What causes the "flickering light" or "water refraction"
effect on an animation? I have encountered this many
times. It is a cool effect if my intention were flickering
candle light or 'light through a waterfall', but
no...I want steady lighting here.

My intuition is that it is some mathematical 'rounding'
problem caused by not enough decimal places....that the
subtle change between one frame and the next 'throws'
some calculation into a state that pushes
values up or down too much.

Or, I could just be making a stupid newbie error!

Short one-second animation
Frame rate: 30 fps
Scene uses only one light at full power, pure white
Light is infinite, not animated.
High res texture and bump map
Render time: 2 min per frame at settings (see below)
Rendering out to image files,
opening in Quicktime to make movie.
Click here for clip (2.5 MB Quicktime) opens in new window

Settings:

Any wisdom welcome.

::::: Opera ::::: Message edited on: 12/19/2004 14:40

Try switching off displacement maps and render the scene again. The displacement mapping might be the problem, even if you arent using any displacement maps. The clip you made seems to have a wierd displacement map effect. It doesnt look like a light problem because the shadows dont flicker.

The shapes, movement, and the lack of this effect on the lowest part of the cheek and jowl suggest it's shadow produced by the hair. I suspect you've got a light almost directly overhead, shining down. The fringe transmapping is the cause.

If you're not using raytraced shadows, increase the size of your shadow maps.

thanks to all, now attacking all three ideas. ::::: Opera ::::

moochie was exactly correct. I had the light above and shadows of individual hairs were being cast on the face! Moving the light solved the problem. There are still some odd things going on. I'd like to ask Little Dragon...and this is a real newbie type question...what are shadow maps and what is a raytraced shadow? ::::: Opera :::::

Hm, I've once had the same problem in P4; just not just 'shadows on the face' but it looked as if flashes of a thunderstorm were raging somewhere behind the camera, casting their light to each and every character in the scene. Turned out that P4 animation rendering and the RealPlayer installed to the same system didn't like each other too much. Uninstalling the RealPlayer did the trick...

yes, that 'thunderstorm' effect is also present at the left temple of the character in the clip, including after I moved the light and re-rendered, and i have had it before when I was in P4. I have not had time to experiment with other solutions...caught up in something else for the moment, will return to it next few days. I find it incredible -- incredible -- to believe that the external presence of RealPlayer could do this. Are you saying it effects calculations during successive rendering of frames? By the way, I do have RealPlayer installed, even though I DO NOT LIKE THAT PROGRAM. MLB.com, you understand! ::::: Opera :::::

Yes, I think so. Perhaps the RealPlayer does something to the system's settings, or moreover, it affects the movie codecs. I just know that I can't render an animation successfully unless I uninstall the RealPlayer.

what are shadow maps and what is a raytraced shadow?

Basically, Poser 4 treats shadows much like textures. The light intensity is mapped or rendered from the perspective of a "shadow-camera" with the same position and orientation as the light source. This shadow map is then applied to all objects in the scene, determining which areas are darker or lighter. A low-resolution shadow map creates fuzzy, blocky, poorly-defined shadows with much pixelation or banding, whereas higher resolutions will produce shadows with sharper, more clearly-defined edges.

Shadow map size can be set from the light's parameter-dial panel. Larger shadow maps consume more resources and take longer to compute, but the results are usually better.

Poser 5 adds the option of raytraced shadows (enabled from the light's properties panel), which uses a different method of calculating light intensity. Raytraced shadows tend to be very sharp.

Little Dragon...

Oh, I see, it's not another bit-mapped image
file that has to be linked to a node...whew,
because I could not find any such thing!
The word "map" fooled me. It's not here ...


....but rather here, with the dial settings, correct?
In Poser5, "Shadow map" is completely controlled by
the settings on these dials?
It looks like you first decide between two options..
Ray traced shadows
or
Depth map shadows.
Then, do the two dials kick in for which ever
approach you have elected or only for depth map?

Your original comment to me "If you're not using
raytraced shadows, increase the size of your shadow
maps" seems to mean that raytraced is either on or
off, period, but that if depth, I should kick up the
settings on these two dials. Is that correct?

Obviously, from this picture, raytracing of shadows has
been off. I will try a few different things with either, soon.

Last, does that atmosphere dial effect the shadow map, or
is that strictly a separate effect?

Thanks.

::::: Opera :::::

The actual shadow map size is a dial in the Parameters section.

A given light can cast either depth-mapped shadows or raytraced shadows, but not both simultaneously. You can mix shadow types with multiple lights, of course. If you're using raytraced shadows, you'll also need to enable raytracing from your render options panel. The Atmosphere Strength dial is for use with volumetric lighting effects. I haven't used P5's atmosphere feature enough to know if it has any noteworthy effect on shadows, but in reality something like smoke, mist, or haze would diffuse light and soften shadows. nerd has a tutorial on P5's atmosphere feature, if you're interested.