Can anyone recommend a good tutorial on this? I'm just starting to investigate it, and it has me stumped -- and the manual isnt helping any. :) I either get washed out figures or dark, shadowy figures, nothing with the even light I see in everyone else's IBL renders. I'm sure it must be something simple, but it's driving me nuts.

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2712423

There are some tutorials in this thread, from at least 2 different perspectives.  It can get a bit confusing, but, there are the "hows, what's, and whys" in there, in both mathematic and aesthetic reasoning.

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Perfect!!

Many thanks!

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider

Thanks JenX, I really need to understand this.

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A HOMELAND FOR POSER FINALLY

Quote - Can anyone recommend a good tutorial on this? I'm just starting to investigate it, and it has me stumped -- and the manual isnt helping any. :) I either get washed out figures or dark, shadowy figures, nothing with the even light I see in everyone else's IBL renders. I'm sure it must be something simple, but it's driving me nuts.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2734086

Try that thread. It's a list of bookmarked threads / tutorials for lighting.  The "Beginners Start Here" covers an explanation of lights.  The 3 tutorials that I recommend on IBL are the first 3 under "Poser", by Olivier.  IMO he is a guru when it comes to lights.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Very helpful as well: many thanks. I have a feeling this is something that's gonna take dedicated study. :-)

BTW: I did talk to my cats about it. They just stared and then proceeded to lick their paws. I dont know what else to do.....

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider

Quote - Very helpful as well: many thanks. I have a feeling this is something that's gonna take dedicated study. :-)

Yes, it does.

I found for myself that I can't manage to get good lighting using IBL. However, I can manage to get some pretty decent looks with 4 or 5 infinite lights. So that's what I mostly use. 

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

I generally use a lot of stage lighting tricks: back light, side light left, side light right, head spot, with colour to play off the textures in the image. It serves me pretty well, but I have a project right now where IBL might help. I did some tests this afternoon using Catherine's tutorial, and the results were, well, less than wonderful. But it got me closer than my fumbling on my own, so there may be hope yet. :-)

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider

Try this tutorial by Olivier. 

www.runtimedna.com/mod/forum/messages.php

www.runtimedna.com/mod/forum/messages.php

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

I'm beginning to get good results, and Olivier's fake IBL technique helped a lot. It took a lot of trial and error, though. I'm working on an office setup that uses an IBL and two infinites. I'll post a pic when I've sorted out the specular highlights bit.

It's worth bearing in mind that an IBL on its own isn't enough. You need some kind of highlighting to go with it and that can be an infinite or a spotlight.

Mike

it's funny: i've mastered IBLs, but i now wish i knew studio and stage lighting!

my brightest IBL tends to be no more than 70%, and i usually use it with a shadowless infinite for ground bounce, and main fill and accent spotlights with bagginsbill's inverse square falloff.  for my ibl, i just use masks to separate top, bottom, left, right, back and front and give them different colors.  i use my own masks, but Olivier has some for download in the Poser 6 & 7 forum at RDNA.  i've read someone there post that the IBL is so blurred and diffuse that resolution higher than 6 pixels is wasted, so i figure a rough approximation of the color orientation i want is probably enough. 

when i get home i can post my latest test images, if you're interested. 

That's be great. I'd love to see them.

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider

light images.  yeah, i know they're plain white, but i wanted a sort of indoor studio look.  if you want, i can put some colors in, or try to work with an image.  it would probably take me a bit, though.

dark images, where i've brought the IBL down kind of low intensity and color.