Poser 8.

Bought the D3 hooded cload. Have the hoods property set to Casts Shadows and yet no shadow is produced on David's face. Is it all about light placement or is something else going on? I've noticed quite a bit of artwork created in Poser where shadows are missing when it seems like they should be there.

The easiest way I have found is to add a spotlight , at low intensity and positioned to force a shadow exactly where you want.

The other way is to postwork in a paint program using the dodge or burn tool on part of the face.

Also if you are using mapped shadows, you may need to zoom the shadow camera or change the map size to get a detailed enough shadow.

 

Take a look thru the shadowcam for the light you expect the shadow to be cast by.  Sometimes they can be moved accidently and the shadow is cast in some other part of the scene.

Bias setting should be around 0.15 for an object of this size and map size of at least 512.

Also check to see if you have another light that might minimize or cancel out the shadow.

Additionally, check D3's skin shaders and make certain that there isn't any active ambient channels on the PoserSurface.  That would cause the model to self glow, defeating any attempt to cast shadows on any particular body part.

BTW, are you using raytracing in your render?  And are you using IBL or IDL?

Quote - I've noticed quite a bit of artwork created in Poser where shadows are missing when it seems like they should be there.

That's a stick with which a lot of CG artists who don't use Poser like to beat us...!  Getting the shadows right goes a long way towards improving Poser-based artwork, IMVHO.

Thanks for all the help but what is, and how to I get to the  shadow camera?

Same question for mapped shadows. What is that and how do I use them? I've tried with raytracing on or off.  Doesn't seem to matter. What is IBL and IDL?
Where do I get to them?

Curious that raytracing did not produce the shadows necessary under a hood.  In the included image, I loaded M3 with his hooded cloak counterpart and lit the scene with 1 infinite light and 1 IBL, both set to white.  IBL is Image Based Lighting which is a feature that was introduced in P7 (or was it P6?) and can be selected in your *Parameters/Properties* palette.  It simulates global illumination by imparting some lighting into shadowed areas based on an HDRI image plugged into the light set. 

Now, by using a combination of Infinite lighting and IBL, I can generate some shadowing under M3's hood but not very intense due to active IBL.  In this particular instance, the hood was scaled to 150% and given a 10% bend to cover M3's head.

The Infinite light is moved directly above Michael's head to increase shadowing.  Raytracing is active in both the lights and render settings.  In this next render, IBL is deleted from the scene, and a 75% intensity Infinity light illuminates the scene.  The result, deep shadows.

With P8, you have the benefit of using IDL, Indirect Diffuse Lighting, which simulates global illumination better than IBL because it calculates photon bouncing on closely located objects.  For IDL to be completely effective, I introduced Bagginsbill's envsphere as a skydome which adds another source of lighting and kept my original Infinite light.  IDL is activated in your renders setting under manual or through Dimension3D's built-in Python Script. 

Now the image shows a more realistic response to the available light in the scene.

I am not too thrilled with the default skin texture on M3.  So, I loaded a different texture, enhanced it with BagginsBill's VSSProp, and re-rendered the scene.  If I wanted to darken the shadows better, I would decrease the light intensity. 

As an added note, these images were rendered in PP2010 using gamma correction.  P8, however, does not provide this feature.  You would need to add gamma correction to each and every material zone in the scene.  Not an easy thing to do, but it is available through python scripts.

Thanks,hborre!

Looking through all your stuff but having a hard time finding a link to down the IDL script. Do you think you could post it?

Also, does BagginsBill Envsphere work for indoor lighting? What I'm wanting is a dark dungeon lighting. They are evil guys I'm trying to light and they are in a dark place but I need to see their face, but with a shadow from the hood like you have it.

For interior lighting using IDL, the scene should be entirely surrounded by your room although that is not absolutely necessary.  A dungeon scene would be predominantly lit be torches, definitely a situation which will require point lights with inverse square fall-off.  Much like this scene in my gallery:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1941805&user_id=343328&np&np

The problem I have found with this lighting scenario is torch light can cast rather strong and deep shadows which can hide much detail.  If the scene is fairly extensive, i.e., a large room with many actors, you will have problems maintaining an even illumination throughout.  You would need to have your characters wear light-colored clothing to be seen clearly.  Consider how many light sources you require and how much/little room will be utilizing to construct your set.

When I get a chance, I will post the location of the IDL script.

Your IDL settings can be found in 2 places: in Poser's Firefly Render engine, under manual settings, and D3D's Render Firefly script (already bundled within P8 and PP2010).  If you have been using the default render engine, then there is no need to illustrate where the settings are located.  In the posted image, I have screencapped the menu path for accessing the render script.

The Render controls in this screencap appear different than you will find in your P8 because my script is an updated version which you can find in the link below:

http://d3d.sesseler.de/index.php?software=poserpython&product=render_p8

I would recommend the update, otherwise when you desire to use full IDL controls, you will need to activate it first in Poser's Firefly, then afterwards open the script to gain access to all the controls.