When I've looked at other people's renders in galleries, or even just the preview shots in the free stuff area, they are often able to achieve what looks like near photo-realism and it's very mpressive. However, when I try rendering, even with good textures and what I think are the best settings, I get comparatively blocky and cartoonish renders. What should I be paying attention to? Is it the resolution? The focal length? Lighting? What do I do to get the best possible renders? Any help with this is, as always, greatly appreciated. Thanks! Cenozoite

Posting an example of one of your renders would be helpful. Personally, I find camera focal length setting at 100-120 along with good lighting good places to start.

PabloS right about posting an example, and about the focal length... absolutely right for portraits, but you can use a smaller length if you're further away from the subject. Absent an example picture, I would speculate that if you have good textures, lighting may be the missing ingredient to your mix. Assuming you're using P4, search the FreeStuff here for SnowSultan's Illustrender and Pinup sets, also the global set from PheonixRising (yes, spelled like that), and Shademaster's Renderupgrade set (a realistic outdoor light set).

RDNA has several good light set, and good lighting is a must.

"However, when I try rendering, even with good textures and what I think are the best settings, I get comparatively blocky and cartoonish renders..." It occurred to me that you may not have set Anti-Alias in your render options. Apologies if you have, but that would be the most obvious cause of blocky renders.

First thing that I can think of is that the lighting on your renders isn't too good. It looks like the Poser default lights to me, and they ain't too good at all. My suggestion is to delete them and bring in a single white spotlight, pointed at your model's head. Play around with the intensity and keep rendering. Alternatively, search for some light tutorials, or download free light sets from Freestuff. Dr Geep has a very good light tute in this very forum. Search for "geep" (After all that, I hope I'm correct about the light you used.) Second thing - change the highlights on your model's texture. The glossy sheen in achieved by changing the highlight colour away from dark grey/black. You can also change the highlight size. Making the size smaller will eventually give the figure a wet or oiled up look. Third - and it's hard to tell from your pics - bump maps! They really make so much difference to the quality and realism of a model.

Lighting definitely a factor... that first FreeStuff pic probably using warm lighting. Get those free light sets mentioned above. Also, Zrincx might have a free light set here; if so, d/l it. Also, are you using bump maps? If not, do so to get more of a real texture. Furthermore, you might try changing the highlight color for your figure's skin. It's probably black, and changing it to a dark brown or dark red might up the realism. I don't know whether it's still there, but you might try RuntimeDNA.com's freebies for something called Tonals... MAT files that will change the settings like I described...though it's fairly easy to do manually.

Sam has the fast fingers...beat me to it;-)

Also change the focal to at least 100+. Lights enough said, turn shadows off all but one. One bright with shadow, one brown without shadow, just for an eg. Tashar 59

Thanks all, I am pursuing each of these suggestions as I write this, and I'm sure I'll achieve some noticeable improvements. When I have something worthwhile I'll post it as an example of the progress made :) In the past i have been loath to messwith lights, as they seemed a bit complex. But with these mentioned ones, am I correct in assuming that I just load them in once and then leave them alone? No further manipulation required? I will be reading the tutorial but I just thought I'd get a quick idea here. Thanks!

You can manipulate them for specific effects; in fact, that's how all light sets are created. Don't be afraid to experiment. Follow Dr Geep's tute (and as many others as you can find) and render your socks off. You'll throw away much more renders than you keep but that's half the fun(?) of Poser.

Cenozoite, the Dacia thumbnail pic was rendered in Bryce. The secret is out LOL Good suggestions, everyone... I think cenozoite, you could try a more detailed texture, Dacia is really just painted in Photoshop - Let me think if I can give you some recommendations....... hmmmm. From the free side, SnowSultan's Odyssey comes to mind (should be in Freestuff), and Eowyn's textures (on her site: http://koti.mbnet.fi/eowyn) etc.

FWIW, using spotlights can make a big difference. Once again, look for geeps' tutorials!

"What do I do to get the best possible renders?" render in bryce,vue,lightwave,...almost any other prog but poser.

I don't mess much with lights, I use masterful lights created by others-- the default lights suck. Rdna has tons of FS sets, other than that, I use SnowSultan's Pinup lights a great deal-- they are a must for pinups. I con't like global illumination-- too darn many lights to hack through and crash Poser. Bumpmaps are crucial and you can mix and match. I often use Cin's Lilliana bump map on other Vicki's cause it is so very good. Yes, it changes the texture a bit, sometimes that's good idea. Many of the good renders you are seeing are helped along by post work. The minimal postwork I do is to render at 2000 or 3000, usually more or less square, clean up joints and hairllines at the huge size, shrink 500 or so, select face, use unsharp mask, repeat, till it is at the size I want. The softening postwork-- the ones that look like htey glow in the galleries are often done with a variatio of this technique-- you need a paint proggie with layers to do it. When you are at the size you want, duplicate layer, set at screen merge mode, play with the transparency [I use from 30 to 50%], Duplicate that layer, change to Soft color or overlay mode, play with transparency until you like the results. That second layer restores the three dimensionality of your main figure or figures while keeping the depth of field gained by the slow shrinking of the pict and the blurring of everything but the face. Emily

Wow, I'm learning a lot here, hehe. I had no idea there was any such thing as postwork, using paint programs etc. For the moment I'll see what results I can get with better lights and focal length. By the way, when I change the focal length it doesn't seem to make any difference. It just zooms out further and I have to manually zoom back in, but the end result looks the same. My mistake somewhere I'm sure. Papu, I'm not sure what you mean by trying a different texture on Dacia.. isn't the one in the thumbnail the same one she comes with in the free download? Anyway, I'm going to try everything I can do the best of my ability. I'm relatively new to Poser (a few months on and off) so some of this stuff is still a bit out of my depth, but I'll get there. :) Cenozoite

Good luck! On the focal length thing, try the following experiment. Load a figure. Click on the Face Camera. The default is probably something like 25 or 38mm. Notice that the face seems to bulge, like a "fisheye" lens effect. Increase the focal length to about 100mm. Yes, you're now really in the model's face. But when you back the camera out along the z-axis, you will not have the "fisheye" look to the face. If you need to render at both settings to compare them side-by-side, do so and you will understand the effect focal length has on close-up portraiture.

Ahh, right you are. I admit that I didn't notice this when I tried it, probably because I was paying more attention to texture detail and hoping it would improve. Also something I forgot to mention is that unfortunately I don't have this "Bryce" that is so frequently mentioned, or any other 3D programs for that matter. So, I'm stuck with Poser and its capabilities for the moment ;) Cenozoite

Well, Poser users have gotten pretty good at getting decent renders out of P4, so there's plenty of room to learn and enjoy P4. Bryce, which is oriented toward doing landscapes, was originally made by the same company that did P4, though now both have different owners. Vue d'Esprit is similar to Bryce. The rendering engine P4 uses is much like those used for videogames; the engines in Bryce, etc. are capable of getting more realistic renders, but of course cost money and take (usually much) longer to render a picture. If you haven't seen what Bryce or Vue can do, stop by their Galleries here;-)

Attached Link: http://www.gimp.org/

Papu, I'm not sure what you mean by trying a different texture on Dacia.. isn't the one in the thumbnail the same one she comes with in the free download?

cenozoite, sorry about my English, far from perfect :P It is the same texture in the thumb as in the download, naturally. What I meant is, Dacia is not the most photorealistic texture there is for Vicky... She does render well I think ;) but if you're after something more realistic... she's probably not the best choice.

But, if you want to use Dacia, try some of the suggestions given in this thread, I'm sure you'll get more out of her. The focal length issue is important, so are the lights (just play with the lightsets in Freestuff for example, see what brings the best results).

Paula

I have been strugling with the same problem a while ago. I decided to do something about posers crappy lighting and made 2 lightsets for it. A global Illumination and a Natural Light lightset. Both available in my freestuff section (no pay!). Have fun.

I recommended Shademaster's Renderupgrade above...I'll have to check out the other one myself;-)

Thanks everyone! All the suggestions are helping greatly and I'm already getting better renders. I'll continue to work with everything mentioned and am sure I'll have constant improvement. Much appreciation, as always.. :) Cenozoite