I have a render where I have a glass window and I can see the background through the glass. Once I've rendered the image and export it, the window glass does not show the background, but is white (left image). I exported the image as a PNG and a TIF, with the same results. However if I use the Windows Snipping tool to save the rendered image, the background image through the glass window remains intact (right image).

I think it is some kind of alpha channel problem, but not sure how to fix it. From what I read, they said to save as a PNG or TIFF, which does not work for me. Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

FireFly or SuperFly?  I ask so that you won't get any misinformation on the render engine.  Did you try to save it as a .jpg file?  What is the Material Room Shader for the windows?

I forgot to mention, this was in Superfly. What I read suggested not to save it as a jpeg, but as PNG or TIFF. I've attached the shader for the glass. I disconnected the Reflect node, since this was initially a winter scene.

I'm curious why someone would have told you not to export as a JPEG. Is that a restriction from the customer you are working for, or...? I export to JPEG and PNG all the time. Also curious about your glass setup. Was that something you used from an earlier scene?

You're trying to hack a scene in the window using a reflection node.  Since you're using SuperFly, you're better off setting the scene up with a real glass shader and a background billboard with your image attached.  This will properly show up in any file format from your render.  The purpose of the alpha channel saved in your .PNG is for compositing in a third-party program like Photoshop or GIMP where you insert a separate image in post-work.

1. Use this shader on your Background in the material room:
https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/90149/background-shader
(can replace the image with any HDRI you have, or just use what's there.

2. Use a Superfly compatible glass shader. There is one that is in your Superfly Basics folder under materials in your library.

3. If the image on your Background is a HDRI, it will light the scene, but if your room is fully enclosed, you may want to add one or two lights.

Rendering a test scene now (very simple) will share along with exported image.

My question to the OP: how proficient are you in Poser?  I ask this question because the above solution would be relevant to me and other experienced users but it may be overwhelming to the inexperienced.  

Fair enough, I slow my roll until we get some answers.

Forgive me if I missed the obvious but I thought that anything rendered using the Poser Background node would always export as transparent when saved as PNG.

Nope:

By any chance do you, accidentally, have transparent background checked in your SF render settings?

In SuperFly, you can render over a transparent background but you need to save the image as a  .PNG to preserve the transparency.  But Rhia is correct, if you place an LDR or HDR image into the Poser background, you will retain that image in your final render and export it as a .PNG.  This works very well when using an HDRI as your global environmental illumination instead of a skydome.  

No, I never check the transparent background because I'm one of those weirdoes who never does any postwork.

SamTherapy posted at 7:27 PM Fri, 28 January 2022 - #4433937

Forgive me if I missed the obvious but I thought that anything rendered using the Poser Background node would always export as transparent when saved as PNG.

I didn't realize it when I started playing in P12, because I always save in PNG format as I always add the background in post work, even if just a simple color.  Didn't take me long to figure out what was what though so now my default startup scene has that setting checked.

Here is the link I used as a reference for the PNG, TIF question Rhia474 had:

http://www.posersoftware.com/documentation/12/Poser_Reference_Manual/OtherApps/Exporting/Exporting_Images.htm

Notice they mention using PNG or TIF if you want to preserve the alpha channel. 

This is just my own personal render. It's been some time since I really used Poser before, so learning the ropes again! :-)

"You're trying to hack a scene in the window using a reflection node.  Since you're using SuperFly, you're better off setting the scene up with a real glass shader and a background billboard with your image attached.  This will properly show up in any file format from your render.  The purpose of the alpha channel saved in your .PNG is for compositing in a third-party program like Photoshop or GIMP where you insert a separate image in post-work."

This makes sense to me, I'll have to try it. The shop I'm using is the Victorian Gift Shop which comes with Poser. I pretty much kept things as they are, so the window glass is how it came, except as mentioned I disconnected the reflection node. It looks like they were using this to put snow on the windows(that's how it looks by default).

On a side note, there were around 42 lights in the Victorian Gift Shop scene! I'm down to 9 lights with no difference that I can see. I've never seen that many lights used before.

Thanks for your help everyone, really appreciate it!

[Tim]

hborre posted at 6:48 PM Fri, 28 January 2022 - #4433935

My question to the OP: how proficient are you in Poser?  I ask this question because the above solution would be relevant to me and other experienced users but it may be overwhelming to the inexperienced.  

I have much to learn.

[Tim]

I hear you.  Ever since SuperFly was introduced into Poser, it became a new learning curve for many of us.  If you search through the forum, many threads are dedicated to improving many existing materials for SuperFly rendering.  I find myself tweaking and changing material setups and finding that happy medium that will satisfy my taste.  

I'm looking at the Victorian Gift Shop model and it's predominantly set up for FireFly although it will render well in SuperFly.  It's simple and functional for quick rendering.  But where SuperFly is concerned, the materials can be improved to something a little bit more realistic, or at least, believable in response to its environment.

Yeah, the manual needs a wee bit of an updating regarding transparent backgrounds. Not the only place. Downloading your scene now and will take a peek to satisfy my own curiosity.

There is some very good advice above regarding materials--Superfly is a continuous adventure! There are some pretty good tutorials and purchasable materials for it on this site. 

If it's just you own personal render and no postwork, you totally just can save as .jpgs (I go crazy with some and save in both).

If you have questions, am sure some of us are here daily to see what we can help with.

For starters I recommend swapping the background and the glass and se what happens. 

If you are going to be editing a texture file multiple times, or predictively, if someone else might be editing a provided texture file (which many do) saving as jpg is a compression format. Every time you resave the edited file it's recompressed. Or you can save with very high quality save settings in the jpg save dialogue but there will be compression nevertheless. All that compression over time results in original quality loss. It might be imperceptible or it might be very noticeable. Probably, most likely, a high quality save of a jpg after one edit will show no difference in quality. If you're someone who tweaks and changes a texture file many many times you'll probably be doing that in a layered psd file which will be uncompressed. Saving as png is useful for texture files that will be used in various other softwares besides Poser, it's an uncompressed file format that supports alpha channel (transparency and associated masks). You can also flatten png to background in an image editor and it will result in an image much like jpg but non lossy. This dumps the alpha channel. Downside is larger file size. I save everything as png (flattened or on a transparent layer depending on use) or psd. Most commonly texture files you'll find in products for Poser will be in jpg format to reduce file sizes. For posting gallery images or forum posts that are one time final images for that destination jpg is fine, because I'm nitpicky about compression I post as flattened png. Forum posts images also support transparency in png.

Most of my editing is done within Poser itself, you can create and modify specific maps for quick render until you achieve the effect you want.  Normal, specular, and rough maps require serious consideration if you are emulating PBR materials and need to use third-party standalone and online programs to generate them.  For practical purposes, always create a copy to work with and archive the original.

I just fiddled for a few hours with the Victorian Gift Shop--just the room.
When it loads, I suggest to delete the ceiling for what you want to achieve so you get decent lighting without the forty lights. :) Or nine even.
The below detail image was done with the above mentioned material on the background note, loaded with a snowy (winter) HDRI. There is only one single sublight.The only material I changed otherwise was the glass in the window to the SimpleGlass available in the Superfly folder on materials that came with the program.
It is saved as a png as well. The settings are super basic, see below for results. There is definitely more that could be done, but the background image shows, the glass is there, and there is plenty of light.

Like Rhia, I spent part of a snowy day playing with the Victorian Gift Shop and optimizing for SuperFly.  But unlike Rhia's render, I kept the ceiling intact because exposing the room to outside lighting looks unnatural.  BTW Rhia, I like your render version of the room.  My approach, rework the textures for SuperFly.  Add a little noise to the walls and connect everything to the PhysicalSurface node.  As for the lights with the set, there are only 4 actual lights available,  the other lamps all have ambient mesh and have one set of textures.  Easier to address with a single set of shaders. I deleted almost all the actual lights because they were placed outside the room and were of no benefit to the render.  I did keep an area light that was relocated to the inside of the room and placed at ceiling level.  As for the background image, just a jpeg imported into the background was rescaled and moved into position.  I found that the SuprFly glass offered with Poser is all wrong, it magnifies the image when viewed through the window.  That had to be modified so that it looks like a pane of glass rather than a bottle.  Render settings and render below.

Ha-- good catch on the glass. I only used it because it came with the software and wanted to use stuff that was either included or free (like the background node material). I switched it out to ghostship's commercially available glass pane in the render I am using now.

Ceilings are heavily dependent on situation for me. I wanted to give a simple method that would help with getting s better result without adding too many lights or resulting in a lot of editing for someone who is starting anew. Your method is, of course, better for those who know what they're doing and are no strangers in the material room.

Rhia474 posted at 8:39 PM Fri, 28 January 2022 - #4433944

No, I never check the transparent background because I'm one of those weirdoes who never does any postwork.

Okay, then the simple answer of Poser discarding the background in favor of a transparent background isn't the case.

With the way Poser can be have you tried the old, reboot option?

My point about jpgs illustrated. Here's what happens to your images when you compress them as low quality jpgs. From hborre's image. If such an image is a enough of a showcase of Superfly's rendering that a 'Rendered with Superfly' is plastered in the image at a distracting scale from the images focal point why wouldn't you save or post a quality file sample to illustrate quality? I have a couple critiques about lighting and shadow here but I'll just remain silent on that. It's enough to demonstrate the problem with image compression artifacts which is entirely objective.

IMO, JPG files are perfect to be used at 1:1 scale, in order to be displayed as is on the web, and - you are right about it - absolutely not to be used to zoom in, as the JPG loss is ment to be compensated by our brains.

IMO, JPG files are perfect to be used at 1:1 scale, in order to be displayed as is on the web, and - you are right about it - absolutely not to be used to zoom in, as the JPG loss is ment to be compensated by our brains.

It's obviously meant to be an example "looky here" image, he spent an afternoon working on it to boot. If I can see the artifacts on my tablet what gives lol. No amount of "well... err...em" makes it otherwise. It doesn't make sense is my point.

Title

Poor La Femme and her artifact riddled claws. When all she wanted was a swim but instead found herself ruefully pondering her time travel jpg nightmare paradox in a strangely gift free and unfurnished Victorian Gift Shop.

Ok. Now I'm being a smart ass. Apologies hborre.

Here is a better export of the image I posted above except it's in PNG format.  I've always had misgivings about the JPG format yet we get stuck when there are limitations in posting images on the web.  PNG is much superior for posting to other formats in existence.

Title

Poor La Femme and her artifact riddled claws. When all she wanted was a swim but instead found herself ruefully pondering her time travel jpg nightmare paradox in a strangely gift free and unfurnished Victorian Gift Shop.

Ok. Now I'm being a smart ass. Apologies hborre.

Oh that's much better. Glad I didn't raise your hackles. I think the blue-ing might be a bit of Poser's SSS shenanigans but in any case not bleeding as much. Moot, it looks better now and in an easily remedied way. All of the texture detail is also much better.

Aside... Poser image import export options. I'm assuming up to 32 bit due to HDR and OpenEXR. Assuming this info is current to 12...

The problem, as always, is that no matter what you do, the dpi will not be anything but 72, in Poser 12. Known bug, screamed about it for a while, keep getting nowhere with it. 

The problem, as always, is that no matter what you do, the dpi will not be anything but 72, in Poser 12. Known bug, screamed about it for a while, keep getting nowhere with it. 

No, see, you're right. The problem is that while P11 you could say 'do it at 300 regardless of what size I specify and it did it, in P12 no matter if I tell them to do 300, it will produce 72. Absolutely regardless of size. And 300 was (and as far as I can tell, still is) the standard for images to hand for printing.
Sooo-this means I have to blow up my size of the images absolutely huge to produce suitable for printing, because my rendering program is unable to understand what I tell him. And so far the only answer I go (a year ago) 'we know and working on it'.

I read somewhere on here not long ago that pixels are for digital and dpi are for print. If I want to render an image to be used for print, I multiply the target width inches by the desired dpi and target height inches by the desired dpi.

For example: Desired image is 4" by 6" at 300 dpi

4 X 300 = 1200 and 6 X 300 = 1800

So I need to render the image at 1200 by 1800 pixels if I want to use it for a 4" X 6" print image.

At least, that's how I understood the explanation.

Yes, which means as Poser 12 ONLY gives you 72 dpi, you need to blow up image size if you want to print.

Rhia, we have that discussed deeply in that other threed. The DPI is only the crosslink between digital size (defined in pixel x pixel) and the printing size (defined in inch x inch or cm x cm as you are used)). So VedaDalsette's way is absolute correct. Define your render in pixels for height and width as you want to see and give poser the size for your print as inch by inch and you will get a optimal output. Or a other way define your wanted pixel size for rendering and give the cross calculating value as DPI. In this way Poser should estimate the print size (or viceversa the render size with given print size) itself and indeed this way seem to be trashy in Poser 12. But no real problem cause you every time can get the correct output as you wish.

And truely no need to open up that other threed again cause there was all and more said and even given a lot links to interesting and true internet links from printing and/or photography where this absolute super easy theme is also known.