Since I was mucking, I did a comparison render between Firefly and P4. I disabled shader nodes for the P4 render, which is why the hair is white.

No postwork on either image.

1. You probably have to adjust the transparency falloff for anything with transparecy from .6 to 0

2. In general, I have been unchecking the "turn off back facing polygons" option. It seems to make things look weird.

3. Rendering while you are in the material room in the little preview window makes material changes less painful to check.

4. Almost every piece of clothing or prop I have tried requires tweaking in the material room to render with Firefly.

5. I have been turning off displacement every time when rendering in Firefly.. no idea why it is on by default.

Very nice, both of them. I like the lips better on the P4 render and the hair better on the FF render. Question: I thought the "Production Mode" button was just for FF and the standard P4 "Use Bump Maps," "Cast Shadows," etc check boxes were for the P4 renderer. Is that not correct? Also, in #4 above, what kind of tweaking is needed? Or is it different every time, requiring constant experimentation? (I haven't made it to the material room yet. Can't get thru the face room due to lockups. Made it thru the hair room, tho.)

Forgot to mention: thanks for the tips.

I like the lips in the firefly render better myself, but i think that's a personal taste thing.

I strongly suggest starting with the material room.. for Poser 5, I think learning the materials is key, just as learning lighting was key for Poser 4.

As for tweaking clothes and such.. I have been trying to come up with a formula to "fix" these MAT settings in Poser 5. For example, the things I go through to "fix" items that use reflection maps are different from the things I go through to "fix" items that are just normally textured.

For example, I found that Ravnheart's MATs for the Gothic armor don't render properly in Poser 5. To make it work I believe I changed the diffuse color and added a reflection map (spherized). Once I have a better idea on what I am doing I will write up some procedures I am using to get some of the clothing to render better in Poser 5.

Great tips Kiera. Thanks! Ron

Great looking images..both of them actually... Thanks for the tips.... You mentioned learning materials vs. lighting...I tried blackhearted global lights which looked really good in P4, but they are flat in P5 using FF....its definitly a new game.....but I can't even figure out how to get my hair anything but blonde :)

Hmmmmmmmmm??????????/

That's strange.

The eye looks better in FF.

• but -

The skin tex better in P4.

To me, anyway. ;=]

Only other significant difference that I can see (with the exception of the hair) is the way the choaker rendered.

Both are beautifully done!
(as if I even had to say that.) ;=]

These renders are gettin' so close to photographic, it's scary, no? ;=]

Nice comparison. Either FF isn't that good (in this example, at least) or as I've maintained, the much maligned P4 renderer is pretty darned good for what it was designed to do, render people.

firefly seems to have more ambiance. Notice the glow on the right nostril that is not on the p4 render. The chin also has more ambiance. I like the roughness of the P4 chin better.

Actually, that glow effect is the result of the skin sheen shader node I was playing with. It has nothing to do with the renderer. ;)

Being too cowardly to take P5 out of its box yet (cowardice not the only reason, really), I would note that even while there isn't a light year's difference between the renders (sorry 'bout that pun), we users have had years to work on creating good lighting for P4, and Kiera and Blackhearted are two of the most talented P4 lighters of which I am aware. That Kiera is producing ff renders of the quality above in such a short time after P5's release is good news, not bad news, IMHO.

Overall I like the FF render better in terms of clarity/crispness. I still have a LOT to learn about playing with shaders. I wouldn't classify this particular render as being all that impressive, but the process was interesting. =) And, btw, thanks kbade for the kind words. ;)

Thank you for sharing your work and the tips.

I only meant to italicize you there...but it works, I guess;-)

My pleasure. ;) Hopefully I will have figured out enough to post some real art to the gallery soon. =)

Kiera, I hope you make your procedures public when you write them. I read the Material section of the manual last night and, while it explained what the controls do, there's no way to know how to sit down and just create an affect (effect?) you're after. It seems everything is going to take much experimentation with subtle changes and renders. And that's fine if you have the time and that's what you like to do. But I dont' like that method, it's too time consuming. (it's one of the reasons I dumped Bryce for Vue.) Of course the amount of experimentation needed would decrease as your experience increases but then add to that the fact that lighting is a whole new game now, becoming proficient at this is going to take a loooooong time.

Of course I will make what I learn public. ;) I am already compiling information as I go that I will be placing on my web site.

Thanks! This si great work... I have been playign with some things myself, but unfortunately I am delayed by the fact that I have a deadling and the "Wonder Wedge" hair doesn't seem to render right no matter what I do. Most distressing :)