I've noticed this problem affects mainly smooth, uniform surfaces. I find that using the noise node to drive some bump - make the surface less even - can help.

The last-ditch cheat I use is to make the ambient color similar to diffuse, and set the amount very low: 0.01 - 0.025. In a normally lit scene it doesn't look at all odd, and can save having to crank render quality up.

SmithMicro, please follow BB's advice for the next versions of Poser.

When I buy stuff from various marketplaces, this is how I regard the majority of the merchants whose work I have to sort out:

Thankfully there's a slowly growing bunch that this doesn't apply to.

Are you using a linear workflow (GC on)? Do you use the D3D script for setting up your render?

See where I have Irradiance Cache set to 20? It needs to be more like 75 or 80 for a scene like this, or indeed turned off by unchecking 'irradiance cache' or setting the value to 100.

It will significantly increase your render time.

I think we're heading towards another debate about what's physically accurate (i.e. emulates the physics of light very closely) and what we'd expect to see (based on our visual experience of photographs, TV shows etc.).

Your render looks more or less physically accurate; if I were standing where the camera is I'd experience it differently because the human eye* super-adapts to variations in brightness and colour.

If this was for a hotel brochure or website I'd expect it to be lit 'properly', the way a professional photographer would; the extra lighting should be designed either to get closer to the super-adapted experience of the human viewer, or to show off key features of the product (the room in this case) to their best advantage; or to convey some sort of ambience or atmosphere compatible with the hotel's image.

So, I think the scene needs some subtle additional lighting for a start. It also looks unnaturally stark, so some 'lifestyle cues' (ornaments, pictures, vases, flowers etc.) would help.

*and by 'human eye' I mean the whole visual system, not just the ball of jelly sticking out of your face

Copy the text below the line and paste it into an empty text editor document, save it as something meaningful (e.g. TextFilt_OFF.py), making 100% sure it has the .py extension.

If you're on P9 or PP2012, change the number in brackets on the last line to 4.0: this changes texture filtering to CRISP.

import poser

for actor in poser.Scene().Actors():
if (actor.Materials()):
for material in actor.Materials():
tree = material.ShaderTree()
for node in tree.Nodes():
if (node.Type() == "image_map"):
inp = node.Input(13)
inp.SetFloat(1.0)

Under some circumstances. Tell us which version of Poser you're using at the very least.

The 'dilemma', such as it is, boils down to making a choice between a predictable linear workflow (which is what Gamma Correction gets you) and the shambolic mess we had  without GC.

The problems you're experiencing are due to shaders designed to cope with the shambolic mess being used within a linear workflow.

You'll have to read up on all this, which has been explored in depth here and at RDNA, if you're to understand what's going on.

Linear workflow changes the way that lighting and shaders are used. The good news is that once you have it figured out, things become simpler. The bad news is that a lot of old shader and lighting setups have turned into crap, and you'll have to either adapt them to your new workflow or abandon them forever.

The disappearing hip thing is something I used to get quite regularly: if I deleted the figure and loaded it again, it usually came in complete.

I have to say I don't thing I've had a single such incident with PP2012.

People tend to ignore or forget the stuff that ships with Poser, the relevant props on this occasion being the 'GeoSphere' and 'HemiSphere'.

Having said that, it's BB's EnvSphere for about 95% of my scenes, the one-sided square as and when required.

Also have a look at FilterForge, a great tool for making textures.

Cameras don't have material zones, you'd need to park something in front of the lens.

You can have a bit of fun with changing the scaling of the X, Y and Z axes though.

Look for the car in the hierarchy list and see what's at the top (i.e. what all the parts are parented to): if it's a figure, it's probably named 'body'. If you scale that, everything else should follow.

Do you mean Figure > Use Limits ?

Like this.

Top: the geometry.

Middle: with a half-decent texture.

Bottom: an awful texture, and this is after a fair amount of remedial work. It's an extreme example but I'm not going to be able to use it.