Your figure is standing in front of the mirror. The figure is dark in the reflection but correctly lit everywhere else.  Why do I have to put a light inbetween the figure and mirror?  This creates a problem where the walls around the mirror become too strongly lit.

Maybe the figure is corretly lit in the reflection also.  The effect depends heavily on the global lighting situation. Put your camera in the place of the mirror and look if the backside of your figure is properly lit. If not, the mirror is not the problem.

my simple explanation trepleen, would be, it's not a real mirror. Some clever shader math and lighting cons a bunch of polygons into thinking they are reflective when they render. Lighting of reflect scenes can either just come together and ping perfect, or drive you nuts.........Play with it, experiment with RT settings, idl settings etc and find out what works best for you. At least thats my take on real world shader renders anyway lol

Quote - > Quote - Your figure is standing in front of the mirror. The figure is dark in the reflection but correctly lit everywhere else.  Why do I have to put a light inbetween the figure and mirror?  This creates a problem where the walls around the mirror become too strongly lit.

Maybe the figure is corretly lit in the reflection also.  The effect depends heavily on the global lighting situation. Put your camera in the place of the mirror and look if the backside of your figure is properly lit. If not, the mirror is not the problem.

The figure is in front of the mirror but with its back facing the mirror correct?

Ive then added BB's envirosphere and deleted the spotlight, so the scene is lit by nothing but idl. i've posted the 2 results here.

Quote -
The figure is in front of the mirror but with its back facing the mirror correct?

Exactly.

Quote - and with the sphere added and the spot deleted

I've put a point light behind the mirror. That seems like the best solution so far to light the mirror reflection so it's not dark.

if she's casting shadow, her mirror self is prolly standing in her own shadow?

Yes, if the figure is close to the mirror, quite naturally the side facing away from the light is going to be self-shadowed. If it renders that way, that's the expected result, and it's a good thing....

Of course if you want more light on the back of the figure, you can position a light that will cast light behind the figure (say, a light off to the right side, barely in front of the wall).

Quote - and with the sphere added and the spot deleted

Sorry to go a bit ot with this but mystic, is that mirror prop with the bar a freebie? I've been looking for that a while.

here ya go jd linky

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=51475

Oh sweeeet! Thanks for the link. :)

i've been trying to replicate this at home today, with a real mirror

Quote "Yes, if the figure is close to the mirror, quite naturally the side facing away from the light is going to be self-shadowed. If it renders that way, that's the expected result, and it's a good thing...."

actually i'm not finding that in testing, unless there is very little light at all, the reflected light from the mirror surface illuminates the "shadow" areas to the most part, obviously it depends which angle the subject is lit from, but in the op's first image, it appears the image is lit quite strongly from directly in front, in this instance i have found that the rear of the figure is quite well lit apparently because of the bounced light from the mirror., but i'm no scientist and my experiment was probably flawed in some way lol,

How many raytrace bounces are you using?  I'd reckon you would need at least 4 to get illumination of the figure's back...

for my test today WandW i'm using no raytracing, i'm using a real mirror, real lights and a real human to see what real world effects are, i thought that might be the best place to start before I set up the scene and assume what results I should achieve, this working on the principle that the op wanted to achieve real world results, which actually might not be what he was trying to achieve, as many people go for what looks good and works within the confines of the scene  as opposed to what is photorealistic....

My question was for the OP, mysticeagle; I should have been more specific...

poser does direct and indirect specular off a posersurface, but not directed rays off a mirror.  bill showed how to get it to bounce diffuse lite by putting a diffuse plane behind the mirror, however I haven't a link.  search this forum, keyword mirror, user bagginsbill.

haapy new year!

Quote - poser does direct and indirect specular off a posersurface, but not directed rays off a mirror.  bill showed how to get it to bounce diffuse lite by putting a diffuse plane behind the mirror, however I haven't a link.  search this forum, keyword mirror, user bagginsbill.

haapy new year!

This one I think.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2778431&page=17#message_3518160

[oops, wrong thread]

yes, that's it:

"Create a second surface slightly behind the mirror of approximately the same shape. Doesn't have to be exact. Set this up as a diffuse reflector however you like - perhaps just plain white with DV = 100%.

Then set the actual mirror to be invisible to ray-tracing. Assuming you don't need to see the mirror in another mirror, it would work."

one might also mention they used to fake this for spotlite/atmosphere in old version of carrara by putting virtual spotlite behind mirror and negative shadow, but I haven't tried anything like this in poser, altho negative shadows and shadows >1 worked as recently as poser 8 IIRC.