next to running V4 through EZMat as already stated, I rebalanced Indirect and Direct light by

• changing the Alt Diffuse swatch in EnvSphere from white to (200,200,200)
• adding four Infinite Lights with no specular, reduced Diffuse intensity and quite limited shadowing. Purpose: get rid of the IDL artefacts (dark splotches)
• as in the image, with xRotate +/- 30 and yRotate -45 or -135

With a few clicks I got a result very much like Miss Nancys, just by applying EZMat/EZSkin2 to V4 / highres maps. Since XPDEV states in his signature that EZSkin is always used, I wonder where the issue comes from. Actually, EZSkin applies a BB shader setup from say 2009 which does have room for improvements but that''s beside the point. It removes the flaws for the texture setup and adds SSS into it.

I do have some notes on Miss Nancys rendering setup:

• for 64-bit PoserPro, a 64 bucket size is optimal while 32 is best for Poser and the 32bit PoserPro.
• Pixel Samples can just be 3, resulting in 3x3 anti aliasing. 4 is needed for large size renders made for large-size hires print. Larger values make no sense unless one is using the DoF (focal blur) functionality of Poser, which I strongly disadvise since its pretty ugly at any setting. I do it in post instead.
• the Shading Rate should be about 0.5 / square(Pixel Samples) otherwise one of them makes no sense. So, when using PS=3, SR = 0.05 (<0.5/9) is fine. The combi shown, PS=8 and SR=0.5 will result in longer render times without the resulting quality that might go with it.
• GC=2.2 is a fine compromise for classic Poser lit scenes, but reduced values are advised for IDL and/or SSS intensive scenes. I''d use 1.8 instead.
• 16 raytrace bounces is a bit over the top, the scene does not have this much reflections. The IDL bounces however can be increased for better results in the corners (where the wall meets the floor or ceiling), you can just type in 99 when the slider appears to be limited.
• I recommend IDL cache values between 80 and 90 for final renders. Values <80 will reduce image quality while values >90 increase render times disproportionaly. I use 85.
• I recommend IDL Samples between 1500 and 2500. Increased values will improve the image without increasing render times that much. I use 2000.
• I recommend the Sinc filter, and value 2 for soft cloth and female skin while using value 3 for male skin, fur and rough cloth where details are important. So, Miss Nancys choise here is well supported.

I''m just back from leave, I''ll see how the result can be improved by adding some (external) direct light to it.

looks nice, compliments, wish you a lot of buyers / readers

@Morkonan: I'm aware of the EULA, it does not refer to 3D printing, neither does it refer to 2D rendering or printing thereof. My question "show me the sections" did not ask for "quote the EULA" but "quote the EULA secton that explicitely allows for...". Referring to your first EULA quote, Legit Use is understood as mentioned in a) to g) and 2D rendering is not part of that. And so on.

When the EULA is read closely, it could come to mind that "derived work" and alike are referring to actions and results that leave portions of the 3D mesh intact. When such is not the case, you're free to go.

@precisionXXX and @bevans84: I asked those questions too.

Just for curiosity: which section of the EULA allows us to make renders, display our renders, print our renders and even sell our renders?
And which section does limit this to 2D-rendering and printing, and forbid 3D (4D 5D etc) rendering and printing?

My opinion:
The only thing I'm not allowed to do with content is to ship out (portions of) 3D meshes (and 2D textures) that contain (in the literal sense) licenced content. So there might be an issue with shipping stuff to a 3D printing service, like there is an issue with sending Poser scenes to a Poser Render Service if such might exist.
But I don't see an issue when 3D printing by myself, and don't see an issue when I render the scene into a JPG and send that out for printing service (as the JPG cannot be re-engineered into the 3D mesh), and likewise I don't see an issue when some 3D-rendering proces should exist (run at home) that turns the 3D scene into a 3D-print file in such a way that the originating mesh cannot be re-engineered. Then such a print file could be send out to a service bureau.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but then... prove me so by showing the relevant sections.

I did a tutorial on things, like boosting RAM usage and handling performace issues when running Poser on Windows.

Starts here http://www.book.artbeeweb.nl/?p=162 

enjoy. 

IMO Photoreal is just an artform, somewhat popular especially in the professional advertising, moviemaking and gaming business. Some hobbyist have some preferences there too, for various personal reasons. I happen to be one of them, sometimes. Unfortunately, Poser is not very good at it, and not meant for it as well. That can be frustrating, especially for those who think they can turn Poser into a virtual physics lab. Whether that's either bad luck or an extra opportunity, who knows?

The most serious statement on this comes from JoePublic in his post above: " I've found my happy spot ...". That's what counts. 

And you can take a peek in the gallery, especially the image-top 20. No photorealism at all (this week at least). Top 1 and 2 are from C'yve, not even in 3D. 

Above all, a real artist wants to be unique and doesn''t group think, and preferrably avoids groups at all.  

And oh, IOM the movement is not towards more realism, but towards better story-telling.
An image can tell a thousand words, but one needs to have something to tell first. C'yve is my hero. Paul Francis, Roland58, etc

and No, phorealism is not the hardest to achieve, given the amount of images floating around. With the proper tools, anyone can.
C'ves 2D drawings are the hardest to achive. Like the drawings (and little poems) by Dick Bruna.  

have fun 

dear all,

I just happen to write the manuals some time ago, and I'm hardly using EZMat myself as its results hardly export well to Octane and alike.  I can't be of real help, sorry.

So, with any serious issues like the one above, please do yourself a favor and contact Snarly at RuntimeDNA. That's where he has moved to. he is not amongst us at Rendo anymore.

just read my earlier post, there is no such thing as a neutral color for bump.

When two (neighboring) surface elements A en B are addressed by the same bump map, and A has a darker shade in the map compared to B, then A will look indended, lowered, compared to B. And when the bumpmap for B is black, no surface element will appear lower.

For the tiling floor, my suggestion is not to put shine on the mortar between the tiles. Use a map for surpressing the reflectivity. 

in my opinion: the closer the shot, the more detail you need. So bumps (*) are fine for distant shots, displacements do well for intermediate shots, and for close-ups one needs the hair room ( this might give you a start on that).

(*) normals are sort of low-quality bumps, aimed at high-speed (30fps) game-rendering. They are available in Poser so you can use figures from a gaiming environment in your scenes while those figures offer no bumps or displacements in their materials but offer normals instead. I never use them when there is an alternative. We did plenty of threads about that. 

hi all,

just bumping in on this as I do have a deviant opinion, from the image below. It shows four standard boxes under default lighting, each box is 0.1 PNU (10.2" or 26.2cm) in size.
The colored one at the back is for illustration only, it has a simple tiled pattern assigned to its Bump as well as Diffuse channel so I can see what's dark and what's bright. The gray mortar is a bit brightened up, so it makes about 50% under Gamma Correction.

The boxes at the front are put closely to each other, the left one does not have any bump, the middle one has a very stong bump: 2,62 mtr (thats 10x the box size!) while the right one is still quite bumpy: 0,262 (thats 1x the box size). My units are meters. 

What do I see:

• both the strong bump effects show equal effects
• all bump effect gets completely lost when a box boundary is crossed. Especially from the middle to the left box there is no clue whether a surface on the middle box is raised, indended or 'neutral'.

My conclusions:

• the bump effect is a fake one, making a surface element look raised or lowered relative to a neighboring surface element, depending on the relative (!) brightnesses within the same bump map.
• the fake effect is limited. One can have it 10% fake, or 50% fake, but there is some 100% fake level which cannot be exceeded. Higher values do not make stronger bump effects. 
• the bump effect is limited to surface elements addressed by the same bump map. It does not make elements look raised or indended relative to elements addressed by another map.
• in other words: their is just no such thing as neutral. As the boundary between the left and middel box makes clear: white, gray and black are equally neutral, they have only meaning relative to each other within the same mapped area. 
• the story on distorted normals is a nice one, but not explaining why I don't see distortions on the box boundaries. So, to me at the moment, I'm not buying, and bump is just a fake shadowing / highlighting effect. Nice, but fake.

• on top of all this, do remind that GC, IDL as well as SSS all reduce the highlight / shadow contrasts, and hence tend to reduce the effects of bump (and displacement, and overall image depth, etc).

 That's my opinion on bump.

I did put that in the User Guide (pag 5/6). EZMat does not replace EZSkin, but once loaded, most EZSkin functionality is available through EZMat as well. So, in order to make the EZSkin functions to work in EZMat, setup EZSkin (2) first.

I did a series of tuts on Poser scenes, cameras included, but also lights, atmosphere, etc. Go [ here ].and enjoy.

I had that issue every time I upgraded to a newer version, but hardly in between. Perhaps you can contact Snarly on this directly, he is on RDNA now.

thanks for bringing back the Sticky. As Snarly has decided to move from Rendo to somewhere else, I'll try to step in sometimes.

When the EZMat panel only shows the main / header part and not the tabs part, it might pay off to right click on it, select the Set font size option, put something in (like 9 or so) and [ OK ]. I guess those python things need a kick on their but every now and then. Computers...