I am pretty new to Poser 8, but I really like the affect GI has on the image that makes it much more appealing than anything I've been able to accomplish in Poser thus far.

I have a render I would like to use that will feature dozens of people. It's a scene where some women step into an exotic marketplace seeing people milling about everywhere. The characters are from a story I'm illustrating, and it's an important scene in which they witness the largest gathering of people that they have ever seen.

Of course, with Poser, scenes like that are impossible in one shot.

So, I was wondering if there are any ways of faking the same sort of light that is thrown from the market place exterior, yet still do individual renders of small groups of people (i.e. render the background separately and then somehow, use the illuination from that scene as a source to aide in the illumination of the various stills that I'll be superimposing onto the final image.

Does that make sense, and is it possible without resorting to faking it with an IBL (and would that even work?)

No baking in Poser. Wouldnt really call it true global illumination either.

To ease the rendering use as low res textures and meshes as possible where you can.

If I'm understanding...   for crowds you could also render individual groups separately and alone and then apply the render to a vertical plane within your scene.  Depends on how much depth you need the crowds to show.

IBL/AO was how they tried to fake GI in pre-poser 7, then you-know-who added IDL to poser 7 (unsupported feature).  IBL/AO might look o.k. if the viewers are sposeta be checking out the girls and not the number of lite bounces.  give it a try.

What does IDL stand for?

and where can I get this unsupported IDL for Poser 7?  : D

Quote - No baking in Poser. Wouldnt really call it true global illumination either.

To ease the rendering use as low res textures and meshes as possible where you can.

how is it not true GI?

Does IDL stand for Indirect Lighting?

If so, how is that different from global illumination? Are they not both the same thing?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1477909&user_id=4&np&np

see att lnk fr example of GI in poser 7, along with lnk to simple script.  I thought d3d also wrote his ffrender script for poser 7, but his poser 8 script is at [ http://d3d.sesseler.de/index.php?software=poserpython&product=render_p8](http://d3d.sesseler.de/index.php?software=poserpython&product=render_p8)  .  I dunno if p8 script works in P7 ... no, it's wxpython.  if d3d doesn't have this script for P7, then ya hafta use stefan's script.

Quote - If I'm understanding...   for crowds you could also render individual groups separately and alone and then apply the render to a vertical plane within your scene.  Depends on how much depth you need the crowds to show.

This might be your best bet.  Billboards.

Quote - > Quote - No baking in Poser. Wouldnt really call it true global illumination either.

To ease the rendering use as low res textures and meshes as possible where you can.

how is it not true GI?

Well in a sense it is global illumination. Lots of different variations of it. Its just not all that great at it yet but it is getting better. And with bagginsbills env sphere it improves. What it does lack though to get more realistic lighting is radiosity. Technically you could set each objects ambient value correctly and get a form of radiosity that way, but what a pain that would be.

  

Hm, so you think the alpha plane rendering would capture the same qualities? I have used that in the past when I had more than two figures in the scene, and it worked pretty well, as long as I was careful with the scale of the square.

I'll give that a try.