I've been using Poser for about five years now  and while my learning has been a slow process .I've never really changed any of the settings inside the materails room or adjusted the lighting for any of my renders.As i don't understand what it is I'm supposed to be adjusting and why I'm adjusting it .And what relationship the various adjustments have on the image and final render.I have moved existing  lights from light sets around but thats about it .Ihave noticed that  the chrome in my renders doesn't look chrome and the highly polished surface of cars and motor bikes  etc do not look anything like they are supposed to .And yet other artists are using the same props and thier chrome ,cars, motorbikes look how they are supposed to ,real.Is their any tutorials that explains these things in a simple uncomplicted way .i have heard a lot of people are using other render engines to achieve great results ,and I also know that  the Poser  render engine is just as good as any of the others, but you just need to set the scene up properly ( materials settings and lighting settings .) to achieve great results.

To my understanding there are no hard and fast rules. Every scene is different.  I know some who love the one IBL and another light look. Others who aren't into that and prefer 3 infinite lights. Placement of those lights are up to you. I always find myself placing the IBL smack dab in the middle. The Infinite always in the upper left. Then you have to figure what each light's intensity and color will be. Use Gamma Correction though. Many will say that's a "must".

Oliver has some lighting tuts over at RDNA.

I'm just starting on this road myself, really. It requires answering certain questions specifically. One of the key things is to ask what level of reflectivity the object ought to have. Most things reflect to one degree or other. Obviously, starting with the reflection of light, but then moving on to reflection of details. The differences between various surfaces has not only to do with differences in colour and texture (differences generally covered with the figure/prop texture you're using if it's good quality) but with varying levels and kinds of reflectivity.

Sincethe specific things you mention (chrome, cars etc) are HIGHLY reflective surfaces, the first thing you should do is learn how to create reflection.

At the top of the main page of this (Poser) forum, there's a sticky with a bunch of links to tutorials and threads relating to the material room under various subjects/goals. I would begin there.

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Hardware: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X/MSI MAG570 Tomahawk X570/Zotac Geforce GTX 1650 Super 4GB/32GB OLOy RAM

Software: Windows 10 Professional/Poser Pro 11/Photoshop/Postworkshop 3

Tuxedomask, this is a sticky thread written by Arcadia titledMaterial Room, Nodes & Shaders - Tutorials and Discussions (Bookmarks - Updated). It will solve all your prblems on this topic. It is the fourth sticky thread from the top on the poser forum. Believe you me, it will solve all your problems relatingt to the materal room.

I only discovered it about two weeks ago cos I am just starting out on this road. This wonderfull Arcadia did a great job with this thread. If you can not locate it , please let me know. Good luck 

You are going to be on a very long learning curve like the rest of us and you will never find a conclusive answer.  As mentioned in the previous posts, read the tutorials in the sticky thread and prepare to wade through reams of how-to's and theories.  And you will come back with more questions.  The best thing to do, play with Poser as per each tutorial instruction and experiment.  This will give you some greater understanding on the how's and why's.  Create some images and post them for critiquing.  Other individuals will gladly pointout your good and bad points in your renders.  And, importantly, ask questions!  That is how you will learn.

never neeeeeeeeeeeeeever pay money for light sets.

I have to disagree with ice-boy. I have purchased light sets from artists such as SaintFox and Mec4D so that I could study how they were made. I'm an oldie on this site and I remember back in the P4 days when people could upload whole pz3 files to the freestuff and you could download them and then study how the scene was set up. You could check the camera and it's settings, you could look at lights, textures, poses. Basically learn by picking the pz3 apart. I learned an awful lot that way.  Nowadays, you can learn by picking apart lights you have purchased and looking at the oodles of threads about lights (especially those that show screen shots of the light settings).

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

 

 

1.  Start with one infinite white light at 100%.  Start experimenting from there by turning it down, tweaking its color, or adding other lights to the scene.

2.  Do a search on gamma correction.  Bagginsbill has talked a lot about it and how it can help how a scene turn out.

3.  For the mat room go into the link that Eiseprod gave you and start looking around there.  Try out some of the things mentioned and slowly start trying things.  It's mostly trial and error.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Quote - I have to disagree with ice-boy. I have purchased light sets from artists such as SaintFox and Mec4D so that I could study how they were made. I'm an oldie on this site and I remember back in the P4 days when people could upload whole pz3 files to the freestuff and you could download them and then study how the scene was set up. You could check the camera and it's settings, you could look at lights, textures, poses. Basically learn by picking the pz3 apart. I learned an awful lot that way.  Nowadays, you can learn by picking apart lights you have purchased and looking at the oodles of threads about lights (especially those that show screen shots of the light settings).

or you open a thread on this forum and ask people to help you out with lights. you can ask 100 questions and people like BB,.... will help you out.

and you save money.

I would love pz3s w/ light sets I could study.  Now that's truly the way to learn.

I'd just like to thank everyone for thier input on this .I guess the best way to learn how the material room works is to just try different things and play around with the settings /nodes in the material room and lights.I 'll read up on some of those tutuorials as well .my only problem is once i make changes to things in the material room can they be reversed?Is there any step by step examples that I can try to see what certain adjustments effect the outcome/render.I really think for me its a conceptual thing .i just can't make the connection as to what ,how the adjustments impact on the material and affect its final appearance.I also see it was suggested that I start of with one light and add to that .So how do I start of with just adding one light?

As long as you don't inadvertently save settings, texture changes, etc, you're safe.  Everything will only occur within the application. 

The Poser lighting setup defaults to 3 lights upon opening.  Factory settings can be changed to personal preferences at anytime.  There is a lighting globe on the workspace which displays your light position(s) in relation to your scene.  There are 3 associated icons which create, deletes and changes your light color as well as a light intensity meter to adjust output.  Selecting an orb orbiting the globe will select that specific light unit.  More information about the light can be see in it's properties panel, simply select Ctrl+I on your keyboard to open the panel.  To delete light, select your light unit and click on the trash.  There is another way to delete all your lights with one script, but I won't get this way over your head for now.

"my only problem is once i make changes to things in the material room can they be reversed?"

Edit > Undo. :)

"So how do I start of with just adding one light?"

Go to your light controls in the lower left. Select a light. Then click the little garbage can icon. Confirm that you want to delete. Do that until you have either none left, or only one. Then play with the settings of that individual light.

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Hardware: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X/MSI MAG570 Tomahawk X570/Zotac Geforce GTX 1650 Super 4GB/32GB OLOy RAM

Software: Windows 10 Professional/Poser Pro 11/Photoshop/Postworkshop 3

Quote - never neeeeeeeeeeeeeever pay money for light sets.

Lolllllllllllll !!!

To stay serious, only the practice can help to learn, is there too many way depending your scene !

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Quote - I have to disagree with ice-boy. I have purchased light sets from artists such as SaintFox and Mec4D so that I could study how they were made. I'm an oldie on this site and I remember back in the P4 days when people could upload whole pz3 files to the freestuff and you could download them and then study how the scene was set up. You could check the camera and it's settings, you could look at lights, textures, poses. Basically learn by picking the pz3 apart. I learned an awful lot that way.  Nowadays, you can learn by picking apart lights you have purchased and looking at the oodles of threads about lights (especially those that show screen shots of the light settings).

I'm curisous to see some lights set runing with advanced shader like vss or GC shader ... Sure the renders are surexposed !

For me basics lights set are ok for posing, not for render ...

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 Light sets, like poses, should be tweaked and manipulated to fit the scene dynamics.  It would be nice to have something right out of the box, but that isn't necessarily so in most instances.

and since they need to be tweaked they are useless IMO.

make a new light. there you have all options. every light has a purpose. then you have shadow settings. and so on.

Ice-boy

How many lights will you typically use in a scene and which ones?

I love the way your lights look in your gallery. Richardson also lights scenes well.

SSAfam1: Your question will get you a multitude of answers.  It boils down to what type of scene are you creating.  I can get by with 3 lights if I am concentrating on a small aspect of a scene; others may require more to illuminate specific areas and create mood.  Outdoor daytime scenes will require an infinite light and perhaps 1 - 2 fill lights to brighten shadows.  Nowadays IBL is becoming a very important source of ambient light to add a touch of realism.  Again, it is a matter of scene requirements, lighting demands and what you intend to convey as mood and feeling. 

Quote - Ice-boy

How many lights will you typically use in a scene and which ones?

I love the way your lights look in your gallery. Richardson also lights scenes well.

i always start with the basic setup. the standard for lighting. 

1 key light
1 fill light
1 rim light
1 IBL

from there i just start experimenting. sometimes i use bounce light swith 50% of specular. obunce lights are a cheat to get some bounce from the enviorment. 

Here the same ...

Look at what you can have with these settings, all materials are GC ( thx BB ! )

Two white point lights for the windows at 20 %
One yellow sun light  at 150 %
One ibl for the ambiant at 30 %

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The render

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Imagine a render with theses settings !!!

It's not vray but ... :rolleyes:

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I just have a little problem with the and the windows ... when i add refraction the sun dont pass through the glasses, but i try !

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25 pixel samples?  he he

raytrace bounce 6? ohhh come on he he . in the movie transformers they had 1 bounce. and only on the pipes,glass and the head. in the movie iron man they had 2 bounces of raytracing.
6 bounces is to much.

the render looks amazing with so bad settings. GC is the way to go.
what is missing is some little glow. since its not supported in poser we can add this in photoshop.

Quote - SSAfam1: Your question will get you a multitude of answers.  It boils down to what type of scene are you creating.  I can get by with 3 lights if I am concentrating on a small aspect of a scene; others may require more to illuminate specific areas and create mood.  Outdoor daytime scenes will require an infinite light and perhaps 1 - 2 fill lights to brighten shadows.  Nowadays IBL is becoming a very important source of ambient light to add a touch of realism.  Again, it is a matter of scene requirements, lighting demands and what you intend to convey as mood and feeling. 

Oh yes, I know this. I was wanting a basic starting point. Or at least, what he usually does.

Quote - > Quote - Ice-boy

How many lights will you typically use in a scene and which ones?

I love the way your lights look in your gallery. Richardson also lights scenes well.

i always start with the basic setup. the standard for lighting. 

1 key light
1 fill light
1 rim light
1 IBL

from there i just start experimenting. sometimes i use bounce light swith 50% of specular. obunce lights are a cheat to get some bounce from the enviorment.

Fill and rim are Spotlights?

i use spotlights for fill and rim.

Do you guys ever color the IBL light? For instance, the Infinite light would be yellow for Sunlight. IBL has all the light colors within the probe. Is it best to leave it white? Say I were doing a sunny day in the park scene and used a probe with the attached imagem (FYI I don't know if this particular image is linear/applicable for a correct IBL. Just an example)

www.sharecg.com/v/29247/Poser/StoneFence-backdrop-pz3-scene

Now, we already have the yellow Infinite (Key Light), next we'll use the IBL. Light pastel colors are best so would I use a light blue for my IBL? Maybe a green? Or do I just leave it white and let the IBL basically convey the colors?

i dont make the sun light yellow if its not sunset or sunrise. then its yellow/orange.
when its in the middle of the day then my infinite light is white.

i do my IBL's with BB IBL generator. there you get all colors you need.

Quote - i dont make the sun light yellow if its not sunset or sunrise. then its yellow/orange.
when its in the middle of the day then my infinite light is white.

i do my IBL's with BB IBL generator. there you get all colors you need.

Do you color your IBL?

what do you mean?

> Quote - what do you mean?

Let's say the background image was made into an IBL probe. Now I have the yellow for sunlight. Would I color the IBL green or do I always leave it white?

you dont need to color the IBL because you already have colors in the IBL image.

Quote - you dont need to color the IBL because you already have colors in the IBL image.

Gotcha. Thanks!

I agree with Ice-boy about the sunlight.  Unless the angle is steep or an apparent atmospheric disturbance, leave the sunlight white for the moment until you are more comfortable working with lights.  IBL will convey the colors of the image but it is best apparent in the shadow areas of your image.  Be aware that you should try to match your IBL and lights with your scene for a better natural environment.  That is why individuals who use photo backgrounds use the same image to create their IBL.  Also, unless the original IBL image is very dark, you should never have to over blow your light intensity to 100% or over.  Especially if you use Gc material.

> Quote - Imagine a render with theses settings !!! > > It's not vray but ... :rolleyes:

I like a challenge, so I tried your render settings. Wasn't sure if my laptop could do it, but it did. Took 3 hours forty-five minutes.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

 

 

sorry the render is to small to see the  ''mega details''

Most of those settings can be taken down substantially.  No need for 6 Raytrace bounces, 25 Pixel samples and you are really making your machine work with Min shading rate set to 0.02.  That one is way over the top.  I usually don't go below 0.2.

You know, come to think of it...the IBL light will always be gray. Well if you're using a regular IBL which you did NOT create with BB's generator. With the regular ones, you start out with white light at 100% and have to decrease it. I usually have mine between 20-30%; making it gray.

You can create an IBL without any image attached.  Just keep your diffuse color white.

i have a question about all of you and bagginsbill.

how would you or are you faking . blue sky color at a sunny day? in reality the blue color is only in the shadows . where the direct light hits(SUN) the colors are not blue from the sky.
in poser if i make an blue IBL then the whole render will have a blue tint. even where the sun hits the surface.
it looks like this

i changed the color on the infinite light from white to this

Whats GC?And FIll and rim ? what  are you talking about ?I feel a little lost .I have managed to experiment with the lights and came up with a pleasing light combination for the skin colour .But the only problem is that the metalics and shiney  fabric  looks very dull.Do I need to introduce more lights for the metalics and fabric?Or is the key to all this in the materials room?Should I be adjusting the nodes for the various materials in the materails room so the I get the right light characteristic for the metalics and fabric?

GC---Gamma Correction.
Key Light---main source of light in your scene. Usually an Infinite Light.
Fill Light ---softens the contrast of the Key Light; making the subject more visible. Usually placed opposite your Key Light.. Can be either Spot or Point Lights.
Rim Lights---separates the subject from the background. Also Spot or Point Light.

Setting the minimum shading rate to 0.02 shouldn't make a difference unless you have changed the shading rate on all items in the parameters dials as well. The render settings shading rate only takes prededence if an objects' shading rate is lower, so for example if an object in your scene had a shading rate of 0.01, then the render setting shading rate of 0.02 would take priority. If your scene object has a shading rate of 0.2, that is what gets used, not the 0.02 in the render settings.

According to the manual, anyway.

Quote - how would you or are you faking . blue sky color at a sunny day? in reality the blue color is only in the shadows . where the direct light hits(SUN) the colors are not blue from the sky.
in poser if i make an blue IBL then the whole render will have a blue tint. even where the sun hits the surface.

I do it with a (weak) IBL light for the bounce from the sky, and a (strong) yellow direct light for the actual sunlight and shadows. Looks like this:

(from L to R, IBL only, direct only and combined.)

Of course for more complex light interaction, like eg sunlight bouncing from the ground back onto the guy, you'd need GI.

Pick up a basic photography book on studio lighting.  Poser is pretty much the same set up.  It is a stage that you build on and populate with actors, props and scenes.  Add in the appropriate lighting and you have a simulated environment.

@ice-boy: what color is your simple_color?

@Tuxedomask: Certain lighting situations will accent and bring out definition from a different variety of textures.  There is never a happy medium for everything to look right.  But adding more lighting will not solve the problem; it will just bog down your system with very lengthy renders and overblown light intensities.  In most cases, you may need to tweak Material room settings to bring out more detail from those material types.

Ice-boy - some things to think about:

• Simulating a photo would also entail simulating the white balance selected by the photographer. What I'm getting at is that if I have my photo white balance adjusted in various ways, the same photo can be blue or orange or neutral. I once made a few test photographs (not a render) of snow at night lit only by a sodium vapor lamp. Sodium vapor produces a very distinctive orange light. In one photo I left the white balance on "auto" (let the camera decide) and the snow was orange, like the fruit. Then I manually adjusted the white balance for the colors actually being produced, and the snow was white as ... snow. Same scene, same light, totally different outcome. What are you trying to achieve? I can get blue or orange shadows in a photo from the same real-life setup.
• Depending on conditions, the direct illumination from the sun can be anywhere from 4 to 10 times brighter than the ambient illumination from the sky, and as much as 100 times the ambient illumination from the local environment. Which scenario are you working on? For example, in one of my recent aviation renders, the sky was mostly bright clouds, but some clear blue sky. I built an IBL from my sky panorama and set it to 40% intensity. My sun (infinite) was white at 280% intensity.

It is possible to do the slightly yellow sky, slightly blue IBL thing and then white balance it in post, just like you would with a badly taken photo. This will measure whatever the combination produced for the bright parts and make them neutral, even though you may have started with too much blue or too much yellow. The shadows would be blue in any case.

Personally, I like to assume my "camera" is supposed to be white balancing for the strongest lit things in the scene. So I put a white or very close to white infinite, and a lower intensity blue IBL and it generally comes out right.

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I found those snow pictures.

Here is the snow on "auto".

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And here it is after I adjusted the white balance. Remember this is straight from the camera - no post processing other than resizing.

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Here is a shot that shows both the lamp and the snow. White white white. Don't get hung up on real-life colors. We don't see them anyway.

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I happen to have my camera with me today, and the lighting outside is interesting.

We had rain this morning, now the clouds are breaking up and the sun is coming out. The clouds cover about 90% of the sky, so there are small areas that are clearly blue, but mostly the sky looks white to me, using my actual eyeballs, not a camera.

Taking this photo, I have the sun partially obscured by clouds at the very top. So the direct lighting is diffused a bit through the clouds. Shadows are not real sharp today. In this photo, the luminance of sun and sky is so much brighter than the things around me that the camera cannot capture all this dynamic range in one photo. (This is why you want to use HDR in rendering. But I digress).

So to my eye, the sky is full of detail, blue, white, and the incredible glare of the sun. To the camera its all shades of gray. Or is it?

I have placed two pieces of paper on the sidewalk. One is fully in shade from the garden box. The other is fully in sunlight.

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Letting the camera handle white balance, a photo of the paper looks like this.

One is clearly blue. What is the dominant color of the other? Answer - blue. They are both blue. One is more blue than the other, but they are both blue. So if you render with white sun and blue IBL, you match this photo.

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Here I cropped a close up so we can more easily see what colors are coming from the paper and the sidewalk. If you measure, blue is strongest in both.

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Now I made a manual adjustment to color balance, so that the picture is "warmer". What does that mean? It means red is dominant, not blue. Both pieces of paper are now giving off more red than blue or green.

Does it look fake? Not to me. So which is real, blue or red? They're both real. Do what you want. use a blue IBL and an orange sun to get a warmer render. Use white for both for a neutral render. Or use blue IBL and a white sun to give what is commonly produced by cameras that are set to "auto".

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yeah but the paper is white.
what happens with a grey material? i guess you are right-

so i could made the change in photoshop? does anyone have any tutorial link for photoshop? i have photoshop.

Quote - never neeeeeeeeeeeeeever pay money for light sets.

Truer words were NEVER written! Lighting is different for EVERY scene and stock set's just won't do justice to your work.

founds this
http://www.eyefetch.com/tutorial-white-balance-ps.aspx

Is it a better idea if I render my scene with various light sets to see what settings give me the metalic and shiney surfaces that I think look realistic and then take note of the settings in the material room for the metalics and shiney surfaces and make the same settings in the material room for the metalics ,shiney surfaces  for  the light set that I feel gives a realistic skin texture? Because at the moment I'm happy wiith the lighting set I made to the skin texture ,but not happy with the look of the shiney surfaces and metalics .Both of these look very dull and nothing like what they are supposed to .

Sounds to me that your lights might be just fine for your scene, it would be the metal shaders themselves. Do you want the metals to just be shiny or to have true, raytraced reflection?

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

 

 

Latexluv: I would like the metals in the scene to have true raytraced reflection and also the paint on cars ,bikes and shiny materials to display their true characteristics.

Okay, here is a start.  Shader packs from Ajax and Mapps.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=44709

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=43772&page=3

Copy those links into your browser, find the shader packs, download, read the readme docs carefully and install into your Poser runtime. At the top of this forum there is a permanent thread by Acadia with links to shader discussions here in the forum. When RNDNA comes back online, cruise over there and check out the forum called the Node Cult. And check anything bagginsbill has commented on.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

 

 

Ok , Thanks ,I'll check it out .It's starting to make a little more sense now  but still  very daunting .

It is a bit daunting, yes. I started out with Poser 3 and no manual. I just clicked on things to see what would happen and asked a lot of questions here on the forums. What version of Poser are you using? Oh, and go and check out the thread on "Trying to Achieve Good Water". Bagginsbill has posted some good screen shots of some water shaders.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

 

 

I'm using Poser 6 .I have been using Poser for approximately 5 years and everything I know ,up until now I have had to teach my self .So it has been a very slow process this learning curve of mine.I know lots of people are using other render engines other than the standard Poser render engine, and getting great results.But I was told that I don't need the vrays or Metal rays of this world to get similar or even better final renders.Poser has everything you need .You just need to know how to set up the lighting and the material room .And so here I am trying to do what seems the impossible( well for me  anyhow) and prove that Poser renders are as good if not better than the forementioned render engines.Its not an, us versus them showdown of the render engines , no .Its more a point of learning and using the skills which truely make us a great artist rather than an average one .

I understand. I'm not against post work at all (it's just my laptop hates to work in layers in Paintshop), so I try to push Poser to do as much as possible. I am very happy when I can get Poser to produce an image that I feel only needs my logo on it. If I've produced an image with Poser only, I will post that information when I upload an image. I do want people to know that you can produce beautiful images with Poser. No it's not one of the high end packages, but it is a good tool in it's own right.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

 

 

any tips how to make fast and good blury depth map shadows? i would only need them for fill lights. not for main lighting.
but i can not make them to work.

There isn't much to adjust.

Use a larger map size (1024 to 2048). The default of 256 is terrible.

Adjust the blur as you want. I'm sure you're aware the blur will not vary with distance as it should and does with ray-traced shadows.

You may have to adjust the shadow camera if your shadow casting elements are large compared to what you're rendering. For example, if there is a full size building and a figure standing in front, but you're only showing a portrait of the figure. In such a case, the shadow map will be automatically scaled to include shadows of the entire building even if you never see those. (Think about the possiblity of reflections of those shadows. Poser cannot cull these shadows automatically just because you will not see them directly.)

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So Bill if you have two Infinite lights in a scene, both using depth-mapped shadows, you'd use 1024 (minimum) for BOTH those lights?

Yes. I've never seen a good shadow map at less than 1024. Quite often, a bad shadow is worse than no shadow.

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if you want sharp shadows use raytraced shadows.
if you want soft shadows use raytraced shadows.

if you want sharp shadows dont IMO use DM shadows. you need a very big shadow map. and it still will not look good.
if you want soft blurry shadows dont IMO use DM shadows because they are not realistic.

i am using DM shadows only for fill lights where teh light is so dark that we dont notice the bad shadows. and maybe sometimes for RIM lights.

Here is a picture showing the use of a shadowmap at a size of 256, 512, 1024, and 2048. Then with differing blur values, starting with 1, then 5 and finally 10. Click the pic to see it bigger.

i think shadow map 512 and blur 10 will be good enough for fill lights that are 10-30 % bright.
i would use raytraced with 20 blur but 3 fill lights with those settings and the rendertime will be to long.

You're probably right, ice-boy - 512/10 looks good.

Thanks for the picture, raven, that's just an awesome reference chart.

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what i find amazig and in a way dumb is that when i used DM shadow maps i always used sharp shadows. now that i am using raytraced shadows i am more using soft blurry shadows.its like i want to make it harder in poser.

p.s. when using DM shadow blur it also takes longer to render right? 

Quote -
p.s. when using DM shadow blur it also takes longer to render right? 

No, not at all. The blurring is a very quick operation at the end of creating the shadow map. How fast can you blur a 1K by 1K picture in Photoshop? That's how fast a blurred shadow map is. Plus, if you cache the shadow maps, they take 0 time to render after the first time.

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well i was reading that it doesnt take longer. i did some test renders and it looked like it was longer.
i guess there was something wrong with my computer.or i need to stop doing rendering when i am on the internet +listening music. he he

Quote - Here is a picture showing the use of a shadowmap at a size of 256, 512, 1024, and 2048. Then with differing blur values, starting with 1, then 5 and finally 10.
Click the pic to see it bigger.

Excellent. Thanks!

Glad it's of use to people. Just a quick note to say that although it says blur 0, really it's 1, as that's the minimum value.

Also, in order to get a shadowmap of 2048, you will have to change the limits of the Map Size parameter dial. This is because the map's default max size is 1024. Just double click the dial and change the Max Limit value to 2048 and click OK.

it helped me very much.
thank you.

ok Bagginsbill you are a poser expert.

if we use two lights then everything poser will render with two lights. would it be hard to insert in poser  an option to choose what lights to use on objects,figures and hairs? 

for example. lets say i make 3 lights. IBL , light-DM , light RT.
IBL : a simple IBL
light-DM: light with DM shadows
light-RT: light with raytraced shadows

now if we could poser tell to use IBL on everything,light-DM on the hair,light-RT on the figure. would it be hard to have this in poser 8? would this be to complicated for poser?
DM shadows are easier to render when you have transparency. we could use a light that has DMshadows for hair,trees,grass. but for objects and figures without transparency we would use raytraced shadows. that way we would save time. and for grass and hair you dont need very accurate shadows.

here is a paper from pixar. for hair they use DEEP shadows. they are fast. using raytraced shadows on fur and hair would take forever. very interesting to read.
graphics.pixar.com/library/DeepShadows/paper.pdf

you think we could writte a python script to tell the figure to use only a specific light. and to tell the hair to use only a specific light?

No script could do that for exisitng Poser versions because they don't provide anything to set that behavior up in the renderer. 

However, it is theoretically possible with some changes to Poser. Quite a few effects could be added on with a few additions and hooks in the Python interface into the renderer. We're discussing it.

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now lets hope it is in poser 8  he he

what are the chances? 60% :-) 

weeks ago i asked about how to make blue shadows and whitte sun. i have been reading a lot about lighting and digital lighting.
bagginsbill was obvious right with the  ''white balance'' .

so in a documentation about digital lighting they say that you make the global lighting blue . for the sun they say that you need to take away the blue. so i am trying this with the node User_Defined.

the question is what setting to use? i tryed  1.0,0.9,0.77. then render. then if the colors dont look good i can go in photoshop and make small changes with the white balance tools.

Why do you need User_Defined node? You have the RGB values for each light right on the properties window.

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to take away the the blue color.

am i doing it wrong?

any tips on how to make lighting like this? 
www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/makingof_young_girl/young_girl_02.asp

i am more interested on the light coming form the left .

You're already working on whatever tips I could give. That guy used 5 area lights!

My suggestion would be to set up glowing rectangles for lights. Capture them using GenIBL. Convert to lat/long using HDRSHOP and do a specular convolution to make a reflection map for the skin. Use that in the skin shader.

There is extensive use of SSS in the image as well, which we're missing. I"d almost argue it was overdone - the girl looks a little bit waxy in some places.

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i agree the SSS looks a little off.

i am noticed a lot of times that those artist think that they need to show us SSS. SSS is a lot of times very subtle on skin.

this is a render from the shadow cam

i then  connected this to the light. its a spot light  and it looks like this . why doesnt it look like a real shadow? 

shouldnt it looks like a real shadow? i thought that this is how DM shadows work. they create a shadow image with the shadow cam.

Quote - i thought that this is how DM shadows work. they create a shadow image with the shadow cam.

That's not how DM shadows work. DM shadows work by storing the depth channel of an object as seen from a light, and then use this to figure out what parts are in shadow and what aren't. See:

Shadow mapping

aha ok my mistake.

but shouldnt the image be projected on the figure?

It is being projected, that's why the whole figure is black. You're using the texture you captured from the shadow cam to control the light intensity right ? If you look at the render, your figure happens to lie entirely within an area of the texture where the intensity is black (somewhere near the knees)

If you move the light around, you will get different projections.

i was thinking making a texture image to fake the shadows. to use an image for the shadows.

You can fake a shadow from the figure on the ground. Also from some other object on the figure like from a nearby building or a tree. But you can't do fake self shadows (shadows from the figure on itself) For that you need RT or DM shadows.

Think about this, ice-boy.

Suppose you had a ball in front of your figure. According to your hand-made shadow map, that ball would not be lit because you captured an image of the figure behind it.

A shadow map is not an image. It is a 2-dimensional list of distances. It represents the distance to the first object the light see can along a vector. Anything on that vector that is farther than that distance is in shadow.

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I think I understand your point though. You're not trying to make a typical shadow. You're trying to make a light that doesn't shine on a selected figure.

By rendering the figure as black against a white background, you should be able to prevent the light from shining on the figure, but shine everywhere else. Of course this would only work as long as the figure was the closest thing to the light.

So you're asking why it doesn't line up, right? I have no idea.

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thanks guys.

its still a good way to make a texture map for walls.windows

sometimes we have an enviorment sphere connected to the reflect node or just in the shader.
now imagine we have like 6 material zones where we need this enviorment map connected.
what if we change this image? should we then change it for 6 or even 10 zones? 

i made an image called AM_panorama for apollo maximus. i connect this in the shaders. now its done.
now everytime i want to change it i just open an image editor and change it there. i save it as AM_panorama and it will be updated in the shader. this is very faster and you dont even need to go in the material room.for a car you can have a Car_panorama_viper.

That's a good idea.

I always wondered why Poser does not have an "Environment" materlal zone, similar to the Background and Atmosphere. It would be something an "Environment" node would pick up, as well as providing what my Environment sphere does, something to see and reflect in all directions.

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BB you are right. would be great if they had this

no no this is  a fantastic idea. because the BG in the reflect node would be connected we would have faster render times. it would not be 100% physical correct but for brushed metal it would work.amazing idea.