Btw, I appreciate the images you posted....the method of learning that has always been best for me is visual, ie....watching tutorial videos, etc...reading manuals really takes me much longer to grasp.

Wow! you guys are awesome! Thanks for taking the time to post all the step by step images Teyon, much appreciated! Sorry to hear you're not feeling well, hope you get better soon (chicken soup with lots of cayenne pepper always helps me). And sorry I wasn't able to be on here for so many hours, just been a very busy day, and it's 2am here now, so I'll be posting and checking replies tomorrow after some much needed rest!

So basically, if I have this straight.....you used Poser to give you a character and in a pose you needed, then exported it as PNG to be imported into MS5. Then you seem to use MS5 kind of like I have noticed similar as when I've used layers in Gimp. So you're using a second layer over the original PNG Poser image, that way if you make a mistake the original PNG remains in tact and you can try again, or experiment with different colors. I think I understand. 

So in this example, Poser wasn't really used for anything except a basic character in a pose with basic clothing applied and then render it out. (Hope I even remember how to properly attach clothes! been a long time). A friend of mine who has been using Poser for a long time just replied to an email I sent him, and he suggested the very same process using Poser, and mentioned using the preview render instead of firefly. He also mentioned that Poser Pro 2014 has quite a good comic rendering engine, (but I have 2010 version and would have to spend more to upgrade). Another interesting thing he said was he just picked up a copy of Anime Studio, and said I could maybe look at that for simple characters. It has a character creation wizard, and as I'm not so interested in the actual animation features it may be enough. I'll have to look into that a bit further though, don't know enough about all this yet.

I'm also remembering the kind of characters that poser has, and can't remember if it had any more simple characters like the ones I mentioned, similar to Family Guy or Simpsons, those type of cartooney looking characters. Poser seems to have the human looking characters covered quite well, so I'm good there. With some practice I could probably draw some very simple cartooney characters, however, my question would be this........would I have to keep drawing the same character over and over every time I want that character to have a different pose?? That seems like a lot of time consuming work that I'm trying to avoid going into this. I don't mind spending time creating, but I don't want to get discouraged because I'm spending too much time trying to draw, and if it's taking too long to create a completed comic strip. That's why I was looking for simple 2D characters, and backgrounds that I can drop into a strip from a library.I would love to draw everything myself, but I'm not an artist per say, so that would have to be developed over time, and would slow me down some as far as finishing some comic strips.

Speaking of backgrounds......we really haven't touched on where I might be able to find some backgrounds to use. It's too bad you say MS5 won't import or use PDF files, because I know Comic Creator has a lot of pre-made backgrounds. I wonder if there's a way to convert a PDF file over to a format that MS5 likes, maybe Jpeg or something? Then I could have access to a lot of ready made stuff from CC, in addition to having Poser's character set and posing tools.

Whoa, nice image RorrKonn! Thanks for the additional suggestions as well. That is a good idea about running them through filters, god it's been so long since I've used Poser though, I have to brush off the cobwebs. I got so frustrated with that program before, I almost don't even want to re-install it! I was really out of my league with what animations I was trying to do with it before though, this seems a lot simpler than that at least.

I was looking at the differences between MS5 and MS5 EX, not sure I completely understand why one is better than the other, but then I'm tired too now, so will look it over at Smith Micro again tomorrow. Cheers guys, and thanks so much for taking the time to explain this process.

Thank you for the replies.

Ladonna, not sure what RDNA is, could you clarify please. Is that another website/forum?

Teyon, just to give you a better idea of what I'm trying to accomplish regarding the finished product......I'm not necessarily looking for my characters to be all 3D, or highly detailed for that matter. I do like the look of detailed 3D, but I think that is beyond my skill level at the moment. So all I'm trying to do is put together some 2D characters and backgrounds into a comic strip, kinda like you would see in your local newspaper comic section. Characters don't have to look too realisticly 3D human, but rather I could settle for just basic looking 2D characters, for example maybe that look similarly along the lines of The Simpsons, or Family Guy, and not necessarily animated, at least not in the beginning.

I will take your good advice and practice drawing every day. As for Poser, well I'll have to dig up my PoserPro2010 disc and install it to see how well it runs on my laptop, but I was hoping to not have to immediately use Poser in order to accomplish the simplicity of what I'm looking to start off with. I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say "do poses and renders in Poser, bring the images into Manga Studio and either letter those or ink over them to create your pages."  How far are you suggesting that I process the character in Poser? Do you mean add everything, all the features in Poser, ie....hair, clothing, skin, etc....before exporting? Sorry, I'm just not very familiar with the process you are describing. 

If I exported a basic finished comic strip with characters and backgrounds in panels in PDF format out of Comic Creator software, then import that into Manga Studio, I wonder how much I could do with it from there, ie...color, etc....

Hope I have explained myself well enough, and thanks again for the help and advice.

That's what I thought, we'll have to find another way around it, just trying to save as much work as possible.

Thanks hborre, and thanks also to all here who have given so generously of their time and knowledge to help me, it is greatly appreciated! :-)  I hope others like myself who are just beginning to learn about lights will benefit from this thread.

MM

I did try switching that layer to multiply and it was slightly darker. Well at least I've got the shadow on the ground now. Btw I don't have PS, I'm using Gimp to view the PSD file.

Am I correct in assuming that there probably is no way of eliminating the figure shadow so that only the ground shadow comes out in the custom 3 layer?

It seems there would be no way to separate the ground shadow from the figure's shadow on that custom 3 layer, do you know of a way to do that? Thanks again, much appreciate the help.

MM

Very interesting hborre, and thanks for spending your time to do these experiments, much appreciated. In your last demonstration where you used an infinite light for overall illumination, what position did you place that infinite light, and what intensity did you use?  If you also used only one IBL, where did you position that and what intensity did you use?  (In my very first attempts at this I did have only one IBL and one infinite light, but they must not have been positioned correctly because the light was not evenly dispursed as I would have expected it to be, there were dark areas around the figure.)

I ask because I used 4 IBLs placed about waist-chest high in relation to the figure, and they were placed one in front, one behind, and the others on the sides, as illustrated in my light control panel screen grab. In order to match the lighting in my friend's Truespace indoor scene I tried 24%, 40%, and 55% intensity. The 24 and 40 renders seemed too dark. The 55% seems to match pretty well with my friend's lighting in his scene, in which he is using the same IBL image.  Could just be the way each program handles the IBL lighting perhaps? 

Since the IBL lighting at 55% seems to be a good match between the two programs, our concern then became to find a way to have a shadow on the ground. Seems like you've accomplished that by adding the infinite light, and setting the shadow blur radius to zero.

You also have your poser_surface node shown in your material setting for the ground plane. In mine I have an additional smaller node showing for the ground plane, but it's not attached to anything, so I guess it is irrelevent and I should just set my poser_surface node with the same settings shown in yours above. Do all the other light properties settings in my screengrabs look good to leave as is? 

I'll try a few renders, send them to my friend with the infinite light added and see how/if it affects the lighting in the indoor scene.  Thanks again everyone for all the assistance.

MM

Hi hborre, thanks for jumping in here. You remember that what we're basically trying to do by using IBL with a common image is have my poser scene lighting match exactly to my friend's lighting in Truespace program.  He's got the room modeled and textured, and he's dropping in my Ben figure rendered from PoserPro2010. He needs Ben's floor shadow on a separate PSD layer for compositing. That's the basics of it, but being fairly green at this lighting stuff, some of it is traveling over my head. I don't know if my friend Breech Block will post here or not, he is very busy at the moment.

That said, I will try out what you suggested and what everyone else has suggested. I remember you posting a sample IBL scene, and you had one infinite light in addition to the IBL. I have eliminated the infinite light from my setup, but from what everyone is saying, to my understanding, if I want to get shadows I will need to add the infinite light back into the setup. I'll post my render and lighting setting screengrabs, maybe that will help. I don't want to waste everyone's time if I'm not experienced enough to understand the technical aspect.  Thanks again.

MM