Backlit Didi by MrGorf

Poser • Realism • posted on Apr 05, 2010

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Description

My little friend, looking a bit more demure than usual. I expect that posting in the "Realism" genre is an invitation to be judged harshly, but that is fine. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (or is that "flattening"?) and I wanted to try my hand at some of the great backlit portraits I see here in the galleries. I have discovered that what works in photography does not work well in Poser. Things in Poser are not meant to be backlit, I think. For one thing, a fundamental assumption of raytracing is that something only makes a reflection if it is hit by a ray. I have discovered that things lit only by indirect and/or image based lights are not struck by rays, so they can't have reflections. If raytracing REALLY modeled the real world, well, this render wouldn't be done before next year. In other words, I faked the reflection on the eyes. Also, hair is something that Poser is not meant to handle. Sure, FastScatter could light it up from behind, but there wouldn't really be light passing through it, partially, to light what's in front of it. You know, semi-opaque things. Basically I retouched the hair into oblivion until I had enough. So, how you folks do those insanely great backlit portraits, I may never know, unless you let me in on the secret.

Comments (7)

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iridebikes6663

5:06PM | Mon, 05 April 2010

Excellent job. really well done. love the blur and the backlighting

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shvrdavid

5:23PM | Mon, 05 April 2010

Im curious as to how you set up the lighiting in this. It looks fine to me.

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MrGorf

6:27PM | Mon, 05 April 2010

Shvrdavid: There is one infinite light in the scene, above and directly behind the subject. Using Poser 8's indirect lighting feature, the front side gets illuminated also, although an image based light would have also worked. I cranked up the "heat" of the light until the front side was properly lit. Then, as I mentioned, I added a false reflection to the eyes and retouched the hair to what I thought it "should" look like under these circumstances. Hope that helps!

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RodS

9:29PM | Mon, 05 April 2010

Frankly, I think the lighting on this kicks butt! I'm a relative newcomer to the Poser world, so I'm still in a learning process (about the lighting and everything else..). Having some experience in photography does help, but I see where you're coming from. I'm using my laptop for Poser 8 right now (until I scratch together enough green to build a dedicated graphics workstation). If I tried to use IDL on anything more complicated than a simple 2 or 3 light scheme, my computer would squeal like a little girl, and hide under the bed. Anyway, I love this image. The DOF makes it look very photographic, and your postwork is excellent!

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