Ok, so I want to cast a particular shadow on my figure in poser. Is "shadow map" on the light an actual map? I'd like to just do a black & white silhouette and apply it to the light to create the edge for the shadow, rather than having to stick a mesh in front of the light. Is it possible or should I take it to another rendering app? MaryCanary

AFAIK this isn't possible, you could use a one-sided square with a transmap in front of a spotlight to cast certain shadows if you don't want to use a mesh but that's about it.

The shadow map is what Poser uses internally to work out where shadows fall; you can't get at it. Kalypso's transmap idea is the best way to get a particular shadow pattern. You'll probably want to increase the light's shadow map size to get better definition of the edges.

As English Bob says, the shadow map is internal. In fact, AFAIK it's just a size. Default is set at 256, which is pretty awful. I set all mine to 1024 which gives better, softer shadows. Combine it with the 'shadow size' dial to adjust softness. 0.1 is soft, 1.00 is hard. In my Cyber Studio at DAZ, I use cross-hatched panels (same as I use in a real-life photo studio) to create shadows on the figures. You can make them in a modelling app, or built crude ones in poser from boxes. mac PS English Bob? Have you been watching Clint Eastwood's 'Unforgiven? LOL

A suggestion. The way I would do the sillhouette in a real studio is to put one spotlight behind the model and blast up the power. That gives you 'spill' around the edges of the figure. But I have no idea if it works in poser. If you want to see a pic I did exactly like that look here. http://web.infinito.it/utenti/m/maclean/ There are a few examples in the black and white/nudes section. mac PS It's not a bad idea to actually make the render black and white, since color in a silhouette is minimal.

...and just another tip for casting shadows - check the view from the casting light's 'Shadow Cam' to adjust the throw. (Only accessable from the Cameras pulldown under the preview window) For best resolution & sharp edges in the shadows, adjust the light so that there is very little spill outside the area of interest. For a soft edged/feathered shadow, increase the light's field of view by increasing the difference between the Start Angle & End Angle or moving the light back. Adjusting the light's throw in this manner has a similar effect to adjusting the shadowmap pixel size but without hogging memory & render speed plus allows better control. The shadow maps are actually 'real' maps but not accessable. IIRC, those are the tmp files that Poser creates in its root directory during a render & then dumps when the render completes.

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I'll probably render it in Vue or C4d instead of poser--I'm not trying to render a silhouette, I just want to cast the shadow of a wing onto a(normally lit) figure without actually having to go to all the bother of positioning a wing figure in the scene out of the view of the camera. I just want to draw a wing outline in a drawing app, fill it in, and use it as a gel or mask on a light. I'll hang on to all these cool lighting tidbits though...I suck at lighting. MaryCanary

Well that's exactly what Thorne did in his Raven moon prop. Here's a little detail from an image I'm working on. I think this is what you mean right? Do a search and you might find it still in FS or his site. All it is is a white outline of a raven on a square applied as a transmap to a small square parented in front of a spotlight. Snowsultan has made a couple of light sets that take advantage of this and includes two transmapped props, one with window blinds and the other ... I forget :) I'm almost sure Snowsultan's is still available since it was much more recent, in any case a simple search in FS will hopefully yield results.

English Bob: "Well, actually, what I heard was that you fell off your horse, drunk of course, and that you broke your bloody neck." Little Bill Daggett: "I heard that one myself, Bob. Hell, I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska." :-) The Poser renderer won't do "spill" nor any of that fancy stuff - it's way too literal minded for that. There's usually a way to fake things, but using Vue is quicker. ;-) Thanks Nance. I'd heard of the shadowcam trick but didn't know how to do it. You learn something every day...

Heh heh! I have it on video. In fact, I watched it again recently. One of the best cowboy movies ever. Interesting note : When Clint asked Gene Hackman to do it, Hackman said "I'll never do another cowboy movie" Clint said "Oh yeah! Read the script first" Of course, he did it and won an oscar. mac