Quote - I would kill displacement for test renders.  Depending how extensive it is used within a scene, that can cause render times to increase significantly.

At 0.000 setting I was told that was too high. How do you 'kill' the displacment setting?

Quote - > Quote - I would kill displacement for test renders.  Depending how extensive it is used within a scene, that can cause render times to increase significantly.

At 0.000 setting I was told that was too high. How do you 'kill' the displacment setting?

In your render settings, un-tick "Use displacement maps" (in the right-hand column)

Quote - Thanks, RobynsVeil. Changing to the settings you recommend definitely speeded up!  Really appreciate the tips.

However, I have two questions:

1. With the settings I have for the sole light in the scene (as shown in my screenshot above) why does it render as daylight and not night?

2. And, how do I turn off Subsurface Scattering? For a lot of the skin materials I clicked on Add Subsurface Scattering and don't see how I can remove it.

If you have Poser 8, subsurface scattering is - at best - faked in BB's pr3 shader that comes with VSS - not a bad fake, mind you.

Poser 9/PP2012 has a tick box in the render settings for subsurface scattering. When you get a chance: upgrade. If you can afford it, get PP2012. It is so worth it!

Your image probably looks like daylight rather than night because you're background is white? Is that a sky dome? or just Poser background?

Laurie

@Michaelab

I suppose U used BB's sphere in your picture and reduced the light intensity to create "night". Am I right?

OK, night.
BB's sphere is a diffuser-emitter (he probably has a better explanation for it, but I like to keep things simple).
The sphere works best with a Sky texture on it. And it simulates 'air light diffusing" to help with real IDL calculations.

Most downloadable sky textures are bright day sky textures.
At night however, the sky is not bright, but dark.

So you will have to darken the sphere, or darken the textures, to create a night environment.

As I look at our picture?
The figure is darker but the environment stayed bright as in a day situation.

Darken the sphere, or darken the sky texture you had put on the sphere to get "night light" IDL calculations.

BB himself surely has other tricks up his sleeve. :-)

 

 

I already showed the trick and wrote it yesterday. Go back a page.

Same scene is shown with the same lights and same sky, one is day, one is night. Read what I wrote.

Was my explanation of these (on previous page) not sufficient? Same lights, same sky picture, same render settings, different intensities.

Day

Night

Night with interior lights off

Here's what I'm trying to achieve:

1. Dark indoor setting in a room. Two characters facing each other. It is an intense confrontation.

2. From the ceiling shoots down an 8 foot wide column of light, as if moonlight were shooting through an 8 foot diameter hole in the ceiling.

The column of light falls on these two seeming advesaries but not so intense as to wash them out as they are standing half in and half out of the column.

 

How would I get this column of light (the column doesn't have to have a sharp, defined edge to it, however) to be a column? We don't have to see the source of the circular pillar of light, just its emanation, cutting throught the dark to the carpeted floor.

However, I want to see the whites of their eyes!

Quote - However, I want to see the whites of their eyes!

The column of light: in Poser 8, prepare for a long render. You'll be using atmosphere... takes a while. Whites of their eyes? Render twice, two different settings... and composite the two images in GIMP/PS.

Michael, Robyn is right, you'd have to use Atmosphere. If you're already complaining about render times, prepare to be even more unhappy.

Just getting the light in a cone or cylinder is no problem. But seeing it light up dust particles is.

An alternative is to use a semi-transparent cylinder or cone that is self-lit.

In either case, both tactics have been covered in many threads. If you can't find them via searching, come back and I'll try the search for you.

> Quote - Your best bet is to learn how lights work in general. Light sets don't always supply what you need. Sometimes it's better to make what you need ;). > > I use Advanced Light and Camera guides from RDNA to place my lights and actually SEE the area of influence each light has. Helps a lot :). I've fiddled and fiddled with a light only to find that the distance wasn't enough to reach the object I was trying to light. Advanced Light and Camera guides helps with that. > > Laurie

 

Hi Laurie,

I went ahead and bought the Advanced Light and Camera guides from RDNA because I'm tired of trying to guess where the lights are, and installed them into my Poser 8 Runtime folders, however when I click on the menu item under the Scripts main menu I get the attached popup. Do you know what that means and what I can do to fix it and get this script running?

I'd be writing Semidieu over at DNA - think it's Basil who puts this out... he's very helpful!

You may have installed the wrong one. There was a recent update which I think was a separate zip. If you have Poser 8/Pro 2010 you don't want to apply that extra zip. If you have Poser 9/Pro 2012 you DO want to apply it. Things changed in Poser's implementation of Python between the last two versions.

Now, that's as I remember it. Does not mean that's how it was...LOL. Your best bet is to contact RDNA ;).

Laurie

BB Does it make a difference where the light is positioned?   I used your settings but I just get black renders, no light coming through the windows, renders black as if there are no lights at all. I am also using your env sphere, with one infinite light. Thanks

We normally point a light away from the camera towards a subject. But in the room image I did, the light was pointing towards the camera.

On the light ball widget, the stick was behind the ball, instead of in front of it.

The light has to be aimed to pass through the windows and land on the floor inside the room.

Thanks, I'll keep messing with it and see what happens 'o)

Ok So I am trying this out, using lower render settings just to see how it goes, and here is what I have so far. Ignore the fireplace, I couldn't figure how to get it to make the room glow! Will work on that next :)

 

> Quote - Ok So I am trying this out, using lower render settings just to see how it goes, and here is what I have so far. Ignore the fireplace, I couldn't figure how to get it to make the room glow! Will work on that next :) > >  

looks good from what I see, to get the fire to glow, set the ambient to white and increase the value - in the attached image I had the ambience on the fires set at 500 I also plugged the colour map into the ambient colour node so that i got the flames looking like flames - hope that helps.

Quote -
looks good from what I see, to get the fire to glow, set the ambient to white and increase the value - in the attached image I had the ambience on the fires set at 500 I also plugged the colour map into the ambient colour node so that i got the flames looking like flames - hope that helps.

Thanks I will give that a try and see if it works better :)

Be aware, if you are hoping to illuminate the entire room, you will be using rather high ambient values.  And you will not have any control on inverse square light falloff which is a feature on point lights. 

Thanks, not wanting to illuminate the whole room, just wanted a little more glow around the fireplace .