Hi all, I have seen several renders made in Poser where I have been favoring Bryce. Now I would like to better understand the Poser technique. So I've read some tutorials and spent the last few days tweaking them lights - BUT can't seem to get the shadows to come in and still keep a reasonable realistic lighting? Currently this test render has 3 "Infinitive" lights (low settings) 1 off to her left and down, 1 directly behind her; these 2 have the Shadows turned OFF. The 3rd "Infinitive" is behind her and up with a low volume but Shadows turned to about 4.xxx; then I have 1 "Spot Light" above and to the right of her with a volume of about 51% and Shadows turned to 7.xxx Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jeff

First, May I say, fantastic picture! As for the shadows, be sure to turn the shadow map up to 1024. This will give you shadows without the blotchy effect. You can also double click on the shadow map dial and increase the limit value for an even better effect. The highest setting I have ever used is 2000. It really slows down the render but the render looks pretty good :) Hope this helps you. Styxx

Thanks Styxx, maybe I have been too conservative? I haven't tried to max out the Shadow dial. This is my first attempt at rendering a whole scene in Poser and I didn't even catch on that double clicking the dials would do anything. Back to exploring and see what I come up with!

I agree very interesting and very well done. for this I would light mostly with spotlight and the end angle opened to max, the shadow map on at least 2 of them set to 1024. I would also use the point at the actresses head 1 of the spots. also the dial shadow dial I might set to .5 for a definied but light shadow. hope that helps.

(seems to be a run on this topic the last couple of days) In addition to the suggestions about 1048 shadow map size, try some fun with the shadow cams. Using all spotlights, zoom & pan each light's Shadow Cam to cover only the part of the scene to be rendered. This will give you the highest-res shadows, but with very hard edges as you would get from the unobscured sun or other pinpoint light source. Zoom the shadow cams back out to feather & soften the shadow edges as desired. You might even consider using a cookie/gobo (i.e. a patterned transmap on a single sided square prop) in front of your key light to simulate sunlight/moonlight through leaves for a less sterile wall surface and hinting at depth & objects behind the camera. Wonderful concept with great details btw, -- but I think you are right, adjusting the flat lighting & adding some cast shadows for depth ought to make it even more interesting.

... and very photorealistic wall bricks btw. Is that all Poser?

Well, I played some more last night and didn't seem to make anymore that a very light, almost visable shadow. Unfortunatly I have to do my "real job" all day but thanks for all the suggestions, tonight I will try Laverson's suggestion and elliminate the "Infinative" lights and try more Spot lights now that I know more about controlling the,. Nance, your suggestion of Cookie/Gobo sounds interesting. I am still very new and never heard of this but it sound like a veriation of a Flare Tutorial I read a while back....maybe I can do something with that as well...

I musta missed that flare tutorial. Do you recall where you saw it?

Nance, sorry, I have two wonderful tutorials for making Flares and flare-type effects in Poser but NEITHER has the author's name in the readme or instructions ;-( I picked them up quite some time ago when Poser and Bryce where brand new to me but now I tend to check my downloads and add the author's info to them if missing...hard to go back when you don't know the road... Check the earlier listings in Rendorosity's lists as this is where I first started my journey..One is called the "Faux Volume Technique" the other included a PZ3 flare set up with several examples

Thanks igohigh, I'll look around in the attic.

The flare tutorial was, IIRC, done by SixPacWolf. I know it used to be at the Props Guild; don't know where it can be found now.