I'm using poser 8 and was wondering about lights. I have build a room and have one light from the ceiling fan. If I place a figure on one end of the room they look fine except the part of them not facing the light has way too dark of a shadow. How do you fix that?

Reduce the "Shadow" parameter on the light.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

To be continued ... or not ... :o)

P.S Here''s a link to the whole tutorial ---> http://www.drgeep.com/p4/l1/l1.htm .....<---  (copy & paste) Link function here not working, sorry .. :o(

The most common symptom of not using correct math (gamma correction) in a renderer is that dark areas are too dark. Unfortunately you're using Poser 8 which doesn't have it.

So you will have to manually "correct" the lighting. You will need to do what Dr. Geep said (letting the shadow be more lit than it really is), or you can add more lights.

Or, for a semi-automated solution, you can make the shaders do the correction. I used to use gamma correcting shaders all the time. Making and using the shaders is manual, but once done, the reaction to light will look much more natural automatically as you build different scenes.

Reduce the "Shadow" parameter on the light.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

To be continued ... or not ... :o)

---

P.S Here''s a link to the whole tutorial ---> http://www.drgeep.com/p4/l1/l1.htm .....<---  (copy & paste) Link function here not working, sorry .. :o(

Thanks, I did actually make those kind of changes and the shadow on the wall looks better, but the dark side of the figure casting the shadow is what I was trying to say is too dark. For some reason it doesn't change when reducing the shadow parameter.

It doesn't change because that side of the figure is not "in shadow" - rather it isn't facing the light.

Thus, it does not react to the light at all - no matter how much light "leaks" into shadows.

You need to add lights, or use more IDL, or use gamma-correcting shaders.

IMO, you should upgrade to Poser 10 or any version of Poser Pro, all of which have GC.

also, before switching to P10, you can try faking GC with HSV expTM in render settings.  change lites to ray-traced.

 Wow, I never used IDL before! I just did some research into how to use it and then tried it out. It makes a HUGE difference!

also, before switching to P10, you can try faking GC with HSV expTM in render settings.  change lites to ray-traced.

I have the same render python. Could you tell me the difference between clicking Render (Time), and just Render?

'Render time' posts how long it took to render when it completes, 'render' doesn't. If you ever wondered how people can post render times to the second, that's it.

Here's a few links to my own explorations with IDL if it helps... most should still work with Poser 8 (I use PP2014).

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2885070

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2884825