Good = a set that has a number of lighting options

Easy = examples of what the specific lighting will/should look like when renedered

Is there a good/easy to understand light set out there for Poser 8?

Lighting is always a challenge for me, and it is only after numerous time consuming light placements, edits and moving - and then rendering them - that I might find the right lighting. What I'm looking for is a set that helps me cut the time way down in finding that perfect lighting for my scene and character. Can anyone recommend one that really works for you? I have Poser 8.

Your best bet is to learn how lights work in general. Light sets don't always supply what you need. Sometimes it's better to make what you need ;).

I use Advanced Light and Camera guides from RDNA to place my lights and actually SEE the area of influence each light has. Helps a lot :). I've fiddled and fiddled with a light only to find that the distance wasn't enough to reach the object I was trying to light. Advanced Light and Camera guides helps with that.

Laurie

All you really need is one infinite light in the 80-90 range and maybe one diffuse that's really low (I keep mine at 5) for starters.

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 - All you really need is one infinite light in the 80-90 range and maybe one diffuse that's really low (I keep mine at 5) for starters.

Thank you, but 80-90 what? And what about position, colors and all the other settings (intensity, red, blue, green, scale,etc) that go with that. Diffuse? Placed where? Same questions.

And as far as the Advanced Light at RDNA, do you have a link to it. Can't seem to find it.

Thank you.

With the newer lighting systems in both regular and Pro series Poser, older sets are becoming completely obsolete. IBL is being replaced by IDL, multiple lights are dwindling down to absolute minimums for more realistic results, and lower intensities oupled with light emitting objects are becoming more the standard. An excellent way to learn lighting, observe your surroundings and imitate lighting as found in natural and manmade environments. Too often, artists ignore the very basics of light placement and intensities. That's why many gallery images have lighting coming from below in outdoor settings which is both unrealistic and unflattering.

Find some good books on photographic lighting and read 'em :biggrin:

Seriously - it's much better to roll your own lights than rely on someone elses idea of what looks good. See if you can find a copy of [Digital] Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn (of Pixar I think) - you can get it off Amazon I think. Not everything will apply to Poser but a lot of the principles etc. are universal

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What do you all think of Rim lights?

http://www.runtimedna.com/Rim-Light-Studio.html

Sorry, but I'm trying to get this resolved, so I have questions.

Not sure I understand the IDL concept, but looking at a few products at RDNA I'm wondering what the difference is between DL Studio Expansion 2 and DL Studio Expansion 1.

Also, do you need to get their Vanilla Sky VFour to make it look like their renders show?

No, you wouldn't need that character particularly. In theory anyway

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I think it was in another thread that you were contemplating which way to go with Poser (or possibly another 3D app). Poser 8 is a bit of an interim version in terms of lighting. For a minimal investment, I'd be going to P 9 and then you can take advantage of what HBorre was referring to: the simpler the better.

Older versions of Poser depended on a lot of kludges in order to light scenes believeably. As you move up the Poser versions, those kludges no longer apply: indeed, you're going to find them a nuisance. Unfortunately, a lot of vendors - I can't speak for the products you mentioned, but still - will continue to stay with an older way of doing things because it's what they know.

You're probably not going to find shortcuts in buying stuff: as frankT said... you're best off getting your head around what you want to achieve, gets some books or do a google on lighting or have a look on here and get your head around proper lighting techniques.

Remember: the world we live in has an atmosphere. When we photograph out-of-doors, we are also photographing that atmosphere. In Poser, without anything in the scene, you're basically in outer space: no atmosphere. For outdoor scenes, I always use a skydome (Bagginsbill's is about the best) and IDL at reasonably good quality. 1 light, infinite, 80 - 90 intensity, raytraced shadows. You might want to do a search on ray-trace and user Bagginsbill on this forum: he's written copious amounts of information on achieving consistently good lighting using ray-tracing and why depth-mapped shadows have gone the way of the rumble seat.

End of the day: save yourself some money and read a lot on this forum and DNA's... lots of stuff on lighting for free!

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Metaphor of Chooks

IDL (Indirect Lighting) is simply bounced light. If you shine a bright light on a shiny mug, the mug will reflect that light onto another surface, even if the mug itself isn't casting light - like real light does. The mug doesn't even have to be shiny. If it was just a dull white matte it would still reflect light. It's what causes shadows to be somewhat lit rather than deep, dark black blobs :P

Laurie

IIRC, there was a "fix" around the time of Poser 4 to sort of simulate this by making all objects in a scene have a tiny amount of ambient. Of course, it's hopelessly wrong but that's all there was back then.

I'm stuck with P6 and IBL for now. :(

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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Thanks for the wisdom, RobynsVeil. I know that is a good way to go, but for me time is of the essence, so at this point I'm really hesitant to spend a lot of time discovering how to know the intricacies of lighting when others have been down that route with applications to help. I know in the long run, you are absolutely correct.

Yes, I wondered about Daz Studio, but have decided to stay with Poser. I know it best and have invested money into it as well.

So, since I'm trying to be more on the fast track (and hopefully learn later) do you, or anyone know, if the Advanced Lights and Camera script (http://www.runtimedna.com/Advanced-Lights-and-Camera-Guides.html) works with IDL lights? This tool seems to show, more in a graphical way, light range and placement better than Poser 8 does.

The main problem I have is knowing where the lights have their effect, where they are placed and their effect on the character.

And, I'm not sure if upgrading to Poser 9 will help me that much with lighting. Will it?

From the ad:

Features:

Precise guides for spot lights.
Precise guides for point lights
Precise guides for cameras

Automatic update, manual update
Low, medium or high resolution
Lots of options, like display style, visibility.

Product Includes:

One script for the guides.
One Poser 8 specific graphical user interface.
One scripts menu launcher (+ another for Poser 8)
One launcher cr2
etc Detailed documentation

Since this is for spot lights and point lights (as opposed to infinite lights) I'd say that it doesn't address IDL specifically, because you set IDL in your render settings, not in your lights.

Dunno - I don't use this product (I thought LaurieA did, tho?). I really don't give IDL very much thought, since it's just something I use to give whatever scene more "there-ness" ... so I just have it set up in my render settings and that's it.

Hate to say it: to gedt decent renders in Poser, there are no shortcuts. You sort-of have to read a bit. Try the lighting suggestions I gave you above if you're doing an outdoor scene:

Image is clickable. And skin shine is low... I'm aware of it... going to change it in the shader (using matmatic).

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As a for-instance: I just used whatever default settings I had for shadows...

Ray-trace
SBR: 4
Shadow samples: 19
SMB: .18

Please don't forget... I'm no expert - just gonna mess with it a bit, so:

Ray-trace
SBR: 2
Shadow samples: 60
SMB: .18

Instead of changing the specularity value of the skin from .8 (which in matmatic is just a matter of changing a number in a script and recompiling to mc6s), I decided to leave it and just add a spec light, which is trivial to do: duplicate your existing light, and in the material room set the diffuse colour pure black. Then, set intensity to 40% and turn shadows off for that light. I also took the main light's intensity down from 100% to 92%.

Like I said, just messing. Until you get really comfortable with all the settings - which I most assuredly am NOT! - Poser is really not your quick-image solution. I still find myself taking days over an ordinary scene like this one:

Oh, there's still a lot to do... but you can see change.

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Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
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Metaphor of Chooks

There is only one good Light set: That is the one YOU make YOURself for YOUR Poser version.

Let me explain that:

Any Light set, made, built and or sold before Poser 8 vaporises whenever you click IDL to ON.

Any light set that includes an IBL light is for the trash can.
Any light set that includes any AO is for the trash can next to the first trash can.

Any light set made for NO gamma corection disintegrades into dust the moment you put gamma corection on. (FYI Poser8 has NO Gamma corection)

You see??
There are too many variables.

Then??

Inside or outside scene?
What is in the scene?
What light do you need??

What render setings will YOU use?

Short cut: There is no ideal light set.

Long cut? Poser8 you asked?

Poser 8 has IDL so always use IDL in your renders. => => But the light changes as you have more objects in your scene. More objects giving more diffusing-reflections, so more indirect light.

When using IDL, do yourself a favor: NEVER -EVER to use any IBL light and or any AO on materials or lights.

Your have the "real thing" , you have IDL.
You do not need to fake any more with IBL and AO.

It is like having a wife and a mistress. ( Well, euh) But know that wifes and mistresses have a nasty habbit of fighting each other. OK.

For outside renders, use BB's free sphere and ONE Single Infinite true white light at 55% That is more light then you"ll ever need in any outside scene. => You can go as low as 25%.

The best light is ONE single infinite light. => There is only ONE sun out there. And the sun is an infinite light.

For inside scenes, well there just are too many variables. There is no ideal solution.

Most problems come from IDL renders with IBLights and or AO in light or material.
Second most commoin error in IDL scenes is wanting to use too many lights.

Look around you.... And let IDL ( true In Direct Light do its thing at render time as it does in real life.

Conclusion?
Any light setup is only good for your current Poser verson, your current scene, using your current render settings.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Oh well.....

Let's see some tests:

PP 2012: IDL on, SSS on, Gc on. Two Lights: one diffuse, one point

Everything is the same, but no IDL.

Now SSS is switched off

And finally a non-GC lightset made from eight infinite lights.

Save all pics and put them in a single folder so that you can better compare them.

Conclusion:

For outside renders, IDL only makes shadows darker. Any "color bleed" isn't noticeable.

(Unless you do "neon lights at night" type renders.)

For background figures, lack of SSS is hardly noticeable.

(You can notice a slight difference at the eyes)

You can get a very decent render out of older Poser versions without GC using just old fashioned infinite lights.

(Speed is exactly the same, too)

Is it a good thing to have SSS and IDL and GC ?

Yes, NOW that PP 2012 can handle all this stuff properly, my default scene has GC and SSS enabled.

But there is still and never was a reason to get all uppity and declare any other lightning techniques obsolete.

If you don't now what you're doing, neither GC nor SSS nor IDL won't help you.

"If you don't now what you're doing, neither GC nor SSS nor IDL won't help you."

Trying to parse this... and failing.

Sorry for appearing "uppity". By all means, listen to Joe! Buy all the lights you can get ahold of. He's right.

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Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
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Metaphor of Chooks

*Very good examples JoePublic.

"But there is still and never was a reason to get all uppity and declare any other lightning technique obsolete."

*Oh no, IBL and AO are not obsolete.
But they are the "old way" of faking some sort of IDL.

If you render with IDL, it is better to NOT havve an IBL or any AO. ( AO is internally ignored anyway when IDL is set to ON)

But for some creative scenes they are still usefull.
Just do not render with IDL then and stay with Poser7 techniques.

Ps, my default scene is within BB's shere, with One true white infinite light at 55%, and my default render is with IDL and with GC, but without SSS.

SSS that is very noticable for close-ups, but looses its effect the further your figure is in the scene.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Continuing with my "uppity" explanations of my messing around with lighting and shaders:

This is with a specular light on... notice the steps. BTW, GC on all of these images. Using the Poppy morph by A_ at 70%.

Then, I took the specularity value from .8 to 1.2 in the skin shader and turned the spec light off:

Again, I'm certainly no expert, nor was I intending to put on airs. I was merely showing how simple doing one's own lights really is. If I can do it, pretty much anyone can. I'm as logic/lighting/colour/you-name-it challenged as they come. But, I'm probably wrong: purchased lights probably are better for this scene:

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

Here is an indoor setting with strong colors.

Here IDL makes sense as there is strong color bleeding noticeable.

As for easyness: I don't think the "new" lights are easier than the "old" ones. Yes, you need less lights to get a decently lit scene, but you lack the immediate feedback of the OpenGL preview.

(The "new and improved" real time shadow OpenGL preview of PP 2012 is a joke)

There are ways building a true WYSIWYG Gamma Corrected lightset, but it's not exactly intuitiv or newbie friendly.

The best way would be for SM to ship some actually DECENT lightsets with Poser that people can use out of the box and later modify once they feel more comfortable.

Just a few corrections/additions.

IDL = Indirect Diffuse Lighting - Note: there is no specular component.
IDL isn't just bounced light, it also covers object based lighting (from P8 up), such as using an environment sphere with an ambient material.
Quote JoePublic -

"Conclusion:

1. For outside renders, IDL only makes shadows darker. Any "color bleed" isn't noticeable.

(Unless you do "neon lights at night" type renders.)"

I'm a little confused at this, and I may be wrong, but in my tests IDL only lightens shadows by bouncing the diffuse component of ordinary lights.

Since IDL only deals with the diffuse component of adding light to a scene, it may be necessary to add extra specular only lights (i.e. lights with the diffuse colour set to black). This is particularly the case when using an environment sphere as a primary light source, with the exception that in P9/PP2012 we can now use faster blurred reflections in combination with the fresnel node (although this isn't perfect or fully controllable). This all adds to render time though, and issues can arise with occlusion artifacts from near/intersecting geometry.

To add to the general consensus, there is no one 'correct' way to light a scene although IMO for realism some are better than others.

It is important to learn and understand the concepts of lighting a scene in 3d and specifically with the systems included in any given app. There are still workarounds that we need to employ in cetain circumstances, and you'll only understand what and when by learning and experimenting.

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com

To add further, lighting isn't just about the lights you use but also your material setups.

For instance, use an old style skin setup (which often includes an ambient/translucent component) with IDL and you'll end up with glowing skin. Might be just what you're looking for as an artistic effect, but for realism it'll look odd.

You've got to consider the whole scene and what you're trying to achieve.

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com

"I'm a little confused at this, and I may be wrong, but in my tests IDL only lightens shadows by bouncing the diffuse component of ordinary lights."

I'm not arguing but I don't see this on my machine. (Intel I5, Nvidia Geforce)

Here is a night lit scene with IDL, SSS and GC. All objects and figures are light emitter enabled. PP 2012 with SR1.

Four lights: One diffuse (6%), one infinite (70%) for shadows and specular and two additional point lights for the lanterns.

Same scene with IDL disabled. The shadows are definitely lighter.

And here I added a primitive as a light emitter to check that IDL otherwise works as expected.

Ok, I think I see what you're saying.

I'm assuming that that shadows arn't enabled on all your lights (is this what you mean by saying 1 infinite for shadows, that the other lights have shadows disabled?).

IDL will force the occlusion for all the lights in the scene unless you exclude them from raytracing. Thus the scene will look darker.

If this is the case then you're kind of using a combination of old and new approaches to lighting your scene, in that you're using some of the lights to add extra fill to the shadows.

I actually quite like the depth of the first render.

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

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You got me worried now that IDL might be multiplying the effect of shadows with it's own occlusion. Haven't got time to test right now.

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com

The diffuse is shadow disabled (Of course).

The infinite "sun" (Or moon in this case) has shadows enabled set to 100%.

The two lantern point lights have shadows enabled, too.

I've seen things go wonky when I tried IDL with non-GC-multiple infinite lights lightsets where the shadow strenght of the sun was set to 120% or more

But these "new" GC lightsets all use only two lights to illuminate the scene.

Ah, ok. Sounds like it's the diffuse (an IBL?) that's adding the extra fill in the non IDL render. Makes sense.

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Joe is using IBL. When you use IBL with IDL, it does proper occlusion shadows. When use IBL without IDL and without AO, it does not. What were shadows with IDL will appear to be much brighter with IDL, because it is missing occlusion.

There is IBL+AO, but the occlusions have to be set correctly and few people do so. They will also not be as accurate as the occlusions under IDL.

There is nothing wrong with IBL+IDL. The IBL acts exactly like the equivalent environment sphere with the same scene loaded on it.

When IBL is not used with IDL, it no longer acts like the EnvSphere. It acts like every point in the scene contains its own light source. You have to turn on AO to undo some of that and get some shadows where they should be.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Yes, the diffuse is an IBL. (But no image attached)

Never occured to me that I should enable shadows for an IBL.

I mean, it's omnidirectional. There ARE no shadows.

But yes, combined with IDL there is a difference wether the IBL "fill" has shadows enabled or not.

Umm, there ARE shadows with an IBL.

And they are very, very, ugly !

Never noticed or I might have noticed years ago and that's why I always disabled them. Lol

I'd be interested in opinions on this IDL plugin:

http://www.runtimedna.com/IDL-STUDIO.html and the expansion packs:

http://www.runtimedna.com/IDL-Studio-Expansion-1.html and

http://www.runtimedna.com/IDL-Studio-Expansion-2.html

I would guess for those of you who are adept at IDL this would be a waste, but for a newbie in lighting like me, maybe it will save me time in getting some great lighting???

When you have a good wife, you do not need a mistress.
Stay out of trouble and live happy ever after..

When you have IDL, stay away of IBL and AO.
Pretty-pretty simple huh?

Want realism?
Render with IDL, in BB's shere, and use Gamma corection.

For an outside scene that would be with only ONE single infinite light at reduced setting. There is only one sun, and she has no image on her surface. = Fact.

For inside scenes, a little more complicated.
Good tip/ Use as few lights as possible.

But? Do put ambient on a TV screen, a PC screen. Use the natural glow of some objects. Use natural reflections on other objects.

Example:
I am iside my living room now. It is a clear day.
I will have to find a way to render my living room, with NO lights in the Poser room.

Why??
In my real living room, there are NO lights turned on either.
All light is coming through the windows from the outside daylight.
So? I will use the sun (One single infinite light, remember) and BB's sphere to "light" my inside room.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Quote - Yes, the diffuse is an IBL. (But no image attached)

Never occured to me that I should enable shadows for an IBL.

I mean, it's omnidirectional. There ARE no shadows.

But yes, combined with IDL there is a difference wether the IBL "fill" has shadows enabled or not.

No, you don't want to enable shadows for an IBL when using IDL. The IDL occlusion should be correct. There shouldn't really be any need for additional "fill" anymore, but it is a matter of taste I guess. The only way I know to add extra ambience with IDL enabled is via materials, which will then technically be glowing.

Quote - Want realism?
Render with IDL, in BB's shere, and use Gamma corection.

For an outside scene that would be with only ONE single infinite light at reduced setting. There is only one sun, and she has no image on her surface. = Fact.

Just to remind - you sometimes have to deal with the missing specular of the Environment Sphere lighting, particularly when the sun (or moon) is back lighting the subject. Remember that the object lighting will contribute only diffuse light. This means adding specular only lights or blurred fresnel reflections to materials. Just saying.

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

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Quote - Just to remind - you sometimes have to deal with the missing specular of the Environment Sphere lighting, particularly when the sun (or moon) is back lighting the subject. Remember that the object lighting will contribute only diffuse light. This means adding specular only lights or blurred fresnel reflections to materials. Just saying.

Well, that's sort-of what I did, but wasn't really impressed what it did to objects that normally don't have much specularity, like the stone in the steps:

glare

I suppose I could set the materials for the stone, maybe?

No question it's never just lights: it's always shaders AND lights. And renderer.

Shaders <=> lights <=> renderer

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Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
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Tricky thing adding extra specularity to compensate for object based lighting. Bit of a balancing act, bearing in mind you're adding to that of any regular lights plus using a workaround that's only going to approximate the missing shine. Fresnel reflections seem more accurate to me but come with a high render cost.

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Haven't used fresnelBlend for much except eyes... need to learn more about it.

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Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
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Metaphor of Chooks

Hi Carodan. I did some more tests and here is the result:

For busy outdoor scenes in open sunlight, a single light can be enough.

2. If you use IBL but don't want to use IDL or AO for whatever reason, it's possible to just crank up the shadows of the main "sun" light to 110 or 120%.

For empty scenes or indoor scenes, a single light is too harsh as it creates a dark shadow border around the figure.

Attached is my default light setup:

First shows my OpenGL preview created by eight infinite lights. They don't render.

Then the rendered scene using an IBL fill and a point light "sun".

Then the same scene without an IBL fill. I had to crank up the "sun" to 110 % to get the same lightness as the IBL + "sun" and reduce the shadows from 750% to 500%.

Now, the result is not bad for an outdoor feel, but I really like the softness I can get from the IBL fill better.

Here is a closeup:

"Sun" + IBL fill vs single light.

No IDL as the scene is empty. GC + SSS enabled.

Skin shader is Bagginsbills latest via EZSkin with some light tweaks.

Note: I did tweak this old PP2012 test render for levels in Photoshop which is why the highlights are a bit blown out (click to enlarge).

So, this is V4 in a scene lit only by an environment sphere with an hdr map and a single infinite RT shadow casting light, shining from behind and to one side. IDL is enabled

I used one of bb's original PP2012 SSS setups for the skin, but added blurred fresnel reflections following his thread where he used only an env sphere with reflections for specular.

Any specular you see on the V4s left side and in shadow regions are from fresnel reflections. Note that I possibly had the fresnel blend node set up with an incorrect IOR, or my reflect setting was too high. It does show the potential of using real reflections from an environment on skin though. Pretty cool IMO, and theoretically at least much more accurate for realism. I like that it brings in more colour from the environment which helps tie her in to the scene.

There are admittedly problems using this technique, partly with increased render times but also interaction with other objects and materials. This FR skin doesn't like dynamic hair for example, or highly layered prop hair using transparency driven materials. This is one key improvement I could suggest for the next version of Poser.

There are other ways of achieving similar results, true, but this technique interests me more for it's overall results.

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com

Heh, reflections on the eyes are probably a bit strong here too.

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com

This is a great render and I'd like to give that skin shader a try someday

But honestly said, I don't like the idea of being constricted to the inside of an environment sphere.

It's also too close to photoshop trickery for my taste.

I rather prefer to work in "actual" 3D environments so I want lightsets that work under vastly different conditions. (It's the scale modeller in me)

If I get a decent result in an empty scene, then the light set will also give me decent results no matter what I add to the scene.

And of course Photoshop manipulation is an absolute no-no to me.

And of course anything that takes longer than a minute or so to render as otherwise I just loose interrest. :-)

But as I said, impressive render, Carodan.

Just not the way I'd like to do things in Poser. Perhaps the difference is:

I don't want to create a render.

I want to create a complete 3D "world" that I can photograph.

:-)

People - please stop contradicting me without evidence.

I said:

"There is nothing wrong with IBL+IDL. The IBL acts exactly like the equivalent environment sphere with the same scene loaded on it."

Then Vilters, you said "When you have IDL, stay away of IBL and AO."

That's wrong advice. Correct is "When you have IDL, stay away from AO."

AO is the problem with IDL. There is no problem using an image based light with IDL.

An image based light provides the identical lighting contribution as an environment sphere, when used with IDL.

Before IDL, IBL was inferior. With IDL, IBL is equal - no longer inferior.

The only difference between and IBL environment versus an EnvSphere environment is the latter can be seen in reflections. That is useful, but it doesn't mean the IBL is junk.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Here is a highlighted listing of some of my library of environments.

I have box-highlighted a number of pairs, where I have both the EnvSphere equirectangular version and the IBL Angular map version.

The two versions are interchangeable. The difference exists only when I seek reflections of the environment.

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Quote - The only difference between and IBL environment versus an EnvSphere environment is the latter can be seen in reflections. That is useful, but it doesn't mean the IBL is junk.

Agreed. This is the main reason I use the Environment Sphere, except for totally enclosed scenes (I do like the FR on skin).

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com

Since I demand evidence, I must also supply it.

Here is a simple test render using the "Salon Jour" EnvSphere.

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Here using the "Salon Jour" IBL.

Notice three things:

There are small variations in light/shadow due to crappy reproducability of IDL at low settings. Sorry - I am pressed for time.
The large-scale lighting is the same.
We lost the reflections of the room.

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Joe your goals contradict your conclusions.

If you want to place your props in the real world, then you want a 360 sky and you want the earth to extend a few thousand miles around your props. That ain't gonna happen unless you use an environment sphere.

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One more render for evidence. Just in case you might think lack of difference was due to the environmental lighting being a minimal contribution, I rendered again without it.

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And finally, without IDL - i.e. no bounced light and no environmental light.

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Quote - Here is a closeup:

"Sun" + IBL fill vs single light.

No IDL as the scene is empty. GC + SSS enabled.

Skin shader is Bagginsbills latest via EZSkin with some light tweaks.

Is there a ground? Then it isn't empty and you should enable IDL.

Reflected lighting from the ground is a big deal.

Also, under the chin is lit by the chest. Under the ear is lit by the neck.

Always enable IDL.

Think about this.

Imagine a performer on a broadway stage lit by just a single spotlight, with a wood floor, a black curtain behind, and with the auditorium parts (walls, people, chairs) otherwise black and/or far enough away that the bounced light has decreased to unimportance.

When you simulate this, which of the following would you think is more accurate:

No IDL

IDL bouncing light from body part to body part, and from floor (Poser ground) to figure.

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Found the fresnel-reflection button at the EZSkin script.

Render times jumped up but still bearable.

IDL only light inside Bagginsbill's envirosphere. No other lights.

I need to edit out the highlights on the forehead as in this setting they are distracting.

As I said, not really my cup of tea, but I will definitely experiment further.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Is there a ground?"

Nope, not in my empty scene. Usually I find the self lightning of the skin caused by IDL too strong. Perhaps because the skin I use is very light unlike the many "caucasian" skins sold that are really closer to mediteranian to my eyes.

It started as a V2 skin that I converted to V3 and I raised the gamma value quite a bit to get the lightness I needed.

@JoePublic: In using the sphere you don't really need to map a landscape to it. I never do that. I only use it as the sky and I supply everything else - landscape, trees, buildings, etc. So, it's not really cheating if you do it that way. And it gives that all over ambient light that a sky gives :).

Laurie

Which do you think is more accurate?

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"Which do you think is more accurate?"

If IDL would be able to 100% accurately recreate the way light behaves in real life, then it would be indeed more accurate. ;-)

Right now all it does (with my default lights -one IBL plus one point) is to cause ugly shadows.

@JoePublic: That FR render looks pretty good to me. The FR might need some adjustment/reduction in strength, and the skin maps start to reveal a few oddities in places.

The FR will also respond to any scene elements that you might build around the figure (even if they completely obscure the environment sphere) helping to sit the figure into the scene in the final render. Ambient light bounces off scene elements via IDL adding extra fill in a natural way.

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com

Doesn't IDL work better if the scene is enclosed? Like with a sphere or a box?

Laurie

Here is an older test showing the too-strong self lighting with IDL.

Could be a whole host of possible reasons for the self lighting thing - don't know enough about that scene setup - lights/materials/render settings. Materials related perhaps?

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com

That scene used my "old" non-GC setup of eight infinite lights and no skin shader. My solution was to simply switch light emitting off for the figure.

Using GC and SSS and only a single light (plus the glowing orb set up as a light emitter), IDL now "behaves" properly.

Still can't make the orb to look as nice as with my "old" lights.

Joe,

Self-lit IDL skin is usually because the diffuse reflection coefficient (or value - i.e. the amount of arriving light that is reflected) is too high. This was an extremely common error in almost every shader ever made for Poser prior to IDL, at which time it started to matter, but before then it did not.

Diffuse_Value = 1 means that the only degradation of secondary light bounces (skin to skin) happens in the color itself. Typically the red component of skin textures (color map) is around 230 which in sRGB space is (230/255)^2.2 or about 80% red reflectivity.

Now consider light bouncing between arm and chest.

1 light unit arrives on chest

chest bounces .8 to arm

arm sees 1 unit direct + .8 unit bounced light, and then it bounces .8 of that or .8 * 1.8 = 1.44 units of light back to the chest

the chest now takes this secondary light into account (some of which came from itself) and recalculates that it is actually bouncing .8 * 1.44 = 1.152 versus the initial estimate of .8

The arm recalculates with the new incoming 1 unit direct + 1.152 units bounced

and so on, until the max bounces in render settings is reached.

The result is that when skin surfaces are near each other, an 80% bounce level for diffuse value, with four bounces, will result in an effective illumination level of 2.0496 light units, versus the direct lighting (no bounce) of just 1 light unit. This is unrealistic and is a simple consequence of naively setting the diffuse reflectivity at 1.

On the other hand, what happens if it is .8 instead? Then the effective red lighting is 1.577 light units. This is more accurate (though still high) and more important the erroneous 2.0496 unit is 30% brighter than this. It is noticeably wrong.

So - the correct use of diffuse shading is never have diffuse_value above .8.

This is not an indictment against IDL. It is an indictment against stupid shader values.

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Yes, I understand.

But with diffuse set to 85%, at least if you use a simple shader (Like just a texture plugged into diffuse), the OpenGL preview will look like crap.

And this is an absolute, positive no-no to me.

The renders will loose saturation, too, regardless of the lights used.

Your skinshader circumvents this problem it seems. I still cranked up saturation to 1.05 in the HSV node to get the same level of colorfulness back that I have in the OpenGL preview or when I look at the "naked" texture in Photoshop.

So I now can have my cake and eat it, too, and as I said, my default scene now uses GC and SSS and I'm in the progress to convert all my figures to use your shaders.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

But now for something completely different:

Any way to compensate for the "blueness" around the mouth if you reduce scatter scale to 0.8 ?

It's gone when I stick with the recommended scale of 1.5, but for this render I found the softer 0.8 scatter more pleasant looking.

I gather I'm not going to get a response to my question:

"I'd be interested in opinions on this IDL plugin:

http://www.runtimedna.com/IDL-STUDIO.html and the expansion packs:
http://www.runtimedna.com/IDL-Studio-Expansion-1.html and
http://www.runtimedna.com/IDL-Studio-Expansion-2.html"

Because, as I hear it, it's better to create my own setup depending on the envirionment. That's fine, but this discussion is a bit above my head. So if I could ask, what settings and where in the Poser 8 application (render settings, light settings, etc) do I set up depending on:

dark indoor setting?
bright outdoor setting?
dark outdoor setting?

If I could get a manual or files or a step by step it would be very helpful and a great boost to what I'm trying to do.

Bright outdoor setting:
Use BB"s sphere
Use One infinite true white light at 55% (and please stay away of those IBL Lights)

Render with IDL. (You have Poser 8, so no Gamma Correction)

Dark outdoor setting:
Use BB"s sphere
Use One infinite true white light at 15% to 25% (and please stay away of those IBL Lights)

Render with IDL. (You have Poser 8, so no Gamma Correction)

Joe public uses an IBL ligh AND a point light.
I recomend against that.

Simple reason? There is ONLY one sun, and ONE only.

Why, oh why, use an IBL light that does not behave like the sun does, but then need a second light to correct that, but does NOT behave like sunlight either?

Indoors:
Sorry, too many variables, depends heavily on the scene.

But in Poser8 you will not have the fantastic preview of the IDL light, as you would in Poser9 or PP2012.

And sorry, but I am against using someone elses lights, as they do not care for what is in YOUR scene.. You will allways have to adapt

And with a Joke; It is not by going to Mc Donalds that you will learn how to cook. :-)

Mc Donals can be acceptable, OK, but nothing more, and you will not learn a lot.
And as I said before, and others repeated; Most light sets out there are from before IDL.
So forget them. They wil do more harm then good.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

For bright sun I actually use brighter infinite.

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What do you think of this image?

Infinite is 150% intensity!

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Versus Infinite at 40%

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Settings

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Params

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Render settings

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You have to imagine you are a camera. You compensate for darkness by increasing exposure. This means in a high contrast environment (bright single light source - either sun or moon) you would perceive that light source as incredibly bright.

On the other hand, with many indoor sources of light, none are individually bright. Typical indoor intensity might be 2% but you have 12 of them.

Similarly, outdoors on an overcast day, the sun is muted and spread out, so you would not use 150% intensity.

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In this revision, the moon light is again at 40%, but I have added 5 point lights, each at only 2% intensity.

The balance of moonlight through the window is decreased - why?

The moon doesn't change brightness. Why am I successful by changing it here?

Because our mental "camera" is at a different exposure!

I added other lights - interior lights. So there is plenty of light in every corner. The camera is set for a faster shutter speed. Thus the moonlight is less bright than before.

Now - how do you "buy" a set like this unless you also buy the room with it?

There is no single correct moonlight. You have to take into account camera exposure, which means you have to also consider other interior lights, which means you must also consider the shape of the room, and how would such a room be lit?

If lit from ceiling lights like an office, it is very different than lit from table and floor lamps like a home.

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In the last render I introduced 5 points lights, each at 2%. I used the infinite at 40%. I had an environment with a daylight image, but luminance (via an HSV node) set to .005.

Here all the components are kept, with the following changes:

Environment sphere luminance set to 3 (3 times brighter than the original photo)

Infinite light for sun set to 270% intensity.

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Thank you vilters and bagginsbill. I have downloaded the env sphere, and set up the Render settings as bagginsbill has shown and the one light (the moon). Is that the render settings to have with dark or bright environments?

Rendering now but sure is taking forever. And forever.

Michael - the reason these techniques are sort of "new" in the Poser world is because typical hobby CG computers were too slow for them just five years ago.

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Render settings are about quality not about luminance. I made them (the render quality settings) low hoping you would find the render times tolerable. Mine are usually much higher. Sorry I have a good computer. grin

My advice is to render small. I don't need 1 mega pixel images to see I screwed up the light level. I do quick test renders at around 200 to 300 pixels.

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What setting are you referring to? Pixel samples? I definitely need my test renders to speed up.

Size of the image. Each pixel takes a certain time. The more you have, the more time it takes.

I use the Render Dimension dialog to adjust the size of the image without changing preview window size at all. Or I use the pulldown on the Render time to render Half or Quarter size instead of Full.

A 200 by 200 pixel image is 40,000 pixels. Suppose that takes 5 minutes.

An image that is 1000 x 1000 is going to be 1,000,000 pixels. That will take over two hours instead.

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This image took 13.5 minutes. It is 40K pixels. (200 by 200)

The ones I posted earlier took almost an hour each.

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I have reduced the dimensions to 200 x 200 and it is still only about 35% done after an hour.

I'm trying to think what settings I have to cause the increased rendering time. One thing I remember is that I selected sub surface scattering in the material room for the character's skin. Would that cause a big increase in rendering time?

Quote - ...Would that cause a big increase in rendering time?

Most definitely ;)

Laurie

I can't get over how people bite off trying a new thing by doing a whole scene, with figure, skin shader, hair, cloth, and then they wonder why they don't have enough time to learn everything.

Render a couple of primitives in a white room with a doorway. Once you know that inside and out, then you have permission to use a figure.

Until then, you're in way over your head.

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Would you be willing to post a screenshot of your render settings, Michael? We might be able to trim that time down for you a bit... also, LaurieA has a strategy for making Poser activity a "low priority" Windows activity... IIRC, (which I probably don't). Not sure even if that strategy works for 32-bit versions of Poser, which P8 is, or if it has an impact on render times.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

Running at low priority has no impact on render time. It simply lets your computer react to your presence quickly.

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Quote - I can't get over how people bite off trying a new thing by doing a whole scene, with figure, skin shader, hair, cloth, and then they wonder why they don't have enough time to learn everything.

Render a couple of primitives in a white room with a doorway. Once you know that inside and out, then you have permission to use a figure.

Until then, you're in way over your head.

I really think you're addressing an issue I was actually going to mention: workflow, BB. You experiment until you feel you have a reasonably good understanding of a given component of Poser (shader/lights/what-have-you). Michael's keen to finish a project, so he just wants to get a reasonably decent render out in as quickly a period of time as possible. Which I think is where most Poser users are... they don't have that experimentation mindset.

Poser, unfortunately, is of a complexity that precludes load-pose-render-getKillerResults workflow: there really are no shortcuts. You can't buy a shortcut, either, unfortunately. I purchased and had a play with the IDL 360 light thingie available over at DNA: the promos looked awesome and as per usualy, I was sucked into thinking that I'd get the same results.

Actually did - there was no false advertising. But it wasn't the look I was actually after. So, I dissected what was being offered in this set and on occasion use bits of it because that suits my workflow.

But really, Michael, I really think that in the short term, you're best off spending a bit of time with that doorway and primitives and really basic render setting that crank out an image in no time so you can get a feel for what Poser does. You do need to include that in your workflow, only until you get a feel for it. It will flatten that learning curve significantly.

When did we start this thread? How much have you learned since starting it? Where would you be now with your renders if you spent a bit of time messing with lights and simple props to get a feel for what Poser does instead of trying to get a finished product straight away?

Not criticising you at all, mind you: I'm there too. I get impatient and just wanna get the thing done. But Poser resists me at every turn: I keep getting some new wrinkle I don't understand and then I can either Photoshop it out or decide I need to nut out what's causing it.

If you're into Poser for the long term - good CHOICE! - then stick around, read a lot, experiment, develop your style and enjoy. It's an amazing programme ... with the exception that there's no make-art button. :biggrin:

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

Nah...no impact on render times...lol.

Laurie

Quote - Running at low priority has no impact on render time. It simply lets your computer react to your presence quickly.

Thanks, BB... wasn't sure about that.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

Seems a consensus, then.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

> Quote - It's an amazing programme ... with the exception that there's no make-art button. :biggrin:

There IS! Hidden in the Python Scripts window, under Wardrobe Wizard > Utilities > More. I guess it's PP2012 only though LOL

It really does make art. Quite literally actually.

Sorry for the diversion. I couldn't stop myself xD

- - - - - -

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Quote - I can't get over how people bite off trying a new thing by doing a whole scene, with figure, skin shader, hair, cloth, and then they wonder why they don't have enough time to learn everything.

Render a couple of primitives in a white room with a doorway. Once you know that inside and out, then you have permission to use a figure.

Until then, you're in way over your head.

I understand where you're coming from, however, I'm not exactly that new at this. I've been creating and posing characters on and off for over two years, but that being said, I've never gotten too heavily into lighting. Now I'm at a point where I feel I need to and was hoping that I could find a better, faster, easier way than the hunting and pecking - the time laborious experimenting, trial and mostly error - I have been doing with lighting.

Point well taken and a good idea to experiment with a very simple scene.

Thank you, **RobynsVeil**, and of course you are absolutely right. Taking the time to learn and experiment will probably save me time in the long run. (Take a deep breath, Michael) And yes, I will try the simple door idea to learn more about lighting.

You wanted to see my render settings. They are attached. Also attached below is a screen shot of the small render that I THOUGHT was going to give me a night type envirionmnet. I know, I know.... try the door.

Not sure why this is not night with the light settings I have above

Cool, thanks for the render setting screenshot, Michael.

1st tip: take minimum displacement bounds to something a bit more than 0.000. That will speed up things HUGEly. Like 0.004 or 0.008.

Your IDL quality is really final quality... you can do trials at less. Like 4-5.

Raytrace bounces... 3 is final quality as well and only if you have something in the scene that requires the bounces... for checking stuff, go with 1. I'd go with sinc instead of box for post filter size: gives you better quality for the same price.

Well, that's my suggestions, anyway... :blink:

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

I would kill displacement for test renders. Depending how extensive it is used within a scene, that can cause render times to increase significantly.

Thanks, RobynsVeil. Changing to the settings you recommend definitely speeded up! Really appreciate the tips.

However, I have two questions:

With the settings I have for the sole light in the scene (as shown in my screenshot above) why does it render as daylight and not night?
And, how do I turn off Subsurface Scattering? For a lot of the skin materials I clicked on Add Subsurface Scattering and don't see how I can remove it.

Quote - I would kill displacement for test renders. Depending how extensive it is used within a scene, that can cause render times to increase significantly.

At 0.000 setting I was told that was too high. How do you 'kill' the displacment setting?

Quote - > Quote - I would kill displacement for test renders. Depending how extensive it is used within a scene, that can cause render times to increase significantly.

At 0.000 setting I was told that was too high. How do you 'kill' the displacment setting?

In your render settings, un-tick "Use displacement maps" (in the right-hand column)

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

Quote - Thanks, RobynsVeil. Changing to the settings you recommend definitely speeded up! Really appreciate the tips.

However, I have two questions:

With the settings I have for the sole light in the scene (as shown in my screenshot above) why does it render as daylight and not night?

And, how do I turn off Subsurface Scattering? For a lot of the skin materials I clicked on Add Subsurface Scattering and don't see how I can remove it.

If you have Poser 8, subsurface scattering is - at best - faked in BB's pr3 shader that comes with VSS - not a bad fake, mind you.

Poser 9/PP2012 has a tick box in the render settings for subsurface scattering. When you get a chance: upgrade. If you can afford it, get PP2012. It is so worth it!

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

Your image probably looks like daylight rather than night because you're background is white? Is that a sky dome? or just Poser background?

Laurie

@Michaelab

I suppose U used BB's sphere in your picture and reduced the light intensity to create "night". Am I right?

OK, night.
BB's sphere is a diffuser-emitter (he probably has a better explanation for it, but I like to keep things simple).
The sphere works best with a Sky texture on it. And it simulates 'air light diffusing" to help with real IDL calculations.

Most downloadable sky textures are bright day sky textures.
At night however, the sky is not bright, but dark.

So you will have to darken the sphere, or darken the textures, to create a night environment.

As I look at our picture?
The figure is darker but the environment stayed bright as in a day situation.

Darken the sphere, or darken the sky texture you had put on the sphere to get "night light" IDL calculations.

BB himself surely has other tricks up his sleeve. :-)

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

I already showed the trick and wrote it yesterday. Go back a page.

Same scene is shown with the same lights and same sky, one is day, one is night. Read what I wrote.

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Was my explanation of these (on previous page) not sufficient? Same lights, same sky picture, same render settings, different intensities.

Day

Night

Night with interior lights off

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Here's what I'm trying to achieve:

Dark indoor setting in a room. Two characters facing each other. It is an intense confrontation.
From the ceiling shoots down an 8 foot wide column of light, as if moonlight were shooting through an 8 foot diameter hole in the ceiling.

The column of light falls on these two seeming advesaries but not so intense as to wash them out as they are standing half in and half out of the column.

How would I get this column of light (the column doesn't have to have a sharp, defined edge to it, however) to be a column? We don't have to see the source of the circular pillar of light, just its emanation, cutting throught the dark to the carpeted floor.

However, I want to see the whites of their eyes!

Quote - However, I want to see the whites of their eyes!

The column of light: in Poser 8, prepare for a long render. You'll be using atmosphere... takes a while. Whites of their eyes? Render twice, two different settings... and composite the two images in GIMP/PS.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

Michael, Robyn is right, you'd have to use Atmosphere. If you're already complaining about render times, prepare to be even more unhappy.

Just getting the light in a cone or cylinder is no problem. But seeing it light up dust particles is.

An alternative is to use a semi-transparent cylinder or cone that is self-lit.

In either case, both tactics have been covered in many threads. If you can't find them via searching, come back and I'll try the search for you.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

> Quote - Your best bet is to learn how lights work in general. Light sets don't always supply what you need. Sometimes it's better to make what you need ;). > > I use Advanced Light and Camera guides from RDNA to place my lights and actually SEE the area of influence each light has. Helps a lot :). I've fiddled and fiddled with a light only to find that the distance wasn't enough to reach the object I was trying to light. Advanced Light and Camera guides helps with that. > > Laurie

Hi Laurie,

I went ahead and bought the Advanced Light and Camera guides from RDNA because I'm tired of trying to guess where the lights are, and installed them into my Poser 8 Runtime folders, however when I click on the menu item under the Scripts main menu I get the attached popup. Do you know what that means and what I can do to fix it and get this script running?

I'd be writing Semidieu over at DNA - think it's Basil who puts this out... he's very helpful!

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand]

Metaphor of Chooks

You may have installed the wrong one. There was a recent update which I think was a separate zip. If you have Poser 8/Pro 2010 you don't want to apply that extra zip. If you have Poser 9/Pro 2012 you DO want to apply it. Things changed in Poser's implementation of Python between the last two versions.

Now, that's as I remember it. Does not mean that's how it was...LOL. Your best bet is to contact RDNA ;).

Laurie

BB Does it make a difference where the light is positioned? I used your settings but I just get black renders, no light coming through the windows, renders black as if there are no lights at all. I am also using your env sphere, with one infinite light. Thanks

Poser 9 SR3 and 8 sr3
=================
Processor Type: AMD Phenom II 830 Quad-Core
2.80GHz, 4000MHz System Bus, 2MB L2 Cache + 6MB Shared L3 Cache
Hard Drive Size: 1TB
Processor - Clock Speed: 2.8 GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Graphics Type: ATI Radeon HD 4200
•ATI Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics
System Ram: 8GB

We normally point a light away from the camera towards a subject. But in the room image I did, the light was pointing towards the camera.

On the light ball widget, the stick was behind the ball, instead of in front of it.

The light has to be aimed to pass through the windows and land on the floor inside the room.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Thanks, I'll keep messing with it and see what happens 'o)

Poser 9 SR3 and 8 sr3
=================
Processor Type: AMD Phenom II 830 Quad-Core
2.80GHz, 4000MHz System Bus, 2MB L2 Cache + 6MB Shared L3 Cache
Hard Drive Size: 1TB
Processor - Clock Speed: 2.8 GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Graphics Type: ATI Radeon HD 4200
•ATI Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics
System Ram: 8GB

Ok So I am trying this out, using lower render settings just to see how it goes, and here is what I have so far. Ignore the fireplace, I couldn't figure how to get it to make the room glow! Will work on that next :)

Poser 9 SR3 and 8 sr3
=================
Processor Type: AMD Phenom II 830 Quad-Core
2.80GHz, 4000MHz System Bus, 2MB L2 Cache + 6MB Shared L3 Cache
Hard Drive Size: 1TB
Processor - Clock Speed: 2.8 GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Graphics Type: ATI Radeon HD 4200
•ATI Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics
System Ram: 8GB

> Quote - Ok So I am trying this out, using lower render settings just to see how it goes, and here is what I have so far. Ignore the fireplace, I couldn't figure how to get it to make the room glow! Will work on that next :) > >

looks good from what I see, to get the fire to glow, set the ambient to white and increase the value - in the attached image I had the ambience on the fires set at 500 I also plugged the colour map into the ambient colour node so that i got the flames looking like flames - hope that helps.

Locked Out

Quote -
looks good from what I see, to get the fire to glow, set the ambient to white and increase the value - in the attached image I had the ambience on the fires set at 500 I also plugged the colour map into the ambient colour node so that i got the flames looking like flames - hope that helps.

Thanks I will give that a try and see if it works better :)

Poser 9 SR3 and 8 sr3
=================
Processor Type: AMD Phenom II 830 Quad-Core
2.80GHz, 4000MHz System Bus, 2MB L2 Cache + 6MB Shared L3 Cache
Hard Drive Size: 1TB
Processor - Clock Speed: 2.8 GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Graphics Type: ATI Radeon HD 4200
•ATI Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics
System Ram: 8GB

Be aware, if you are hoping to illuminate the entire room, you will be using rather high ambient values. And you will not have any control on inverse square light falloff which is a feature on point lights.

Thanks, not wanting to illuminate the whole room, just wanted a little more glow around the fireplace .

Poser 9 SR3 and 8 sr3
=================
Processor Type: AMD Phenom II 830 Quad-Core
2.80GHz, 4000MHz System Bus, 2MB L2 Cache + 6MB Shared L3 Cache
Hard Drive Size: 1TB
Processor - Clock Speed: 2.8 GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Graphics Type: ATI Radeon HD 4200
•ATI Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics
System Ram: 8GB

Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL

Subject: Is there a good/easy to understand light set out there for Poser 8?