Hello,

I was wondering if someone could tell me if there is a secret to getting shadows to show up on a floor/ground surface in a modelled scene environment in PoserPro 2012? I have been able to get shadows to show up on the Poser ground plain but find it difficult to get a shadow to show on a modelled ground surface or floor. I can get shadows to appear on walls but they stop when reaching the floor.

I have been experimenting with this for some time now, and have looked in the manual but I can't seem to crack this nut. Can any give me some suggestions?

 

Thanks for any replies.

nabob21

Try to be sure the ground plane is just above the modeled floor plane, AND that the ground is set to be a "shadow catcher" (this is an option in the material room to the right of the node setup area.)

Give us a screencap of the ground shader nodes of the model.  Although Basicwiz suggests placing the Poser ground plane above your ground model, I don't believe this is an accurate solution.  If there is an ambient value applied, the ground will glow, not allowing any shadows to fall upon it.  But without further information about what is going on in the material room, it is hard to judge.  Give us a screencap.

Thank you basicwiz and hborre for your replies. Here is a render of the room showing what the lighting is and followed by two screenshots showing the material room settings for the floors and walls. This is an old set and I have never been able to get shadows to show on the floor or walls with this set. Other sets I can get the walls to show shadows but frequently not floors.

First the render.

nabob21

Now the floor screen shot.

And finally the walls.

The MAT room for both the walls and floor shows nothing unusual with their connections although there would be a few changes I would personally change.  But your preview windows do show shadows, not very prominent but they are present. 

What type of lighting are you using for the scene?  IBL?  Infinite lights?

make sure the point lites are inside the room and use ray-traced shadows.  why does a bar need these morphs:

"...why does a bar need these morphs:"

James is selected, so I guess he's about to be involved in some solid rumpy pumpy LOL.

Good luck to him!

Hello everyone,

The lights that I am using ar point lights and spot lights. I have ensured that they are in fact within the room. I have played around with the instensity but with no success so far other than washing out all of the textures.

The morphs are from James and are part of the default morphs that he has since I have done nothing to change him other than pose him. He is actually meant to be positioned behind the bar but I brought him out into the room to see if I could get him to cast a shadow.

Thanks for all of the help everyone is providing. Hopefully we can come up with a solution to why this is happening. Over the past couple of years I have noticed this happens on several sets I have attempted to use so maybe a solution to this one will solve the problem with others as well.

nabob21

Perhaps an offending question, but under the "Properties" tab of the light(s), is the "Shadow" option indeed checked (and pref'bly set to "Ray Trace shadow") and the "Shadow" value is above 0 (Parameter tab of the light)?

Same if you use a Render dialog (like D3D's Render Firefly script), just make sure "Shadows" is checked everywhere as well.

 

... just to ensure ... =)

Hi ErickL88,

I have had that thought myself and have checked and re-checked to make sure that the shadows are in fact on and the shadow value is set at 1. I have also deleted the lights and re-created them and tried point, spotlight, infinite and diffuse IDL lights all to no effect.

nabob21

Are you using gamma correction ticked on? Sometimes gamma correction washes out shadows.

I'm going to recommend these light settings for your point or spot light.  They may or may not make a difference but it's worth a try.  Also, make certain that raytracing is selected in your render settings.

Just checking to be sure -- no groaning -- and raytracing is set on and 1 or more bounces in the render settings?      

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the answers and the help. I just want to let everyone know I may not be able to give your suggestions a shot for the next day or so due to real life, but I will give it a shot if I can tonight. If not it may be Thursday before I can get back to you on some of this.

nabob21

Well I have had success! I checked my raytraced shadow settings on my lights and made sure that they were set as suggested by hborre. I then checked my render settings and found that raytracing was on and set to 1 bounce but I stilll had no shadows. I then set my render settings to the maxmum values on the auto setting (giving 6 bounces) and voila, shadows appeared!

I would like to thank everyone who responded for your time and help. I really do appreciate it very much.

Have a great evening.

nabob21