Hi, I have been have a horrible time with lighting in my renders. I had hoped to get some suggestions of what lighting in the store is good to buy. I am also searching for a good tutor on rendering.

Thanks
Kimberly

What version of Poser and what types of scenes?  If you are using Poser 8 or higher, I wouldn't buy lightsets, but search up lighting threads here.  Most commercial lightsets are set up to overcome the limitations of earlier versions of Poser.

Here are some general lighting tutorials...

http://seedydeedee.deviantart.com/gallery/3385007

Here's a webinar video on lighting from Smith Micro...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0AasrYg31E

Agree.  The newer features actually minimize the use of lights within a scene.  But it is important the observe how lighting appear in real life regardless of the type of scene you are setting up.

Attached Link: caisson's freestuff

I feel for u. I have been working on one scene for about a month. Won't give up.

When all else fails go Back To Basics.

As from Poser8 and PoserPro2010 that means :

Download BB's free sphere.
Read the instructuions and put a picture on the sphere.

Add one true white Infinite light, and start sith a setting of about 55% intensity. => There is only one sun out there.

DO NOT ADD ANY OTHER or MORE Lights until you are comfortable with this setup and can get very predictable results each and every render.

Allways render with raytrace, and with IDL and for the PoserPro versions with GC ON at 2.2.

FORGET ALL you ever learned,  created or downloaded before Poser8/PP2010.

Again,
do NOT add a second light before you are completely comfortable with this setup.

This is light as it is in real life outdoors.
This is the ONLY real outdoor thing.
There is no second or third way.

If you realy HAVE to??? A streetlight, a Neon light? A TV screen? A PC screen? A candle? the headlights of a car?
It is far and far better to put some ambient on the prop, then to add a second light.

For outdoors? FORGET even thinking about adding a second light.

Untill you are absolutely sure and comfortable with the above. And even then.

Second remark,

and this goes for ALL the products you bought, and that where build before Poser8 / PoserPro 2010.

Remove ALL faking nodes in the material room.
Start over with only the texture in duffuse at a value of 0.85.
And rebuild over from there.

Happy Posering
Tony

Read this for material room build up examples .

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3995140&ebot_calc_page#message_3995140

All pictures can be enlarged.

All you  need is the diffuse texture map.

Specular maps and or displacement maps can all best be build inside Poser Material room.
This reduces memory load also.

Happy Posering
Tony

Thanks for the tips vilters.

Have to differ in my opinions about creating some displacement maps however... I think that whenever possible procedural methods as you suggest would be the path of least resistance and most elegant if handled within Poser.

BUT... Sometimes it's necessary to resort to other methods outside of Poser as a part of the workflow, as they say.

Nice to have a large arsenal of tricks in any case.

Edit. Interior lighting with IDL seems to be infinitely more frustrating than exterior lighting.

Caisson's tutorials on the subject are very well thought out...

We are all free.
That is the beauty of living in free countries.
We are free to agree or disagree.

As long as we respect each others opinions.

The BTB and KISS procedures usually succeed.

Happy Posering
Tony

Interior/studio lighting is different from doing an outdoor shot. I'm beginning to think I'm the only one still using spotlights instead of the dreaded infinite light.

Amen to that. I'm all for IDL's simplification of many lighting situations within poser. It does kind of make some of the features that have been implemented over the years obsolete within the software. It's a certainty that there are still many pre-Poser 8 users though, I guess that whole subject is an ongoing topic of many other threads...

@Latexluv... I still use spots and points. I'm not really aiming for photorealism though, for theatrical settings and interiors they would seem to be a necessity? How else other than emitters or some such for the latest version users? I think there will always be a place for the traditional studio lighting set-up. Am I wrong?

There is a difference between what is ongoing in our software and what I have seen of lighting for movie work in downtown Vancouver, BC. While I was living there during my immigration process there were (and still are) a lot of movies being filmed downtown. Some sections of town are often closed off while filming is taking place and you have to walk around back where the catering trucks are. In outdoor filming they use very large mylar pannels to reflect light into their scenes even on very sunny days. There is multiple strong spotlighting used in interior scenes such as shopping malls. So what we have in Poser is not very much like real world lighting but we work within the improvements we have for our program. The software has come a long way since I started using it in 1997.

Studio lighting is a supplement to achieving an acceptable end result.  It is done in photography, theatically and in cinematography to bring out specific dramatic aspects of a scene.  Perfect example would be the precise lighting of a figure in a darkened environment without drawing attention that a light is actually there.  Or light painting your render canvas to accentuate a mood. 

There is nothing wrong with it, Hollywood does it all the time.

I recommend "Digital Lighting and Rendering" 2nd edition by Jeremy Birn to gain an indepth understanding of the how's and why's of 3D art.  Your renders will appreciate it.

One other thing; for animation IBL is better than IDL because, in addition to being faster,  there is a randomness to Poser's IDL that can result in flickering.  Here's a tool to generate IBL probe maps from Poser scenes...

https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/genibl---ibl-generator

For promos/studio lighting, anything by SaintFox and/or Fabiana.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/search.php?adv_search=&criteria=SaintFox&dept=&type=B

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=fabiana

Thanks for all the great tips and links. 

I agree with hborre, never never never buy light sets you never obtain what you want. It's just a money hole.