Hi, I'm at the early stages on a scene in a Geisha House. I want to use the shadows and soft lighting created by the paper and walls of the 'teahouse' (from 3d caf. The problem is that the light either passes through the walls, or is stopped by the walls. You'll see in the right hand corner that the light is equally strong after it has passed through the paper panels as when it comes, 'undiluted' through the door. Of course only some of the light should pass through the panels and be creating areas of light ans darknes without the harsh shadows of the frame. I've tried playing with the transparency levels and falloff but the light either passes through as though the panel were glass, or is completely stopped as though they were wood. Is there a way to get this efect in poser, or is it just one of the limitations of the rendering engine? Thanks for any help! angola

Your righ, I just ran a test, Poser shadows are either on or off- a 50% tranparency has the same shadow as 0% transparency, somewhere around 60% transparency shadows go away compleatly. Never noticed thaty before, must be a simplfication the render engine uses. The only answer I can suggest is render in another program, like Bryce. Really nice job on the house and render! But I thought Geishas weren't actually hookers- but maybe all her clothing is in the wash? Or she is going to wash him? ;-)

can you set the shadow dial on the light itself to .5 instead of 1? I'm horrible with shadows in poser but it seems like that could be a workaround.

How about building a separate non-transparent wall behind the 'paper' one, with a door opening in it..... then place the diffuse lights in front of that wall, and place a spotlight behind the door opening in the 'solid' wall.

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When I grow up i'm gonna get a real rendering engine, for the moment I'm stuck with Poser :-( Setting the shadow to 0.5 just tones down all the shadows for the frame and the panels - same problem. The workaround sounds like it'd work Ockham, but before taking that direction I'll probably just render twice, once with and once without then rejig the thing in Photoshop. The problem is that's with and without for each light... BTW, Geisha were sometimes highly trained and talented 'entertainers', but the references to their being prostitutes are rife. If my experiences of Korea are anything to go by, prostitution often hides behind other 'services' so the suspicion that they occassionally offered more than conversation might be more than just a western perversion. My Geisha is not a prostitute, she is having a bath (or will be once I complete the scenery). It' just that Poser does clothes so badly and skin so nicely a litle bit of flesh can realy change the image (honest!) Thanks angola

But they didn't have baths in tea houses! The bath houses are quite different, with a place for cleansing and a place for rinsing. Slopping soapy water over those tatami mats will make for a soggy tea ceremony afterwards (wet kimonos -ugh). I like what you are trying to do with lighting, BTW. Carolly

The model is a 'teahouse' it's not my model so I don't get to name it "hot'n horny geisha house" as i would have liked. This particular 'teahouse' is serving as my 'geisha' house' in which a young lady is being washed by a Geisha - the story is for you to imagine. Bath houses are, of course, entirely another thing but I believe young ladies, then as now, sometimes took care of personal hygine outside of purpose-built communal facilities - and much to my chagrin as unlike you, I find the idea of a wet kimono rather appealing. ;-) angola

Very nice work, but you should resize the house, the house is too big. The tatamis on the floor are about 180 to 90 cm. And the gap between two tatamis is about 3-4 cm. Tea houses are very small structures. By the way where did you get the house from ? It is not at 3dcafe. Karl

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You're right Grammer, it doesn't come from 3D caf it's one of a whole heap of stuff I dl'ed while abusing the ADSL connection at work (I was testing a video game, and man can that be boring). The readme says it a Japanese tearoom by fasttrax, and I can only asume I dled it from chemical studios (above). I was going on Tatami at 2m by 1m (my RPG rules said so) but in the end the size will be determined by the space needed to get the intimacy of the room once it's full of stuff. I rendered with a 20mm lens so that might be throwing the perspective a little.

I always thought the same thing about the Geishas-not-being-prostitutes-sometimes they "doth protest too much"! Anyway, hopefully Poser 5 will get a real render engine, I love working in Poser, compaired to say Bryce where you can never see what you have until you render, and it is so fast in rendering, but it needs a better engine that you can turn down when you need the speed. Incidently, Bryce does a pretty good job on Poser stuff, but it is a royal pain getting them in and in position, Max (which I also own) has problems with things like my hair, so I haven't gotten too far in rendering in it, I bought it for the modeling anyway.