and the material settings for render number 3... jonthecelt

Finally, here's the render of the probelight node connected to the ambient channel... jonthecelt

I did wonder if you could use a math_function node to combine to other nodes. I know face_off suggests doing it with ambient occlusion if you have inputs into either alt diffuse or alt specular (since they have no 'value' setting to plug into, use a math_function set to multiply - value 1 at 1, connected to whatever you had in the channel originally, value 2 also at 1, connected to the ambient occlusion node). Whether this would work elsewhere I don't know - and of course, if you're using colour, you might want to use colour_math instead of a plain math_function, which desaturates all its output. jonthecelt

tough, but shiny... does your boots a treat! jonthecelt

and the material settings for the above... ignore the probelght node sitting there, it's not actually conected to anything! jonthecelt

Here's the ambient only render... jonthecelt

and here's the mat settings used for the 'neon light'. jonthecelt

Ok, here's the first one... this is the probelight node attached to alt. diffuse... jonthecelt

Been doing some experiienting with that myself. The probelght is useful if you want to use another node rather than the ambient to create light - so I guess plugging it into the ambient channel is kinda gilding the lily. I'm currently running a third test render on my machine - I've done one with the probelight node in ambient, one with it in alt. diffuse, and a third with purely ambient, no probelight. I'll post the results in a moment. jonthecelt

Into which inputs, mizrael? I'm not sure I can think of any of the inputs in the gather node which would make sense plugging, for example, a texture map into... jonthecelt

The vucket size is the size of the square 'chunk' that Poser renders each time. By lowering it down, Poser is calculating the rendering info for a smaller area, therefore requiring less memory at any one moment. It's a bit of a balancing act, really. The smaller the bucket size is, then the more 'bites' Poser has to take to complete the picture, which can increase render times... on the flip side, by lowering the bucket and decreasing memory usage, it takes less time to do each square, thus reducing the time. I'm not sure quite wat the ratio here is in terms of increased/decreased render times (and being honest, I'm not sure I really want to go through umpteen different renders at differe bucket sizes just to find out for myself!!): anyone else got any ideas? jonthecelt

For what it's worth, you don't have to plug the gather node into the ambient channel. Alt. diffuse or alt. specular work just as well. You get some interesting results plugging it into the bump or displacement channels, too... :) By using the alt. diffuse/spec channels, you don't have to remember the whole thing about changing the ambient settings - both channels automatically set themselves to white when you plug anything into them. Of course, if you're being complicated in your material setup, and already have nodes plugged into the alt channels, then maybe ambient IS the better course of action. But it's nice to know there are alternatives; if you have a blocked node, then you can always chuck it in somewhere else... jonthecelt

Glad to be of service, opera... you know, it's quite incredible. I still only consider myself a dabbler in Poser-dom, especially considering some of the 'greats' that hang out on places like here. And yet often, when a technical note comes up here, I find that I've managed to glean enough information from a number of different places to assemble a semi-coherent whole. For some reason, I also seem to have been gifted with the ability to put things in common sense parlance, as well, so people can understand what it is I'm trying to explain in everyday terms.

now, if someone could just do the same for me, regarding the dynamic hair settings... sigh

jonthecelt

Message edited on: 02/08/2006 14:45

Attached Link: http://www.castleposer.co.uk

There are two parts to making something glow without using lights. If you want an object to be a light source, then plug the 'probelight' node (new node > lighting > diffuse > probelight) into the ambient channel. The probelight node has several different variable on it, most of which relate to the amount of light coming from different directions, and the colour of that light (each variable is set up as a three-number RGB setting from 0-1 for each section). I can't remember what each of the variables relates to exactly, but over at runtimeDNA, relik has a tutorial relating to just this thing (glow effects part 2). So, that's what you need to do if you want something to act as a light source. If you want other objects to react to this source, and 'reflect' the glow back, then you need to use the gather node. This node collects data from the ambient nodes of other materials around it, and 'reflects' it back. For more details on this node, then go to the above linked site, and take a look at his two tutorials on the node. The first covers where you can plug it on the root node, while the second looks at the different settings within the gather node itself. I'm not going to replay everything that JohnrickardJr says in his tutorials, but here's a couple of things to bear in mind: 1) the samples setting adjusts the 'clean-ness' of the reflected glow. A low setting will give a very noisy effect, while higher amounts will result in a smoother appearance - at the cost of higher render times. 2) as with all raytraced nodes in Poser, the bias is a tricky beast to get right. You want to get it as low as possible, but get it too low and you'll be getting those black spots - the same ones that AO or raytraced shadows can cause with too low a setting. The trick is to find a balance. 3) the gather node can be plugged into several different inputs on the rot node with no discernible change in the end result. This is advantageous, because it is unlikely that you will be using all the possible inputs for a given material - even if you're using alt.diffuse, for example, your ambient channel might still be free. Acadia is asking after much the same kind of thing over at Runtime DNA. As Olivier pointed out, the disadvantage of this method is that the 'glowing object' created by the probleight node doesnt cast shadows, and so can look a little unrealistic if no lights are used in conjunction with it. I'm trying to work on a couple of WIP images for that thread, of a man holding a glowing ball, which I'll post here as well, along with mat room settings. Hope this helps, jonthecelt

well, the obvious one is for use in dynamic hair - setting various 'collidable' objects, then checking 'do collisions' in the Hair room... but now I think on it, your tutorial doesn't seem to be based on that side of things this time, so here's hoping there's something new for me to learn!! :) jonthecelt