Attached Link: P4 Style Render with the FireFly Renderer

I render a lot of my artwork with the Poser 4 Renderer because of the way I've "tuned" my characters. The look of my characters (especially my "Tabby" character) is a combination of the skin color, the skin brightness, and the lights in the scene. But, ever since Poser 5, I haven't been able to duplicate the same look using the FireFly Renderer. I later learned that this was caused by the way the FireFly Renderer interpreted the Ambient Color...   My [new tutorial](http://www.cocs.com/poser/renderp4firefly.htm) shows you how to adjust the material settings so your characters aren't washed out by the FireFly Renderer. It also includes a Python script to help speed up the process!

I've always missed the crispness of the real P4 renderer, but didn't miss
it quite enough to give up shaders.   Wish there was a way to get that
quality back.......

hoag, they're both looking washed out on my monitor. the skin on the right looks better, but the dress on the left looks better IMVHO.  also, better shadows on the left.

Are you using gamma correction?

I am seeing the 2 images the same as Miss Nancy does. Dress on the left looks better, skin and hair on the right are better lookin IMO. (my monitor is calibrated - Mac Pro, Dell 22" dual Monitor)

-AniMajik

I think JHoagland is going for an illustrative/painterly look here rather then realistic, in which case the second (right) one is more along those lines IMO. The dress on the left is too messy and detailed for a style like that (see the original P4 render at the tute link)

It's all subjective and a matter of taste. I just think the dress on the left has better shadow detail then the other. that's all. But if that's the look he's going for, the right one is "right-on".

I can see where you're going with this Believable.  The same question popped into my mind.  With the tremendous push to get more and more individuals Gamma Correcting their images, I have wondered if older texture files need to be reworked in 2D programs for proper rendering in Poser.

Actually, that wasn't quite where I was going. My thought was that without gamma correction, it takes more light to get the brights where you want them, and it washes out the colour balance.

But as ghonma implies, not everyone is after realism, by any stretch. If the intent is to create a particular style, the tools may be different.

I don't think there's a need to rework the older texture files for GC, just gotta do the incoming adjustment in Poser in the Material room.

These images were all made without that fancy new-fangled gamma correction doodad.

The dress should be exactly the same in both images since it doesn't use a texture map.
The comparison is in the color of the skin: the first image (on the left) is much more washed out than the skin-tones in the image on the left.

As some of the posters said, this style isn't meant to be super-realistic, but more of an animated/ stylish look.
For more realistic renders, I recommend using the full set of shader nodes, including sub-surface-scattering, translucency, ambient occulsion, and HDRI lights... and of course, a more realistic background than plain white.