Thank you yarp! That did it. Now P3dO is working perfectly.

The other was loading from Windows Explorer. Could have something to do with Win764bit.

I've configured a right-click in Explorer that is supposed to work (and did in XP) but is now just dead. I'll get it eventually but actually don't need it since P3DO works.

Yes to firewall, didn't help.

No, only run one at a time.

Thank you so much!

I've tested the pz2 every which way I could and it still removes the shaders. It will leave the color texture and  bump if you have one. Very strange.

I did think of a script which would be easy to find but don't know how to write a pz2 to call it. Can write a pz2 but have never done that.

Never mind. Rebooted and now they work.

faceoff's Occlusion Master? I think it's available here. Though not free.

I have a spec map but can't figure out how to get more out of it. Would like to have more glow from her skin instead of the dry look I have here. It's there, I just don't know how to bring it out. Have to leave that for another day.

I've learned so, so much is just a few days and it's a wonderful gift. I had no idea that what I was getting out of Poser was so crappy. But now I see why it was so hard to get any control over the lighting. Not that I'm any good at lighting, but at least now I can see the difference!

And BB, you're just brilliant. That's it, just brilliant. I'm a convert. You have no idea how it is for someone as shader challenged as I am to see the incredible beauty in what you've created.

So, enough of that. Please rip apart what I'm posting and tell me what's wrong with it. I need to know what you see that I'm not seeing and what I need to be working toward. I'm not seeing the intensity of the shadows that I would have liked to have seen from AO, especially in the eyes. I love the fact that the shadows from AO on the face are a darker color of the skin tone and not just sooty gray but how to make them darker...

The one thing I noticed is that finally there are tiny, tiny shadows under the eyelashes. Wow. I'm posting 800x800 renders and they're being reduced. Don't know why that is. But because of that it's hard to see what I'm talking about.

And, LaytexLuv, that's a super render. Very provocative.

Oh, please don't chastise me...I'm doing the very best I can with what I've got here...I'm laughing and that's OK, better than crying. When you use language like "double tail infinite recursion", "infinity squared", "infinity cubed", etc. my brain shuts down and I have to call my brother to translate into English and he's getting annoyed with me and says, "How can you possibly understand this with only a Junior High School Algebra education?". That's the last math class I ever took, but I can use a measuring cup. I'm half joking and half serious.

Why didn't I see the mountain of posts that you've so generously written and all of the helpful gifts that you've provided? I'm a Southener which means I'm slow. I walk slow, talk slow, eat slow, sleep slow, read slow, work slow and think slow.

So it's not surprising that I've not heard of VSS. Now I understand what you mean by gamma correction and linear color space. I didn't when we started, I really had no idea. But...I'm going now to look at every single post because I Wont Be Defeated!

But it's not going to be fast and has to be slipped in between putting out a 150 mg zipped texture resource with custom head morph that you see here. It's taken me months but I'm almost finished.

One last thing...I did see your thread where you showed comparisons between Poser (without gamma correction) and Poser Pro and the difference is amazing even to my unschooled eye. To know that it can be done in P7 is very, very nice!

Thank you, Bill.

I saved these at 800x800. Don't know if they're showing up that size.

So I would love to be able to do Gamma Correction in Poser but didn't go for the special on Poser Pro and am now kicking myself. But along with that would have to come a 64 bit system, new motherboard, video card, etc. You see how that goes...

I do know want a blender is. It's just hard for me to wrap my brain around it outside of Photoshop. If I have to deal with more than one element, I get confused. And I'm totally math challenged. So when I look at shaders and how they work together and the values, it just becomes a big muddle.

But I finally loaded up an IBl, Spec, and Key light and got what I've never been able to get before. A one pass render with acceptable AO. At least to my eye. And I got what I wanted. A soft portrait with no postwork. That's not to say it doesn't need it. But I've never gotten anything this close to a render that didn't have to have major correction.

I tried about 500 different renders with minor changes everything. Amazing how

I'm posting two separate renders. The first with a IBL from Catherina Harders from her first light package . The IBL has just a simple dark sphere with a light silouette of city shapes. All grayscale. Nothing more. I added the specular and key lights and then added a pale pink color to the key. Just to see what would happen and I like the result.

The second is Olivier's graphics from his IBL tutorial. I did this also in grayscale with the same spec and key. The pink color on the key was toned way down and I have a hard time getting hte brightness of the image to work. I had to fuss much more with this but the result is probably more real. Don't know...

Two lights showing in the eyes because the spec and key were close to each other. I couldn't figure out how to get the shadow that I wanted without doing that. I also have some strange striations showing and don't know if it's the mesh or something else going on. It's very evident on her cheek. This is a figure I've worked with so much that I can't imagine that it's the mesh and I didn't notice it. Sigh...

This is the same figure in the former renders with a different texture. I'm hoping it's just a tired machine that could use a rest and defragging.

Neither of these renders has any gamma correction or postwork of any kind. No, I did add the color background.

Bill, your advice has been invaluable. If I've absorbed a fraction of what you've given out, not only here but in all the posts I've read, I consider myself lucky.

I've now spent two days trying to get a render that I can live with. That's about 50 renders. I have to stop. This is actually a product and I have to do all my promo renders so no more playing around.

I have no idea how to use a blender to control the strength of the shadows. So without knowing that and being in a hurry, I resorted to my usual trickery and deception. I was so hoping to be able to do just a straight render but that's not going to happen. I learned a lot from this though and that's the point.

I realized how much better MBAO is when you can set different values for each material that you have it on. I didn't know that.

With no AO on the lights I couldn't do a separate AO pass so that I would be able to manipulate that. At least I couldn't figure a way. Don't think it works that way.

But I realized how much better MBAO is when you can set different values for each material that you have it on. I didn't know that.

So what I'm posting is OK for what I was trying to do. There are absolutely no shaders on the skin, I need to do that and I'm not crazy about the lighting because of the hard shadow on the side of the face. But, I finally got soft AO. Not dark, ugly and dirty looking. The figure is the same but with a different texture and hair and I just stuck the background in there.

Now I'm tired and need something mind altering...

You're absolutely right! I had no idea. Thank you!
I'll go work on the lights and see if I can get rid of it.  

1. All material-based AO. None on the lights at all.

2. I'm posting two renders. The first shows both Samples-3 and Samples-6. I think the lip with Samples-6 is worse.

3. Second render is almost good...well for now. But this has me stumped. I've angled the head way off center and the shadow on the lip is soft. Why would that be? And that's with Samples-3.

4. Re: Eye reflection. I have a specular light and a gloss node on the Eye Trans. Turning the head up moves the reflection down to the eye. I may have the light in the wrong position. The first render I posted was definitely on the eyelid itself. I'll try moving the light for a head down position.

My usual method of fixing the ugly shadows is to render separately and do a little blur on the shadow render. It's a whole lot easier and less time consuming than trying to get it right in the actual render. I think AO is necessary but not so good if it's hard and ugly.