i'm using PP12.

the IBL/AO tutorial by retro devil
http://retrodevil3d.blogspot.com/2011/01/poser-light-tutorial.html

the SSS wacro in poser pro 2012 (sue me for not tinkering to make it 'better').

and the sweaty skin tutorial by kfox
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=2380

and a light setup i tweaked from the Rembrandt IBL (or was it Teen Headbanger Room? something like that).

  as retro devil advised, i have AO checkmarked on for the IBL diffuse scene light, and my main light, which is a spot light.   i'm also using 'depth map' shadows on that light, because they come out better.  (this is probably my doom, but i tried changing to ray tracing, it didn't work any better.)  the first time i used AO (with the same no clue what i was doing), it turned out great.  the fingers against the skin had dimensionality and "contact" with the skin.

   the image... wherever this thing sticks the image... shows the fingers against the cheek, but there's no shadowing or sense of 'contact' with the skin.  does anybody have a clue WHY?  well, any guesses; obviously you can't see my whole lighting setup and render settings.

   also, are there any more tutorials on how to work with these newfangled lights?  it used to be (in poser 4, for you young'ns) i  dragged my 3 infinite poser lights around the light ball, set their colours, put in huge shadow map sizes and i could pretty much see where the highlights and shadows were going to be.  and they were!

   with this IBL and AO and ray tracing and all...  i have to tweak one light, then do a render to see what it did.  and the render doesn't look much like the lighting preview.  i spent about five hours getting these lights in positions where the highlights and shadows looked okay.  where there were shadows.  i'm still at a loss as to why there's not a shadow under the ear on that one guy's neck.

   there's got to be a faster way to grok these things.

I would let go of your old lightsets and start fresh. What you need most is a sphere to park a world image on. Be it sky or the inside of a cathedral, this replaces the ibl and provides light on its own.

You can then add one mainlight for sun (start with infinite)or spot. A specular only light to help with spec of couse. Start simple and work your way up.

Preview does kinda suck but you can add a worklight for posing and just tick it off before rendering.

you could give raytrace light another chance  :idea:

you can set the shadow strength (default 1) on the properties to something like .5 will let texture show through.

depth maps, there is an option to recalc the shadows.

(I cling to IBL and Atmo, in PP12 64 bits it's fast now.  Even with 20 raytrace bounces)

i went from p4 to pp12... theyre ALL new light sets :P

   are there any IDL tutorials?

  i dont have a world image.  i just want a dark scene, plain black background, and light that looks like candle/fire/torch light.

   actually, the shadows are not dark enough, but i will try setting them above 1; that's an idea. 

not sure that will help the missing AO or places where shadows just arent.  oh... maybe i can create a light that ONLY make shadows but doesn't light the scene...?

  any other ideas why the ambient won't occlude?  :/

If you want a black background, then IDL would not be necessary.  Turn off light emitter in the figure's Properties/Parameters palette.  On your ligh set, try raytracing and set your min shadow rate to 0.1.  That works similarly to AO, but you need to set an effective distance for the shadowing to work.

blood, post screenshots with your render/AO lite settings, that the experts might advise.  IDL might be easier to get good results on occlusion shadows, unless diffuse colour is set too high, in which case one gets the opposite effect to occlusion: over-saturation in close-contact skin areas, e.g. in the render above, where the nostril is close to the cheek.

okay...

  if i want to throw out ALL my lights and start from scratch...  what are the steps for that, like in that devil guy's tutorial?

hborre: 'effective distance' of what to what to make the shadows work??

  if i do rip out the lights i have now... and, say, try to do an IDL with a giant sphere thing (do i need to put an actual giant sphere IN the scene, or just a spherical image on the light??)...  do i have to turn OFF the ao in the lights and/or objects?  do i have to turn off the SSS?

   i dunno what is compatible with what, or what most of these settings are for. :X

OKAY!  i figured it out! 

miss nancy wins the prize!  some IDIOT should have checked the render settings... and make sure 'shadows' were turned on...!!!  i did that, and lo and behold, the AO i expected on the fingers against the skin magically appeared!

::zonk!::

(now to find out who turned the shadows and stuff OFF, so i can hurt him....)

but seriously!  need them basic, start-from-scratch, slow-step-by-slow-step instruction tutorials for these things!

thanks a bunch, guys!

If this value is set too high, you will not see correct shadowing in crevices, folds and adjoining surfaces.

thanks, h!

complicated stuff, this.