hi all!

i have a scene that i'm setting up and well, basically it's a warrior chick under a canopy of trees. so i have 1 infinite light (no shadows) and about 5-6 spots placed throughout to mimic the lighting from the trees, these spots all have shadows turned on.

my question is, is it okay to have ambient occlusion turned "on" for all of the lights...or should i limit that to just the shadowed lights?

thanks in advance

Attached Link: Supreme Lights

I'd say most definitely not! For the best results only use Ambient Occlusion on the IBL. Better yet, set up the AO in the Materiel Room. To simulate light shining through a forest canopy, I'd recommend using a Gel Light. Basically, you attach the shadow texture to the light itself as though you were placing a piece of plastic wrap over it. Of course you'll have to make the map. Another alternative is to pick up hmann's light set. linked below. This will do what you need and is by far the best Poser light pack ever.

i wasn't aware that we could use gels with the lights in poser. how do you attach the gel to the light? i understand that i will need to create a gel, that's not a problem...just don't see the obvious "place light gel here!" in the light section.

Just connect an "Image_Map" node to the Color input for the light in the Material room.

"For the best results only use Ambient Occlusion on the IBL. Better yet, set up the AO in the Materiel Room"

I'm just nitpicking here (your advice was good), but the quote above forms a contradiction.

The material room AO node calculates shadowing due to occlusion. However, there is no way to apply it only to IBL light.

If you plug the AO node into the Diffuse_Value, or plug it into a Diffuse node, you are interfering with the diffuse reflection from ALL lights, not just the diffuse part contributed by your IBL.

So mat room AO is equivalent to enabling AO on every light you have.

You're right bagginsbill! I haven't rendered anything in Poser since I got Carrara 5 six months ago, so my memory's a little rusty.
Anyway, what I was getting at is to not use AO on any lights; instead add the occlusion nodes to your figures in the Material room. (Like Occlusion Master does)
I've never really liked the results of spreading AO across an entire scene. This method cuts down your rendering time too.

Yes jt411, the benefits of mat-AO outweigh the issue of inaccurate shadowing. I gave a reason why you wouldn't want it, but I forgot to mention why you would want it. Good point.

 

Attached Link: IBL ins and outs

OH mrpeabody Sherman here I've got the wayback machine all ready...LOL!  Here is a great tut on using using textures like gel lights and lighting in general. It really helped my out a lot!

Cheers,
Micheál

seal (orc!orc!orc!)

you hit the nail on the head there buddy with the wayback machine. hehehehe. thanks all on the input!

Quote - seal (orc!orc!orc!)

you hit the nail on the head there buddy with the wayback machine. hehehehe. thanks all on the input!

Heh..I've been called worse...LOL!! I couldn't help it I used to love Mr.Peabody and Sherman and their time travels as a kid. Seems they always set history right.

Cheers,
Micheál