Ok so im not the best with lighting but the new scene im doing requires it to be night with the moon out.  Does anyone know of a really good Tutorial that could simulate the night and moonlight?

 

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I would use no light at all.

Put a ball where the moon is, and give that ball a healthy dose of ambient.....

Preview will be black, but the render would come out quite well.

Did this to simulate a streetlight once.
Takes some guesswork, but well worth it.
Render low quality untill satisfied. As it will take a lot f test renders.
Then increase the quality for the final result.

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interesting idea. now how do i add ambient to the ball lol.

 

sometimes i forget these things =)

You can...

Just dial in some Ambient_Value in the mat room for the ball. Put in some 
lightly yellowish or light orange color in the Ambient_Color.

 
You can....
Add a moonlike texture to the ball in the Ambient_Color, and adapt the Ambient_Value in the mat room.
Remember, if the moon is not visible in the render , a texture is not needed.

You can...
Just put a infinite light, where the moon should be.. (again, if the moon is not visible in the render. Just turn the light down... a lightly yellowish or light orange color would do.

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for a quick and dirty moonlight, make whatever the primary light source happens to be, slightly blue and quite dim, moonlight appears blue to human eyes and is very pale.

See here for an example, done in Vue (and a bit too blue) but the principle is the same

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I'd do the same as Vilters except I'd make the colors very faintly blue instead of yellow.

Water also helps to make a scene truly moony.  A pond or stream.

Give the water a ripply displacement and add reflection, then place the light so the face of the moon reflects off the ripples.

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This is a scene I made last year.  It's obviously a toon moon, and there's WAY too much light because I like things to be visible in my cartoons..... but the water came out rather nicely.

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Thanks for the help guys love all the ideas.

 

Frank i ove that pic you did, very very nice =)

I'd definitely lean towards blue for moonlight unless it's on the horizon, then it does tend towards more redish in color due to atmospheric interactions.

my vote would be to slap a moonlite hdri on bill's envdome, which encloses the scene.

never heard of bills envdome, is it hard to use? also where would i get a good moonlite hdri?

Bagginsbill's Free EnvSphere package.  not hard to use if yer familiar with hdri used as lite source in poser scenes.  couldn't find free equirectangular moonlite hdri during google search.  dosch has some, but "dosch skies" costs $$$ IIRC.  is possible to create simple hdri in APS with brite blue area where one desires moon.  second choice (easier): IDL render with hi-res ball (blue ambient as lite source), as ment. abv..  third choice (easiest): use dim blue inf lite with IDL.  fourth choice (wrong): poser 4 render with blue inf lite.

Quote - Bagginsbill's Free EnvSphere package.  not hard to use if yer familiar with hdri used as lite source in poser scenes.  couldn't find free equirectangular moonlite hdri during google search.  dosch has some, but "dosch skies" costs $$$ IIRC.  is possible to create simple hdri in APS with brite blue area where one desires moon.  second choice (easier): IDL render with hi-res ball (blue ambient as lite source), as ment. abv..  third choice (easiest): use dim blue inf lite with IDL.  fourth choice (wrong): poser 4 render with blue inf lite.

Geep turned me on to a site with lots of free textures. There are sky images including moonlight nights that will work fine on BB's environment sphere there.

try www.cgtextures.com