like blue or red. Only change light intensity using the intensity parameter. Don't do it via a darker shade of white, i.e. a gray.

Thanks BB! The information you provided here has been extremely helpful. The last post on GC and lighting was excellent. I'm slowly trying to absorb information from other posts on Poser lighting, and VSS, but the information provided here really helped jump start the whole process.

I knew I shouldn't start with a "canned" light set up, but I think I actually learned a bit more by doing so.

Poser lighting has come a long way. I'll work on finishing this image and post the final when I'm done (or if I run into any more snags along the way). After I'm done with this, it's on to IBL in Poser.

Thanks Again!
DR

Attached Link: Full size image in my gallery

I finally got the final render done. I changed the light set up a bit to get closer to the effect I had in my mind, which I just couldn't seem to get with a single light. I'm not 100% happy with the lighting in the image - but that's mostly because I couldn't get it to match what I had envisioned in my minds eye.

Thanks BB for you help here, and in other threads! I'm begining to understand IDL, and Poser lighting much better now!

I still feel a bit like a fish out of water - funny how you get used to one program and you feel like your struggling to work in another. Considering Poser and Carrara were built on the same interface (KAI), you would think they would feel a lot more alike!

Lighting in Poser sure has come a long way, now it's time to try out IBL :-)

tell us what you have in mind and maybe together we can make it work in poser. that way everyone can learn something more.

My bigest issue would be the feet. They just don't have the light/shadow effects I would like (they look short). As I mentioned earlier, the major problem here I think are the materials/shaders and not the lighting (but it "looks" like lighting). I tried adjusting them, but then some of the qualities I liked went away. The gold at the ankle is the major contributor to the problem. Possibly changing the color of the sole of the boot would have helped a bit.

I've got to go to work now. Time permitting, either this evening or tomorrow I will post the final light settings, and expain why I used them.