Told you I'd have lots of questions.

Many of my renders are outdoor, in bright sunlight with definite shadows, such as you see on a bright sunny day. How do I achieve this in Superfly? My attempts so far have given a vague splotch on the floor, nowt like the definite contrast you'd expect.

I'm using one Infinite light with shadow set to 1, in my own dome/ground setup. The dome part has a sky shader with Ambient set to 1. I haven't yet converted this thing to a Superfly shader, figuring the Ambient would work just as well for now.

So, what am I doing wrong and how do I put it right?

I may have answered me own question here. It seems the old Firefly trick of adding lights to view a scene while building it - but having them not render - doesn't work in Superfly. That's a shame but at least I learned something new.

Superfly uses a new area light feature too. It's under the light properties for each individual light you create. Try playing with them and see if you can get the lighting you want :D

You can do the non render light trick in SF, but it is a different set up. I am on my Kindle so I don't access to the setting, ghostman has a light set at ShareCG as well as a wonderful "uber" SF shader set to get you started. I will get those links to you tomorrow if someone else hasn't beat me to it. Be patient with P 11, it is so worth it.

Sheesh, that is ghostship not ghiostman ... in case you do your own search.

Looking for something like this:-

one infinite light (0.1 shadow blur - if I remember right) +EZdome.

You might want to check out SnarlyGribbly's EZdome. It could give you some ideas about setting up skydome materials.

The newest edition of the EZ dome has a shadow catcher installed now. The older version didn't.

Thanks, all. I will definitely be checking Snarly's EZDome and ghostship's lights.

Kazam - yep, they look interesting and I noted seach makes extensive use of them.

Boni posted at 1:17AM Mon, 26 March 2018 - #4326821

You can do the non render light trick in SF, but it is a different set up. I am on my Kindle so I don't access to the setting, ghostman has a light set at ShareCG as well as a wonderful "uber" SF shader set to get you started. I will get those links to you tomorrow if someone else hasn't beat me to it. Be patient with P 11, it is so worth it.

Patient? You know the old cartoon about the two vultures? One is saying "Paitence, my ass... I'm gonna kill something!"

Could have been written about me.

To make setup lights that don't render is to plug a simple color node set to black into all the color spots on the root node.

That's the one, rokket!

@ RedPhantom - thanks for the tip. Will try it out tomorrow.

I had that one a t-shirt when I was a teen. Got me kicked out of school! So I went back the next day with a t-shirt that had a mermaid with 3 giant melons and no bra. I went home that day too. My principal was a prude...

Definitely get EZDome and then go here for some great hdr light sets. EZDome reads the .ibl file included in these and sets up the lighting for you as well. And you can download their program sIBL Edit to even make your own sets from other .hdrs. Some of the best are freely given away at https://hdrihaven.com/. Also, do yourself a favour and sign up at the SmithMicro Poser forums. I was a latecomer to P11 as well and those forums have been the greatest resource for knowledge as people had been posting there since P11 came out and most everything's covered.

This is all great info and I'm filing everything away. Thanks so much and keep it coming.

As it happens, I am signed up at SmithMicro forums - I think (it's been a while) - so I'll take a look in there.

Now, forgive me for bending your (metaphorical) ears yet again but I thought IBL was a big no-no these days. As in, "We don't use that stuff any more because now we have much better ways to light stuff". TBH, the idea of having to create my own hdr images, then create sIBL sets from them appeals to me about as much as a slap with a wet sock. Not that I'm lazy but it seems a hell of a faff if there's a more straightforward way, such as using my own dome/ground thingy. But then, I freely admit I know naff all about P11 so maybe I should just shut me gob.

rokket posted at 3:41PM Mon, 26 March 2018 - #4326838

I had that one a t-shirt when I was a teen. Got me kicked out of school! So I went back the next day with a t-shirt that had a mermaid with 3 giant melons and no bra. I went home that day too. My principal was a prude...

Schools here have strict uniform rules which I cheerfully ignored in my teens. This was in the early 70s, the time of Bowie's wild costumes and makeup, and me being a huge fan of Bowie and T.Rex, used to roll up to school in completely outrageous clothes and silver and/or gold hair. They stopped sending me home after a while - because they knew that's what I wanted - and put me on permanent detention.

Funny thing is, I did well academically, was never violent or abusive but for some reason or another, the teachers didn't really care much for me.

I'll second Kalypso's suggestion to start hanging out at the SM Poser Forum, as I've learned a lot about PP11 and SuperFly in the past 2 years thanks to those good folks.

How I set up a non rendering light in PoserPro11.

Great stuff! Thank you, it works a charm.

The .ibl file I mentioned above is not an IBL light. It is generated by that program to give information on the .hdr such as sun strength and placement and other parameters all of which can be edited in EZDome. The sun light that is added is an infinite light (as it should be) and can sometimes even be omitted if the .hdr has a high EV as several from HdrHaven do. Snarly has really done so much for making my Poser experience so satisfying. :) Oh and when you get EZSkin 3 also pick up some addons for the cycles surface and an addon by amethystpendant to apply BB's hair settings for Superfly - don't be afraid to try it, render times are not that long once you know what you're doing and not rendering really demanding effects.

Thanks, Kalypso. I'll try all these things and see how I get on.

Ghostship doesn't go by that name in ShareCG ... HERE are his "Uber shaders" and HERE are his studio lights!

Also if you don't care for the built in dome or "construct" as it is referred to by SM, you can go into properties and make it "invisible", it is "GROUND" in the props list. For ground shadows ... SF works much the same way as FF. Here are the light settings default for 1 infinite light in the "Construct" with Pauline Casual

Here is with shadow radius increased:

Groovy! Many thanks, Boni.

Now, what's all the Mesh Light thingy about? How do I do that, huh?

BTW, I got the shadow thing sorted out; I had a combination of a really manky floor material and low shadow samples, both of which contributed to them looking lousy. Now they look pretty good but I'm trying to get the scene to look more brightly lit but attempts so far are, shall we say, varied.

Another great source for learning more about lights and light effects are seachnasaigh's freebies here He's also got some great skydome textures too. Jura's free bedrooms/bathrooms can help you figure out a lot about light placement, render settings, etc. I don't know if they're in Freestuff here but he's definitely linked to them in the SM forum.

Oh, thank you for reminding me, Kalypso. I remember seachnasaigh is something of a lighting guru and knows a lot about special effects. I'll definitely be taking a close look at his stuff. ISTR he did some amazing things with the Dystopia city blocks, which is something that interests me greatly.

I think I solved all the basic problems around getting a good looking, generic outdoor render, thanks to you good people and a little thinking of me own. It's a huge leap from Poser Pro 2012, to be sure but the results appear to be worth it.

Many thanks for all your help so far. I'm certain there will be more questions in the not too distant future. Right now, there's a bottle of Absolut Vodka with my name on it.

SamTherapy posted at 7:16PM Mon, 26 March 2018 - #4326856

rokket posted at 3:41PM Mon, 26 March 2018 - #4326838

I had that one a t-shirt when I was a teen. Got me kicked out of school! So I went back the next day with a t-shirt that had a mermaid with 3 giant melons and no bra. I went home that day too. My principal was a prude...

Schools here have strict uniform rules which I cheerfully ignored in my teens. This was in the early 70s, the time of Bowie's wild costumes and makeup, and me being a huge fan of Bowie and T.Rex, used to roll up to school in completely outrageous clothes and silver and/or gold hair. They stopped sending me home after a while - because they knew that's what I wanted - and put me on permanent detention.

Funny thing is, I did well academically, was never violent or abusive but for some reason or another, the teachers didn't really care much for me.

I only got away with it a couple times myself. After they figured me out, they simply called my dad and he put a stop to it when I got home. He was a scary dude.

If you are going to use the EZDome, you will need this site too: https://hdrihaven.com/

rokket posted at 10:14PM Tue, 27 March 2018 - #4326921

SamTherapy posted at 7:16PM Mon, 26 March 2018 - #4326856

rokket posted at 3:41PM Mon, 26 March 2018 - #4326838

I had that one a t-shirt when I was a teen. Got me kicked out of school! So I went back the next day with a t-shirt that had a mermaid with 3 giant melons and no bra. I went home that day too. My principal was a prude...

Schools here have strict uniform rules which I cheerfully ignored in my teens. This was in the early 70s, the time of Bowie's wild costumes and makeup, and me being a huge fan of Bowie and T.Rex, used to roll up to school in completely outrageous clothes and silver and/or gold hair. They stopped sending me home after a while - because they knew that's what I wanted - and put me on permanent detention.

Funny thing is, I did well academically, was never violent or abusive but for some reason or another, the teachers didn't really care much for me.

I only got away with it a couple times myself. After they figured me out, they simply called my dad and he put a stop to it when I got home. He was a scary dude.

If you are going to use the EZDome, you will need this site too: https://hdrihaven.com/

My dad was more of the "You'll find out the hard way" school. That and, he had a similar rebellious nature, plus - as he told me later - he thought I'd been through enough with my parents' divorce and that coming down hard on me would only make matters worse.

I have the hdrihaven url bookmarked.