haegerst posted at 6:42PM Mon, 12 October 2015 - #4233322

I have Poser Pro 2014 and i render with LuxRender. I tried to enable Subdivision in LuxRender and edited the Crease angle, but both just worsened the problem.

Here is a picture of Victoria 4 - under extreme lighting conditions it is very visible (look at the shoulder). Is there any trick?

This looks like a specular issue, not a V4 issue. V4 is a high poly figure and, with some of the sub-D algorithms available in later versions of Poser, you can get quite good results. With weight-mapping, you can get extremely good deformations. Even with standard rigging, you can get very good to excellent deformations. With the ability to create JCMs and other morphs, on the fly, using Poser's sculpting brush and dependency settings... There really is no practical end to the complexity and details you can get with that figure. Well, except for geometry, that is, which you can't really invent. BUT, if you're really that hungry for details, Poser works just fine with normal mapping, so you can take V4 into 3D app, sub-d it to a ridiculous amount, sculpt away and then export a normal map for extreme detail... mostly.

The issue is not one of polygons with V4. There only a very fair number of instances when one might want more polygons with a figure like V4 and, only then, in very specific situations with high-resolution close-up renders. Even then, almost all of them can be taken care of by careful modeling of morphs and various bump/displacement or normal mapping.

As far as I know, in regards to detail and true model diversity/capability, there's nothing you really can't create with V4 if it's a relatively humanoid figure. (Within certain boundaries, of course. But, if you're pushing those, you're already a 3D modeler and can augment V4 much more than a novice... and, thus, don't need to be told any of this. :) )

On smoothing: There are a number of points of confusion using that word... To some, "Smoothing" means Subdivision, which is an entirely different ball of wax and its "smoothing effect" is entirely dependent upon what algorithms are being used. I don't know which algorithms Poser uses, so can't comment on that.

But, in rendering, like in Firefly, there is an effect called "Smooth Shading." Smooth shading in Poser can be activated either from the Object Menu or can be overridden, to a certain extent, in the Firefly render options. In essence, smooth shading takes the averages of vertice normals and "shades" them in order to present a surface desired by the user. In the rendering options in Firefly, one can override all object settings in a scene to a certain Smooth Shading value or can turn on/off Smooth Shading as desired.

However, the model in question that is using Smooth Shading must have enough vertices in order to render the surface properly. Remember - It only works on the vertice normal average, so if there aren't enough vertices, there won't be enough input to make a sensible render of the surface. That's why very low poly objects will appear to "inflate" or "break apart" when Smooth Shading is enabled.

In high-poly models, Smooth Shading (for organic objects like people, animals, etc) can give very nice results. The values for smooth shading tell the program at what "real" angle, from measured vertice to measured vertice, to apply the Smooth Shading. Any angle over the input value will be shaded and any under it will not. (Or, may have greatly reduced effects. Sometimes, it doesn't appear to quite work as it's supposed to on angles below xx value.)

To answer the OP: V4 is quite a hefty figure and is very versatile. With Poser's tools and the availability to weight-map it, if desired, it's an extremely compliant figure and very accepting of even radical morphs and deformations. (The default Poser rigging isn't bad, either, and with additions like X&M's JCMs and morphs, V4 can be extremely realistic. With customized morphs and deformers, it's really... pretty darn awesome.) :)