You pretty much answered your question. In my findings, Raytrace shadows don't have blur at all. You'll probably want any shadows that would be hitting a backdrop or floor to be depth map instead.

I never use poser for renders anymore unless forced lol, but I was not under the impression that Poser 5 had soft shadows in raytracing. Perhaps an error in the manual? (runs to dig hers out)

I just got a reply from CL (speedy!). It is indeed an error in the
manual. Oh well >^_^

Since Poser 5 is a hybrid renderer, you can have BOTH ray traced and depth mapped shadows in any scene with ray traced lighting. This is the best of both worlds as far as I am concerned because I can have sharp shadows and soft shadows in the same scene. Use the map size for the light to control the softness (small map sizes are softer)

Hmmm...good idea. I will have to play with that. The trick will be figuring out which lights cast which shadows. Nor difficult, just tedious if there happen to be a lot of them.

I think... you can have two lights in the same position, one with depth map checked and the other with raytrace checked... with their light strength modified so its adding up to the same strength of light as before.... that could do it. hell, thats a good idea, I may even try in Carrara g

Ooh! Cool idea! Thanks >^_^