Attached Link: Vintner's Daughter.03

I'm in need of an experienced observer's opinion.  This is my third of forth formal render in Poser 5, and while its not the first time I've posted a P5 rendered here, I'm still far from being an expert on how to utilize it to its full potential.  Therefore, I'd like any and all expert opinion on what I could have done to enhance it.  I've experimented with displacement and bump nodes, and have tried my hand at the specular settings, but still many things are beyond me.  Example:  The stalks of the Lavender are supposed to be green, and yet they render black, or dark slate.  I'm unable to use Raytrace (not that I've seen that it actually improves anything), because of the amount black blobs it leaves ALL over the place.  And for some strange reason, it seems to me that P5's P4 Render Engine does a better job than FireFly, and yet all these years I've heard naught but how FireFly does such a superb job over the Poser4-Pro Pack render engine (I will admit that the P5's P4 render engine seems to d a better job than my Pro Pack one does, but I think that's do P5's advanced materials bump mapping). Anyway, the only way to learn is through doing, so please give me the benefit of your experience, comments, critiques and advice. Yours truly, David P. Hoadley

My only comment on it David and I'm no expert is that the shadows are too strong, what did you have them set at?, for that particular scene I'd have them down at 0.4 or so!!!

Thank you, thefixer, I can see your point.   I believe the shadow setting was 1.  I wanted less shadow, and one ofmy solutions was to reduce the size of the shadow map, but with trying to fit everything else in the scene, I forgot that the shadow dial setting was more than just an ON and Off switch of 0 and 1.
I'll probably eventually re-render and re-upload the picture, so what is seen today won't always be what's seen tomorrow (or the day after).
DPH

David: The 0 and 1 are better thought of as 0 and 100 as in percent in most other progs. Selecting 0.4 would be quivalent to 40% for instance, I find it easier to work as a percentage!!

I just noticed that there are two of these threads now. :lol: one of the main reasons there was such an huge difference between P5 and P4 was that folks had been complaining for years about the dreaded "poser look" that 3D snobs still scoff at, whenever they see the unmistakeable signs of a P4 render. anyway, carry on with the work. sorry for the interruption :lol:

Hi, David
(Since this a duplicated thread, I've duplicated my trivial response..)

"I'm unable to use Raytrace (not that I've seen that it actually improves anything), because of the amount black blobs it leaves ALL over the place."

Let me guess... You've used the "square" prop (from primatives) to put your background image on to...
Never use that one (for anything). Use the "Single-sided" one instead..:-))

The square prop is "double sided", and P5 and above has problems with these (for technical reasons I could explain, but not unless you really want to know).

Just substitute the single-sided square and see if that improves matters (in FireFly)

or ... it's something else altogether..

Cheers,
Diolma

(IM/e-mail me if you want more info..)

Dear Diolma;
Thank you for responding to my thread.  Actually, I used the box.  I flattenind it on its z axis to 10%, and expanded it on its x and y  axis to 1000%, exported it as an obj, and then imported it into UV Mapper, to map it so that it would accept an entire photo without doing strange things to it.  I like to leave a little depth to my background prop so that bump maps and displacement maps have so flesh to play around with.
The black blobs weren't so much on the baclground (although there was some there too, as on the body and shorts of the Bob Marley, 'Agustus' Dork guy. 
I also have another problem with raytracing, it balloons the clothes, even when smooth polygoans in unchecked.  This makes for a very difficult situation.  Any advice will be welcome.
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

Quote - I also have another problem with raytracing, it balloons the clothes, even when smooth polygoans in unchecked.

Raytracing shouldn't cause inflation.

Poser 5 did have several bugs regarding smoothing, initially, but they were mostly addressed by the service releases.

All I know is what I see; Raytrarce inflated Casual Don's trousers (The Scorned, the Ugly, & the Damned), and Dork's Shorts (Vintner's Daughter.03), and P4 rederengine didn't.  As to why, your guess is probably better than mine, because I've only had P5 for a month, and you've had it longer.
David P. Hoadley

David, Ballooning is always a result of "smoothing" as Little Dragon has already said, you can turn this off for individual items that are prone to ballooning by "unchecking" smooth polygons in the properties box, or you can do it for the whole scene in the render options. Be sure to knock down the minimum shading rate to 0.2 as this helps compensate for loss of smoothing to some extent.

As to your black blobs, this is usually caused by the "Bias" setting of your lights, Stefan [stonemason] gave a very good explanation and fix for this in another thread. You need to increase or decrease your Bias setting, can't remember which way for what, I'm at work now so I'll try and dig out the info when I get home for you!

Hope that helps a bit!!