I'm havng a slight problem with creating shadows in Poser and wondering if anyone can give me some advice.

This is a render I did of some book cover art and she is supposed to be carrying a torch.

There should be a very dark shadow behind him, but there's nothing. I've got the lights casting shadows and everything, but I must be missing something, and strangely enough, Poser's manual does exactly spell out how to create the shadows or trouble shoot the problems.

how many lights and what type are they?

 

Bill

About 4 lights. 3 spots and one point light.

OK, what I would do is turn off spot and two of the points and see if you get shadows.  it seems like the lights are wipeing out the shadows.  I assume that one of the points is above the torch.  Set it with some type of falloff(defined, linier or invers square) and then add and modify one light at a time.

I include one I did three years ago as an example of one light.

Bill

"it seems like the lights are wipeing out the shadows."

I totally agree with that. Also note that if your camera is pointed from where the (single) light is coming from, the shadows can get hidden behind the figure/s. When I use a single light (in IDL scenes eg) I make sure the light is off to one side or the scene looks poorly lit.

When you have multiple lights, they tend to wash out the shadows of each other, especially at high intensities. Start with one light as your main light and go from there. Lower the intensities of your other lights until you get the shadows that you want.

Hmm, now that you guys mentiontion it, I think I do see a shadown on the wall behind the girl. It's rather washed out, but I'm sure it's there.

Haven't had a chance to test the theory though. I got a bit side tracked.

Also, if you are putting your lightsource inside an object, make sure that object isn't itself casting shadows, otherwise the light won't make it out of the prop. 

Okay, I don't know what it is I'm doing, but I'm definitely doing it wrong. I got rid of all the lights but one, changed it to a spot and pointed it directly at the Male figure. STILL no shadow!

Check the material settings for the props in the scene.  Anything will an active ambient channel will cause problems with shadows.  We may need screencaps of the material room for better diagnosis.

If IDL is being used, check if the prop is a light emitter on the Parameter/Properties Panel.

Did you enable shadows in the render settings?