Procedural bump looks very bad to me. I never use it. It doesn't match up to the pores on the skin and looks like dry wall or concrete.

I haven't posted much around here but since we are all putting Poser 12 through the paces, here is my recent SuperFly render.
The final image is heavily post worked in Photoshop as I could not get the shadowing and depth I wanted from Poser alone so I will post the Before and After.
I could not get the outfit to fit LaFemme as the hood kept separating so I reverted to Vicky4.

Used just Background lighting with an .Exr (used 4K as the 8k blew the image out, maybe there is a way to fine tune that but I don't know yet) and used one Area Light.
As you can see in the original render I was unable to pick up any good shadows even after ditching Flink's Cycle shader on the snow, but that is what postwork is for, right?

Anyway, the basic theme is:
Each year when Santa takes to the sky with his reindeer to deliver toys to all the good little girls and boys, Mr Claus remains behind and entertains the elves until his return.
(oh, and the ones coming in from right, well those are Krampus' elves and their reindeer, Rudy)

After Postwork:

Before Postwork:

Make the background trees bigger, move them back further and use DOF blur to separate the foreground from the background trees. Just a thought.

The render resembles a stage production rather than an outdoor festival of sorts.  A far cry from being an actual nighttime lit environment.  Rendering a pure white surface is very tricky in Superfly and adding any sort of ambient illumination just overwhelms shadows in general.  I like the post-work but you can still see the underlying glow of the snow on the ground.

The render resembles a stage production rather than an outdoor festival of sorts.  A far cry from being an actual nighttime lit environment.  Rendering a pure white surface is very tricky in Superfly and adding any sort of ambient illumination just overwhelms shadows in general.  I like the post-work but you can still see the underlying glow of the snow on the ground.

I downloaded a free Snow Globe created by Chameleon from the Rotica site that was chockful of props but unfortunately was created for DS.  Using D3D's DSONLoader, I imported it into P11, saved it as a scene, and then recreated Superfly shaders for it in P12.  The model is large enough for a figure and the props can be individually moved or removed.  In this render, I placed a fully dressed V4 beside the tree.  The lights are placed within the glass globe.

hborre posted at 7:21 PM Mon, 27 December 2021 - #4432500

I downloaded a free Snow Globe created by Chameleon from the Rotica site that was chockful of props but unfortunately was created for DS.  Using D3D's DSONLoader, I imported it into P11, saved it as a scene, and then recreated Superfly shaders for it in P12.  The model is large enough for a figure and the props can be individually moved or removed.  In this render, I placed a fully dressed V4 beside the tree.  The lights are placed within the glass globe.

Nice 😍

I've been using Poser for more than 20 years now. I started with Poser 4. And currently I'm using the latest iteration (Poser 12) of this great 3D tool. I'm a huge fan of the old skool Hammer Horror movies, and always fantasized about what I would do if I were in Dracula's shoes... 

For my damsels I still mainly use Victoria 4. With all the add ons and outfits I bought over the years I can turn her into any fantasy I like. Also I like to play around with dynamics, making clothing look al real as possible.

Here is one I did last year. This one is pretty save for my standards ;-)

In most cases I do some post production in PhotoShop, to iron out small imperfections, add some effects and draw some details by hand.

Very nice!  I love your perspective on the scene.

hborre posted at 1:55 PM Thu, 6 January 2022 - #4432928

Very nice!  I love your perspective on the scene.

Thanks! It is part of a series where Dracula carries his bride to an old manor to do whatever he does with his damsels. This is the prequel. In this scene I added her hair twice and manipulated both to make it look like the back is hanging down. That's part of the fun of posing: figuring out solutions to make a scene really look good and tell a story.

Question for Bastep, Ghostship2 and Y-Phil

I'm still having a couple issues rendering with Superfly. I've gone through several of the pages to see if anyone has had the same issues but to no avail. Problem 1 is, there are sparkles (?) or un-render areas (?) within the first picture. You can see them in the arm of the character, cloth and the furniture. I rendered it twice with recommended High settings 10 Pixels with some individual reductions in the Branched Path Tracing selections. My Alienware Processor is an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

 The second problem 2 is, one of my characters came out... chocolate? Both female characters are from the same vender Maddelerium, however one of them didn't render properly. 

Any suggestions? 

That first image is exhibiting fireflies in the render.  Are you using an HDR image in the background for any lighting?  If so, check the Gamma on the image, it needs to be set to 1, not 2.2.  Also, you may need to render at a higher pixel value.  In your case, 10 is not enough.  I have seen other users push the values up as high as 50 or more. 

For the second render, the skin shaders are off for Superfly.  You would really need to convert the textures to Cycles, either using the PhysicalSurface or Cycles root nodes.  The better option with the Cycles node is to combine it with the PrincipledBSDF and optimize those shaders for Superfly rendering.  Keep in mind, skin shaders coming from the same vendor do not mean that they follow the same formula with every character they develop.  Chances are that nodes may be rearranged, changed, or completely reworked to accommodate specific displacements, specularity, etc for the skin's response to its lighting environment.

And just in case you're not yet used to cycles, you may use ezskin3: Snarly has adapted it for use in Poser12

Lighting from an HDRI only.

Yep, a good HDRI can enhance a render any day.  Nice.

WOW, haven't checked this thread in a while, and boy these last few renders are excellent!

No light but an HDRI on the background (with gamma set to 1), and DOF enabled. Superfly, samples set to 45, no branched path tracing.

My settings, as an example:

No light but an HDRI on the background (with gamma set to 1), and DOF enabled. Superfly, samples set to 45, no branched path tracing.

Wooow 😍😍😍

 😊

Very nice.  Were you going for the soft blur effect or is your DOF off?

hborre posted at 9:21 AM Wed, 19 January 2022 - #4433484

Very nice.  Were you going for the soft blur effect or is your DOF off?

I discovered the DOF works very well in P12 Superfly.

Your fStop is quite shallow, which accounts for the softness of the render, especially with a head-and-shoulders portrait.  The general rule for portrait photography is to focus on the eyes and give yourself a generous fStop, maybe around f8, to achieve some overall sharpness on the face.  At least, that's my target aperture value, I might push it f11 depending on the focal length of the lens in use.  Although, Poser doesn't follow photography conventions (too bad), the longer the focal length of the lens, the shallower the DoF at lower fStop values.

Hmm, my fStop is around 6.8 or so (at work comparison ATM so can't check). May try the same scene with your rec, for comparison.  Thank you for the suggestion!

Your fStop is quite shallow, which accounts for the softness of the render, especially with a head-and-shoulders portrait.  The general rule for portrait photography is to focus on the eyes and give yourself a generous fStop, maybe around f8, to achieve some overall sharpness on the face.  At least, that's my target aperture value, I might push it f11 depending on the focal length of the lens in use.  Although, Poser doesn't follow photography conventions (too bad), the longer the focal length of the lens, the shallower the DoF at lower fStop values.

hborre posted at 11:45 AM Wed, 19 January 2022 - #4433495

Your fStop is quite shallow, which accounts for the softness of the render, especially with a head-and-shoulders portrait.  The general rule for portrait photography is to focus on the eyes and give yourself a generous fStop, maybe around f8, to achieve some overall sharpness on the face.  At least, that's my target aperture value, I might push it f11 depending on the focal length of the lens in use.  Although, Poser doesn't follow photography conventions (too bad), the longer the focal length of the lens, the shallower the DoF at lower fStop values.

Much better.  You can see more details on her skin and hair.  Another thing, a telephoto focal length will compress the image, things will look closer and bigger in the background than they would normally to the human eye.  Here is some additional information that I had tucked away on my computer: https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2944071.  Something to consider when setting up your camera and scene.

hborre posted at 3:33 PM Wed, 19 January 2022 - #4433502

Much better.  You can see more details on her skin and hair.  Another thing, a telephoto focal length will compress the image, things will look closer and bigger in the background than they would normally to the human eye.  Here is some additional information that I had tucked away on my computer: https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2944071.  Something to consider when setting up your camera and scene.

Huge thanks 😁

Poser 12 / Super Fly / Full HD

Latest...

Latest...

Great!

Playing with a new shader I put together for random dots.  Everything is procedural dots with the exception of the pillows, the material used is from Ghostships' shader collection.

Playing with a new shader I put together for random dots.  Everything is procedural dots with the exception of the pillows, the material used is from Ghostships' shader collection.

Playing with a new shader I put together for random dots.  Everything is procedural dots with the exception of the pillows, the material used is from Ghostships' shader collection.

Fantastic 😍

I think this may be the most P12 render I've ever done. PBSDF on almost all materials, random walk SSS on the skin and all the fabrics, 3 diffuse bounces. :-)

Playing with a new shader I put together for random dots.  Everything is procedural dots with the exception of the pillows, the material used is from Ghostships' shader collection.

I love it.

I think this may be the most P12 render I've ever done. PBSDF on almost all materials, random walk SSS on the skin and all the fabrics, 3 diffuse bounces. :-)

Wooow 😍😍😍

I love this render.

+1, that makes "at least" 4 of us who love this render!! 

All of my girls and boys together!

All of my girls and boys together!

What a magnificent gang!

All of my girls and boys together!

Thank you! Persephone the computer is mad at me now. Poor thing was overworked making that thing. 

Marceline the computer sends her sympathies to poor overworked Persephone.

lol

 😊

Nice!

Nice!