Ok, I really didn't mean that to rhyme. LOL!

There are going to be about 6 posts in this thread, so if you are reading this before I get the other posts done then go away and come back in 20 minutes. :P

I thought I would try BagginsBill's technique for renders with no actual lights. The following posts document my experience and the results.

Props used for this experiment:

BB's Environment Sphere, the Doge2 HDRI image, BB's pawn prop, and BB's light meter prop.

I loaded Poser, and then added the aforementioned Props. Then I plugged the HDRI image into BB's EnvSphere. You can see the resulting render and the material room setup in the attached images.

Well that doesn't look right! Hmmm...

Oh! Duh!! Hahahahah, I didn't turn on ray tracing and indirect lights in the render settings...

That looks better!

But BB's light meter says it's still not right. The Ambient is set to 1. Maybe I need to crank up the brightness some... Let's try Ambient at 10:

Still not right. In fact, it looks exactly the same as the previous render. Except the ambient is 10x the previous render.

Oh! BB said to plug the Panaramic image into the Ambient Node. I guess I just assumed that was already done. Let's try plugging that in properly then, and changing the Ambient Color to white.

Much better!

After this I played around with the Ambient Value, and ended up cranking it up to 2.

Sweet! Dang, maybe I actually figured something out!! LOL

Well let's try adding some shadows with an infinite light. I turned the Ambient back down to 1 and added a single Infinite light at 90%.

Well holy cow! Maybe all that reading of threads by BagginsBill didn't go to waste. :D

Interesting, thanks. I have yet to try this. For reference, what version of Poser were you using?

I feel like you missed a prop or does the Env Sphere come with a ground plane now?  ;-)

Your .hdr is being over gamma corrected.

Yea. The default shader settings on the EnvSphere were made long ago, before we could use HDR images. Almost all the images were JPG. In that case, managing the color-space-dependent manipulations were of interest to me, so I placed the Gamma In and Gamma Out nodes into the setup, and they are defaulted to 2.2

When using an HDR image, the Gamma In should be 1.0, not 2.2. The Gamma Out should depend on whether or not you have Poser GC turned on. If you do, the Gamma Out should be 1.0 - at least it should be if you want it neutrally presented. You can manipulate Gamma Out away from one for the purpose of artistic control, but lacking any intention to manipulate the outcome, you should have it at 1.0 and be using render GC.

Note also that the thread in which I said to connect the image to ambient was one in which the discussion happened to be talking about using images in general. However, if you're specifically using my shader setup, you should not do that. In this shader setup, you use the HSV node's Value property to adjust the apparent brightness of the image. You can also use the HSV Saturation and Hue parameters to adjust the saturation and hue of the image.

On my EnvSphere page, there are instructions. It is important that you read them.

There are also sub-pages with lots of info - if you want to get the most out the EnvSphere and its library of shaders, you should read all of them.

https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/environment-sphere

In that page, the first box, it says:

Note: If used in Poser Pro, the use of PPro built-in gamma correction may produce undesirable results. If you're going to use Poser gamma correction, set Gamma In and Gamma Out = 1.0 in the EnvPanoramic and EnvPanoramicEffects shaders. The effects will produce different results in PPro+Gamma because it changes the interpretation of shader colors.

On this page (instructions)

In Advanced mode, load a panoramic image in the "Panoramic Image" node.

You can load HDR images or LDR images.

Here I have chosen an HDR image - the pond image that comes with Poser 7.

Above the Panoramic Image node is a node called Gamma In. You must tell the shader what the gamma is of the incoming image. Ordinary photos have Gamma In = 2.2 (usually) but HDR images have gamma = 1.0. So for HDR set Gamma In to 1.0.

Again:

HDR Image -> Gamma In = 1.0

LDR Image -> Gamma In = 2.2

When you set the Gamma In correctly, the Image preview (at right here) will still be weird, but the final preview should look normal.

Farther down on that same page:

ADDENDUM FOR POSER PRO:

If you're using Poser Pro with render GC enabled, then set Gamma In = 1.0 and Gamma Out = 1.0. Poser will handle it and the shader does not need to.

Note: The recent addition of GC to Poser 10 obviously means that the qualifying comments about Poser Pro are no longer completely accurate.

Everything about Linear Workflow (i.e. GC enabled) applies to Poser 10 as well as the various Poser Pros. If you have it enabled, pay attention.

And this is why I decided to post this series of images. LOL!

This is awesome feedback! Thank all of you so much!!

@Englishbob - Poser Pro 2014 Game Dev. Sorry! I really should have included that. :)

@Teyon - Whoops! I don't even think about the ground plane, as it's "always there" (unless you remove it). But you are correct! the ground plane was resized so that the floor from the HDRI image would not be visible from this particular camera angle. Other angles will still show the floor that is present in the HDRI image, and the ground plane would need to be resized again. The ground plane had BBTile applied to it from EZMat.

@primorge - Good eye! I can't really tell that stuff at a glance yet. I thought it looked good. :P

Hey BagginsBill,

First, I just want to thank you enthusiastically once more for everything that you do. All of your technical discussions that go way over my head, but are still really interesting to read. Your generosity with many of the shaders, tips, and tricks you've given us over the years. And just generally for being you! :D

You're right, I should have read through the instructions in detail once more. I read them a long time ago when I originally downloaded your sphere, and then went looking for the "lightless" thread last week when I was thinking about trying this. Re-reading that thread (thank you again for helping me track it down), and reading a bunch of your other posts over the last week was very educational.

However, as you yourself have pointed out, some of your older posts were made before your latest discoveries. If you read a whole bunch of stuff from you, all from different time periods, in a short pan of time, then it can get confusing to an amateur like me as it appears that you are contradicting yourself on occasion. That is not a criticism in any way directed at you, just an observation and advice for any one that does what I did - if you choose to go read a bunch of stuff from BB, then pay attention to the dates and times so that you have an understanding of how his techniques have evolved and the correct way to implement them in a modern Poser environment.

I failed to do that. Sorry! And thank you for pointing it out. :)

Son of a... I didn't even SEE that link at the bottom of the EnvSphere page with step-by-step instructions.

I understand what you are saying about GC though, and I do turn on GC in my render settings. So I need to adjust that Gamma In setting from 2.2 to 1.0. Thank you for pointing that out. I am not sure I understand what you are saying about the HSV node, but let's leave that for now - I'm at work so I can't play with it at the moment. I'll re-read this later on, along with the instructions on your page, and do some more experiments this evening. :)

Round 2! Fight!! :P

Ok, so here we go again after BB's many corrections to what I was doing wrong. So first I removed the EnvSphere. Then I re-added it and re-attached the HDRI image to the Panoramic Node. I did that to make sure I didn't mess anything else up. I made sure "Gama In" was 1.0, as I'm using a HDRI image. I made sure "Gamma Out" was 1.0, as I have GC turned on and set to 2.2 in my render settings.

This is the result:

Material Room:

That seems too dark to me though, and the light meter seems to agree?

If I understood everything BB posted above, then the "Value" entry on the HSV node should control brightness. I know it will control the brightness of the image, but will that make more light in the scene? Let's find out!

I turned the "Value" setting on the HSV node up to 2.0, which is double what it was:

Material room:

Huh... well what do you know. I have no idea why or how that works, but turning up the "Value" of HSV does seem to cast more light. Mostly I'm not sure how there is light in the scene with no Ambient being used?

Let's try adding our infinite light back in to get our shadows back. I played with the settings on this one to get the look I wanted. I turned the HSV down to 1.5 and the infinite light is at 90%:

Material room:

You'll also want to do some things to your materials to make them more IDL friendly; lowering the diffuse so it is less reflective to about 85/80 and disabling reflection light multiply for starters... use this

http://snarlygribbly.org/3d/forum/viewforum.php?f=8&sid=15dec63e65a9cf24485249dfe5f453b5

You're doing it right with the sun and the doge2 HSV Value.

If we take the doge2 HDR as a recording of an overcast, cloudy day with no direct sunlight, then you can use it by itself with no sun. I set the HSV Value around 3.5, and I get a good exposure level in my Poser lighting. But - I routinely use the IDL Intensity at .65.  Looks like this:

When I look at that brick, it seems washed out to me. Maybe that's really how it looks, But if I don't like that I can increase the HSV Saturation a bit to make it look better. Here I used Saturation = 1.4.

"Mostly I'm not sure how there is light in the scene with no Ambient being used?"

The Ambient channel isn't special. The name implies that it is, but it isn't. It simply draws whatever you plug in, without taking into account any light sources. 

That is the definition of "glow" - to give off a specific, non-zero amount of light regardless of how little, if any, is arriving.

The Alternate_Diffuse channel does exactly the same thing. I could just as easily have used the Ambient. The reason I didn't is because I have a function in matmatic that routinely just uses Alternate_Diffuse. By doing so, I perform less typing. (I only have to set it - don't need to set the Ambient_Value to 1 as well.)

Look at it this way: If the water heater is turned off, then the hot water tap yields cold water. 

Yes I used the hot water tap (Alternate_Diffuse) to get cold water (glow) because I turned off the water heater (did not use a Diffuse-type of node).

If I plug a Diffuse node into Ambient, then it isn't ambient anymore - it's diffuse reflection.

If I plug a Specular node into Alternate_Diffuse, then it isn't diffuse or ambient - it's specular.

The channels that do what they're told to do are capable to doing whatever you tell them to do. 

These are: Alternate_Diffuse, Alternate_Specular, Reflection_Color, Refraction_Color, Ambient, and Translucence_Color.

There are some subtle differences between them, but for the beginner's understanding, they are interchangeable.

The channels that do what they're told to do are capable to doing whatever you tell them to do. 

These are: Alternate_Diffuse, Alternate_Specular, Reflection_Color, Refraction_Color, Ambient, and Translucence_Color.

There are some subtle differences between them, but for the beginner's understanding, they are interchangeable.

Now I definitely learned something interesting today. I'm envisaging the PoserSurface panel as containing some nodes within it. for the convenience of the most common shader set-ups. The analogy I'm using for myself (apart from the bad pun, it won't be meaningful to everybody) is of an analogue synthesiser which has the most-often used signal paths already connected. So I could envisage the Diffuse_Color channel as being connected to the 'do anything' point via a maths node set to multiply, with its other input being Diffuse_Value. Specular_Color is similar, but also incorporates a specular node of some sort - I have a dim recollection of you telling us what sort, once upon a time. How am I doing? Is this documented somewhere and I missed it?

The Diffuse_Color and Diffuse_Value are the exposed inputs to an internal, invisible Diffuse node, which is then connected to an internal, invisible giant Color_Math:Add which outputs the almost-final color that goes into the transparency mixer. Using this is identical to explicitly using a Diffuse node connected to Alternate_Diffuse. If transparency is not involved, it's also identical to using a Diffuse node in any of the other channels equivalent to Alternate_Diffuse. They all go to the transparency mixer as equals.

The Specular_Color, Specular_Value, and Highlight_Size are the exposed inputs to an internal, invisible Specular node, which is then connected to an internal, invisible giant Color_Math:Add which outputs the almost-final color that goes into the transparency mixer. If transparency is not involved, it's also identical to using a Specular node in any of the other channels equivalent to Alternate_Diffuse. They all go to the transparency mixer as equals.

As I mentioned (and don't really want to explain in detail) each of the almost-equivalent channels that do what they're told to do are not quite identical. They influence the transparency mixer (final stage of the shader engine) in different ways and are hooked up to other things internally in different ways.

The Translucence channel will (if correctly wired) reverse the normal used in lighting calculations attached to it.

The Reflection_Color channel will be further modulated by light and/or the diffuse color if you turn on those Reflection_Lite_Mult or Reflection_Kd_Mult. This is so non-obvious that I just make a simple rule for the less-than-expert population - don't use those.

The Reflection_Color and Specular_Color influence the final transparency mixer in non-obvious ways. Again - not documented, not clear on the math, and just not necessary, so I steer clear when transparency is involved. I prefer to explicitly see every step and just have the Poser surface node be nothing but a dumb adder.

Whenever there's a pair XYZ_Color and XYZ_Value, they are internally and invisibly multiplied together.

 Is this documented somewhere and I missed it?

No. I reverse engineered all this knowledge through countless thousands of experiments.

Where my knowledge gets fuzzy it's because I didn't feel that determining the exact math was worth the trouble since I have better, more explicit ways to do everything I want to do.

My thanks for that! The level of detail is fine. I just prefer to be able to see what's going on rather than place my trust in a black box with reassuring words written on it.

I am pretty sure I didn't understand any of that BB. :P

That is ok though. That is why I come back to your threads and re-read them so often. As I go along and learn more and more, your threads make more and more sense to me. :)

A prime example of that is the instructions for your EnvSphere on your web page. I know I read those a long time ago when I originally downloaded that prop, but 75% of it might as well have been Greek. I didn't really understand it... until this week. Rereading those instructions this week made me really understand what you were saying. Even the instructions on using the "effects" material. :)

Thank you everyone for all of your help in getting this lighting setup correct!