I think I have everything set correctly for shadows to render. I do have ground shadows turned off, but as I understand it that doesn't make any difference because those don't render anyway...maybe I misunderstood that?

I have checked my lighting and they all have render shadows or cast shadows (I don't have poser open at them moment to get the exact wording) checked.

Yet stuff still looks like it's floating...in this one particularly Koshini and the ball :( I would like to be able to get a more intergrated look which I know is possible from looking at other people's renders vs the stuck in the middle of a background image look.

The painting on the wall was done in postwork and shadowed there hence it having a shadow.

I did make sure everything was dropped to floor as well.

Your shadow map is covering a too large area, that makes the shadows very blurred. Switch the view to the "shadow lite cams" and then adjust the dials so that the central objects of your scene (Koshini, dog, ball, chairs, table) fill the view. Do this for each of the shadow lite cams. If you render again, you should get much better shadows. If that still doesn't help, you can try increasing the size of the shadow maps, but be aware that changing from a 256 to a 512 shadow map increases both render time and RAM usage to 400%.

Note that Stewer's tips really only work on spotlights... infinate lights' shadows work differently. If you are using infinate lights, the best thing you can do is try disabling shadows on some things (particularly things like very large or far away floors/grounds that don't need to cast a shadow anyway and that big room itself, if you can do without it casting a shadow).

This is infinately better on Koshini I think. Still need to work on the ball some.

What is the difference between a shadow lite cam and a shadow cam lite?

In this one I also made all the parts of the room that aren't visible in the actual render hidden as well. I should also turn off the shadows on the wall and floor I think is what you are saying spanki?

It works with infinte lights too - I have done the example images with an infinite light. What is the difference between a shadow lite cam and a shadow cam lite? No difference at all. I should also turn off the shadows on the wall and floor I think is what you are saying spanki? It is always good to turn off "cast shadows" for everything that doesn't need to cast shadodws. It will speed up your shadow rendering.

That is a huge improvement, Towal. What I think you need to do further is to increase the size of the shadow map (there is a dial for it in the light settings). A too small shadow map will make shadows for smaller objects (like the ball here) disappear totally. To save render time, you can work on the shadow map for the key light only, the light you want to cast the strongest shadow.

In addition to the points already raised in this thread: The amount of stuff, walls, people, props, you have in a poser document will affect the strength of the shadows. Each light has a dial called "Shadow" which can adjust the strength of shadow from that light, try increasing the value on this dial, if the light is a spotlight it should be easy, If its an Infinate light you may need to double click on the dial and set "Max Limit:" to 9 first. If the edges of the shadows become ragged or sawtoothed increase the Map size.

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Stewer thanks for the tip about turning off "Cast Shadows" for things that dont need shadows....that never occured to me....now i can get my renders to go a bit faster....thanks man!

It works with infinte lights too - I have done the example images with an infinite light. Hmmm... I had some problems with that when I looked into it a long time ago. I'll have to play with it some more, I guess.

Is there away to render just shadows in poser to use on a alpha map? Thanks Gary

I still need to play around with this stuff to actually get the hang of it, but I think this is a pretty good improvement over the first one I posted.

Thank you again :)

Towal