I've been thrown into Poser 8 and I'm having a little trouble with shadows. I thought I had read everything there was in the manual, but I guess I'm still not getting it. lol

I have ticked the Shadows box in the manual settings, I've made numerous adjustments with dials in the Light Controls area, but I'm just not seeing anything after rendering. I do see the dark side of the figure (opposite side of the light strike), but no shadow is cast onto the figure. What I mean is...if the hand is laid across the face, I see the dark side of the fingers that re touching the face, but no shadows are cast from the fingers onto the face.

 I have been very fond of Carrara lighting. Shadows were very easy to cast. They were standard with every light. lol Carrara also has an option to receive shadows. I thought that this might be the option that I'm missing in Poser. If it is...I can't find it.

 So how do I get my figure to cast shadows on itself...where I can see them?

change them to ray-traced shadows, like carrara (best case scenario).

Can Depth Map Sadows give the same results?

Is your "Visible in Raytracing" box unchecked for the figure? Check the properties panel. If that box isn't checked the figure won't cast a shadow. It will have self-shadowing but not cast one. You also have to have a value more than zero for shadow in your light settings.

Laurie

crispy, carrara also has shadow-mapped lites, but I don't like them either.  depth-mapped shadows can give good results, but set the shadow map size to something much higher than default.  it's interesting you mention the problem of a figure not casting shadows on itself.  the first time I saw somebody say this was in legume's poser newsgroup in re: poser 4, which had only shadow-mapped lites, and they were completely misunderstood.

How many lights do you have? Which lights? the default lights?

Depth-mapped lights are not of the quality you want when you start wanting shadows. Do a search on this forum for shadows with user as "Bagginsbill"... pour yourself a cuppa and be prepared to read for a few hours.

Take notes: there's a quiz on Friday. :biggrin:

Here's the subtle point about depth-mapped lights. They are encoded in an image, which has to span the scene. This means as you add to the scene, the appearance of shadows will change. This is not a good thing, and if you're unaware of it, it is the cause of enormous confusion. When somebody says they have enverything enabled for shadows, and it works in this scene, but the same setup does not work in that scene, it is usually the shadow map size at work.

The shadow map image has a certain number of pixels, which you control. Each pixel covers some subset of the scene. Suppose you only have a single figure - no props. Well the shadow map will span that figure. Even a small shadow map will still have quite a few pixels covering a hand, but likely not a nose.

Now add a room, and suddenly the shadow map has to cover 1000 times the original area. Likely the hand does not fully occupy even a single pixel anymore. The "shadow" cast by the hand becomes a slighly darker blob, vaguely in the area of the hand, but not at all in the shape of the hand - it is the shape of the shadow map pixel that includes the hand.

There is more to the matter, that would require further explanation and study. It's all well and good to understand this and expand the shadow map size to compensate, and then learn to manage shadow blur under these varying conditions, but really - just forget depth-mapped shadows. Use ray-traced and all is not only handled properly at all scales, but you get the correct varying blur with distance.

Quote - Is your "Visible in Raytracing" box unchecked for the figure? Check the properties panel. If that box isn't checked the figure won't cast a shadow. It will have self-shadowing but not cast one. You also have to have a value more than zero for shadow in your light settings.

Laurie

 Hi, Laurie. Yes, all of that was checked, the "Visible in Raytracing" and the value is higher than zero. But the "Ray Trace Shadows" tic turned it all around for me! lol

Thanks for your responce, Laurie!

Quote - here's one with shadow-mapped spotlite.  one reason I don't like shadow-mapped lites is that I don't know how to get shadow blur as function of distance, whereas with ray-traced shadows it's automatic, nor is shadow map size spec. needed with ray-traced shadows.

Thanks for all of your help, Miss Nancy. The Ray Traced worked perfectly! I havent tried the shadow-mapped lites as of yet. Maybe that will be in the near future.

Quote -  but really - just forget depth-mapped shadows. Use ray-traced and all is not only handled properly at all scales, but you get the correct varying blur with distance.

LOL! It makes you wonder why they even put the "Depth-Mapped Shadows" option in there.

Your explanation was great! Thank you!

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Take notes: there's a quiz on Friday. :biggrin:

LOL! I can tell you right now...I won't be ready :blink:

Quote -   LOL! It makes you wonder why they even put the "Depth-Mapped Shadows" option in there.

 

Render Speed. Poser is a REYES renderer, Ray Tracing is optional and slows things down. This isn't much of an issue if you render a single image, but if you want to do an animation, this can make a big difference. Quality vs. speed, your choice. I find it quite hard to get good results without RT.

Quote - I find it quite hard to get good results without RT.

And that's how I'll travel

Quote - LOL! It makes you wonder why they even put the "Depth-Mapped Shadows" option in there.

because many poser users think that a 10 minute render is 'taking too long'.

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because many poser users think that a 10 minute render is 'taking too long'.

LOL! I like a good "All-Nighter" myself!