I'm kinda lost here, using PP2012 at the highest render setting (Final), and I still get a jagged edge on the shadow. (red line shows what I am talking about) Help?

they'll want to know whether it's ray-traced or shadow-mapped (not good), and render settings.

turning on Ray Traced Shadows did the trick. Thank's Nancy!

LOL

Why do manuals ignore reality?

There are about 10 questions I see asked over and over and over, often by people I thought read this forum a lot and would know better.

The manual should state in big red letters, on page one:

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

WE HAVE SOME OLD CRAP IN POSER THAT WE ARE AFRAID TO REMOVE. BUT, WE SHOULD, BECAUSE IF YOU USE IT, YOU WILL THINK POSER DOES NOT WORK VERY WELL.

AMONG THESE THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD NOT USE ARE:

Depth mapped shadows

Constant falloff lights

Ambient Occlusion

Fake reflections

Reflect_Lite_Mult

Reflect_Kd_Mult

Poser default lights.

Any light set included with Poser

Most of the materials included with Poser

Most of the materials you buy for Poser, which rely on the above.

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS TO THE ABOVE, BUT SO FEW THAT UNLESS YOU ARE AN EXPERT YOU SHOULD JUST DO WHAT WE SAY.

Can this BB post be made a sticky???

Poser should protect itself against all older light sets.

Poser should protect itself against all Pre-PP2010 materials and shaders.

Poser should go in a fail safe mode against IBL :-)
There is only ONE sun out there, and she has no image on her surface.
(confirmed by Capt Kirk and mister ears)

Outside renders only need ONE infinite light in bb-sphere. Period.
Yes, I am a die-hard one on this .... :-)

Poser should turn RED when a light BLUE is found in diffuse_color

Poser should reboot when AO is engaged.

Well, I have been saying it for years now. Never-ever buy a light set.

Never - ever click GC ON, and render without adapting lights and shaders.
PP2012 does not need al the faking there was before.

Unfortunately BB I am still reading the old Poser 7 manual, even though I am working in PP2012. I know....makes no sense to me either. I still can't wrap my head around some basic 3D concepts, such as IBL lighting, and the ever so fascinating material room, lol.

Quote -
Poser should protect itself against all older light sets.

Poser should protect itself against all Pre-PP2010 materials and shaders.

Well, that's a version of Poser I would never use.

I would prefer to be able to make my own decisions about what lights and materials to use rather than being babied by software that assumes I'm too stupid to make the necessary changes -- or that assumes I only want to render certain "photographic" types of images.

Point and shoot cameras "protect" the users against all sorts of common errors, and as a result, you can take some very nice photos with some of them, but your creativity is limited. Some might say severely limited. I've yet to meet a serious photographer who used a point and shoot camera for professional work -- other than a journalist working under cover in a conflict zone. For good work, you need more options, not fewer.

I'm not disagreeing with Baggs. Some functions in Poser probably are useless. But a blanket condemnation of all old lights and materials, as Vilters suggests, is a huge overreaction.

@moriador

Unfortunately, most end user errors come from those examples.

Using older light sets or older shaders with a newer Poser version that does not need all that faking created before Poser9 - PP2012.

Whatever I download??
I only use/

• the object file
• the cr2 or pp2
• the diffuse texture map

All the rest is for the trash can.

That is why I HATE installers....

SmithMicro, please follow BB's advice for the next versions of Poser.

When I buy stuff from various marketplaces, this is how I regard the majority of the merchants whose work I have to sort out:

Thankfully there's a slowly growing bunch that this doesn't apply to.

@Inspired_Art

Oh!, You know that Dee spend the best part of a year to rewrite the manual for Poser9-PP2012?
Ans she did a magnificent job at it.

Quote - LOL

Why do manuals ignore reality?

There are about 10 questions I see asked over and over and over, often by people I thought read this forum a lot and would know better.

The manual should state in big red letters, on page one:

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

WE HAVE SOME OLD CRAP IN POSER THAT WE ARE AFRAID TO REMOVE. BUT, WE SHOULD, BECAUSE IF YOU USE IT, YOU WILL THINK POSER DOES NOT WORK VERY WELL.

AMONG THESE THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD NOT USE ARE:

Depth mapped shadows

Constant falloff lights

Ambient Occlusion

Fake reflections

Reflect_Lite_Mult

Reflect_Kd_Mult

Poser default lights.

Any light set included with Poser

Most of the materials included with Poser

Most of the materials you buy for Poser, which rely on the above.

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS TO THE ABOVE, BUT SO FEW THAT UNLESS YOU ARE AN EXPERT YOU SHOULD JUST DO WHAT WE SAY.

 

I love this.  Every Poser newbie - and most experienced ones - should have this printed out and stuck on a wall near the computer.  I include myself in the above, too.  :) 

Quote -

Oh, go on.  You know you want to.  ;) 

Quote - @Inspired_Art

Oh!, You know that Dee spend the best part of a year to rewrite the manual for Poser9-PP2012?
Ans she did a magnificent job at it.

I am clueless as to who Dee is?

deecey, long time member here and poser expert.

Ok, that clears that up. Thanks again Nancy.

Quote - > Quote -

Oh, go on.  You know you want to.  ;) 

LMAO! True. However, having heard certain rants recited so many times in these forums, I have no doubt that I would rapidly lose control and end up telling people exactly how I felt about them. And that would get the thread locked for sure.

:lol:

Oh well then.  :) 

Quote - Poser should reboot when AO is engaged.

Are we really not allowed AO at all? Not even in a material room contained shader node, with "Evaluate in IDL" ticked?

Quote - Most of the materials included with Poser

ROFLMAO!

...and since I have to admit I don't really know what "constant falloff lights" are, I'm presumably using then in everything I render... LOL. Off to look that one up...

MC,

If we're seriously going to talk about AO, we have to separate theory from practice (how it is actually implemented in Poser).

Since IDL was introduced, AO misbehaves and produces horrible and unavoidable artifacts.

I wanted to post a grime shader recently, using AO to find crevices and grunge them up. This was in response to your dirty jeep thread. But it is totally broken.

So my one-page you-need-to-know-without-explanation statement stands. Don't use it.

Quote - MC,

If we're seriously going to talk about AO, we have to separate theory from practice (how it is actually implemented in Poser).

Since IDL was introduced, AO misbehaves and produces horrible and unavoidable artifacts.

I wanted to post a grime shader recently, using AO to find crevices and grunge them up. This was in response to your dirty jeep thread. But it is totally broken.

So my one-page you-need-to-know-without-explanation statement stands. Don't use it.

Cool. Well, I certainly haven't tried using it for some time. Because of those artifacts.

I keep getting tempted to try it again, because of that "Evaluate in IDL" box and the hope SR-3 might have improved something there... but I'll take your word for it that it hasn't, and not waste my time trying it for now...

Although, I think I may now need to ask some more, in due course about how to improve certain fine shadows using just IDL... and maybe a Poser light, with ray-traced shadows and non-constant falloff, of course (once I understand better what the latter is). Not just now though...

Many thanks!

Note - that may be changing again, though. I'm testing SR3.1 and something is different. Not sure what. Dang it - what a moving target.

Wow - it is even more incomprehensible than it was.

The MaxDist parameter no longer changes the occlusion distance, but rather increases or decreases artifacts. That's the only variation I can find. Setting it really high (above 400) eliminates artifacts. I have no idea what this means.

I wish SM would just reveal the math on these things.

Okay... well, please file that bug report, I guess?

Maybe they missed a multiplier in the equation or something??

I'm like cspear's dog picture when it comes to maths... past a certain level... so I'll sit this one out... he he.

Quote - Since IDL was introduced, AO misbehaves and produces horrible and unavoidable artifacts.

I think, from limited experience, that it works OK with IDL off. Normally I use IDL, but I was going for something so postworked that it wasn't worth it.

Quote - Wow - it is even more incomprehensible than it was.

The MaxDist parameter no longer changes the occlusion distance, but rather increases or decreases artifacts. That's the only variation I can find. Setting it really high (above 400) eliminates artifacts. I have no idea what this means.

I wish SM would just reveal the math on these things.

Wow O_o

minority here.  :)

i like AO on an ibl light. 

never understood the reason for the node in a skin texture setup, head scr'ch

In P9/PP2012 AO is not what it used to be and IDL does what AO does and more as well as produces less artifacts. Why do you like AO in PP2012?

You like this? (AO)

The two images were done identically except one uses AO, the other uses IDL.

Both use an IBL for the only source of light.

I think it should not just be me that posts images along with opinions. MLP if you like AO you should show us why, because right now I think you have no idea what, if anything, you're saying you like.

One more thing.

The first image (AO) render time was 22.4 seconds.

The second (IDL) render time was 4.3 seconds.

There's something that jumps out here and if you don't see it right away, then you're not very familiar with AO.

I had to raise the samples to 35 just to get the crappy results I showed. It used to be sufficient to use 7 samples. I wrote an extensive thread on how best to use AO back in the Poser 6 era, and 7 samples was more than sufficient to produce smooth, clean shadows.

Now, even at 35 (5x higher than before) it produces something very different and, IMO, unusable. Something has drastically changed in the implementation of AO, and it's not worth figuring out because IDL is so much better. IDL deals with occlusion shadows and bounced light. AO only deals with occlusion shadows.

Quote - never understood the reason for the node in a skin texture setup, head scr'ch

I demonstrated the AO node here.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2717720

The two most important reasons for doing it in materials were:

1. You didn't have to have the same amount everywhere. Thus, if you were a perfectionist looking for realism, you adjusted the settings per object or per material per object - you did not have to settle for compromises that left you further from reality than was possible.

2. You had an opportunity (actually demonstrated in that thread) to fake some color bouncing effects. In the thread, study the red ball in a white cup.

Both of these effects are now handled completely automatically by IDL.

Quote - Here are the AO settings I used on the IBL.

There's something that jumps out here and if you don't see it right away, then you're not very familiar with AO.

I had to raise the samples to 35 just to get the crappy results I showed. It used to be sufficient to use 7 samples. I wrote an extensive thread on how best to use AO back in the Poser 6 era, and 7 samples was more than sufficient to produce smooth, clean shadows.

Now, even at 35 (5x higher than before) it produces something very different and, IMO, unusable. Something has drastically changed in the implementation of AO, and it's not worth figuring out because IDL is so much better. IDL deals with occlusion shadows and bounced light. AO only deals with occlusion shadows.

Just an idea, because i do not have that version: Perhaps they forgot to enable irradiance caching on the light-AO (if this was introduced with the button that disables IC). That would also explain the longer render times. Could be tested by trying the light-AO with and without IC, and see if they differ.

looks like AO render shows some banding at the bottom?  (http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/media/folder_10/file_487315.jpg)

later today, i'll try to dig out a few of my p7 created scenes and re-render in pp12 to try and grasp  how the AO  has changed in pp12.

these are a couple of my favorite p7 renders.  if i can find these files again, it will be fun to see what IDL will do

Quote - > Quote - Here are the AO settings I used on the IBL.

There's something that jumps out here and if you don't see it right away, then you're not very familiar with AO.

I had to raise the samples to 35 just to get the crappy results I showed. It used to be sufficient to use 7 samples. I wrote an extensive thread on how best to use AO back in the Poser 6 era, and 7 samples was more than sufficient to produce smooth, clean shadows.

Now, even at 35 (5x higher than before) it produces something very different and, IMO, unusable. Something has drastically changed in the implementation of AO, and it's not worth figuring out because IDL is so much better. IDL deals with occlusion shadows and bounced light. AO only deals with occlusion shadows.

Just an idea, because i do not have that version: Perhaps they forgot to enable irradiance caching on the light-AO (if this was introduced with the button that disables IC). That would also explain the longer render times. Could be tested by trying the light-AO with and without IC, and see if they differ.

i render at a 100% irradiance. 

iirc,the IC checkbox came with a SR.  i didn't install.  too afraid of losing productivity right now.

not so productive today. lol

when we say 'realistic' in this forum,

do we mean realistic as in literally looking at a photograph?
or  as in looking out (or in) a real-life window?