Attached Link: You're Mine

> Quote - First, you have to choose the right shading model. Then you have to tune it correctly. One way is to ask me, and you'll get the exact right answer, within the limits of what Poser can do. Sometimes I'll say there is no decent solution, but most times I have one. This is often how people have recently gotten good glass, water, leather, suede, gold, silver, copper, etc. for Poser. And this is how some have gotten decent  (not good) skin. I can only do decent with Poser *as is*.

So, what people like me end up with, then, is "the best that we can do."  I DON'T often get what happens when adjusting nodes in the material room.  You're correct about the "guess / render / refine" technique, but I find this exhausting and gave up trying to figure it all out.  In the attached render, I put a light probe in the alternate diffuse node of the male figure and played with the settings for many hours before arriving at a rough approximation of what I'd imagined in my head.

To be fair to Robyn (and I apologize for the misspelling!), the skin shader I mentioned for the Bronwyn render is a freebie I picked up years ago.  She may be far more skilled at creating these now. 

Further, I HATE Poser lights.  There is such a disconnect between the preview and what Firefly cranks out I can never tell what my images are going to look like until they've actually rendered.  Because I don't do this for a living, there is only so much time I can devote to a render before I abandon the task in favor of my next idea.

Now, you hint that some of these shader-related issues may be addressed in the newer version of Poser.  I won't ask you to confirm this, but for those of you who are deeply involved in what happens in the material room, understand that many of the REST of us would appreciate improvements in Poser skin, so that our renders don't look like plastic people under a variety of lighting conditions.

 

:)