Help! I'm so much a DS user I'm totally lost in Poser!

[NapalmArsenal]

Select the suit boots, suit, gloves etc and go to the materials tab at the top left hand side and it will pull up the map assignments and you will have (what suit part you selected and then a materials header with an arrow. Choose what portion of the suit you want to turn off like Front Center then.

So go to materials (paint pallet)/Poser 11 Content/Cartoon/BikeGirl - Underneath +flatwhite there is an option 100% Transparent. Make sure you have the part you want to turn off selected in the materials assignment menu at the top and double click to apply the 100% transparent setting.

Not sure how you have yours set up, but I have separate folders for Downloaded materials and Poser native materials.

 

[Rae134]

cool, I'll have to have a play when I get back
(I have a Poser native runtime, a downloaded runtime and a HiveWire runtime )

 

[NapalmArsenal]

=) yap I also have RDNA and RENDO folders. I just like to keep things together where they came from just in case I have a problem with something.

 

[kobaltkween]

A good neutral test scene for outdoors in any piece of 3D software could use environment lighting (world settings, world sphere, IBL, etc.) paired with a single infinite. A good neutral indoor scene could use environment lighting and two white area or mesh lights (one for main lighting, one for accent lighting). The lights should always be raytraced, with full shadows. If you find your shadows are too strong, increase the strength of your environment lighting.

I find starting with a plain figure, a cyclorama, and one of those setups invaluable to starting in any app that has reasonably realistic raytracing. I have a similar antipathy for the DS interface, but Iray paired with that approach to rendering got me to at least the "I'm making decent renders" stage very quickly.

In my personal experience, commercial light sets are problematic for initial testing because they use so many tricks and special effects (lights with lowered shadows or no shadows at all, several lights used at once to fake GI, etc.). They're perfect if you want to see how a material performs in the latest popular light set, but can give make your material blow out or render practically black in a different popular set.

 

[Rae134]

Thanks for the tip Kobaltkween, I hate when you see a beautiful promo for a lightset then cant recreate it.

=) yap I also have RDNA and RENDO folders. I just like to keep things together where they came from just in case I have a problem with something.

haha I don't do it for problems, I do it so I can find things I want quick (if I remember where I got them from )

 

[kobaltkween]

Just to put out there, I tend to use those types of light sets in my promos. My lighting mainly gets complex when I have to use multiple point lights to fake an area light/softbox. You can change a _lot_ just by changing the environment lighting and the direction and size of area lights.

 

[Mythocentric]

You might also like to have a look at Colm's RenderStudio light sets (formerly at RDNA) when funds allow. I have around 8 or 9 of them and they cover everything from basic studio lighting to full blown exterior lighting. My particular favourites are RenderStudio Sunlight and Atmospheres and Afterglow and Atmospheres which come with domes and skies plus atmospheres all of which are available as simple 1 click scenes. I find them invaluable for their ease of use and reduced render times.

 

[NapalmArsenal]

Oh yeah Colm's are pretty rockin too but a little on the pricey side! Forgot about those!!

 

[Rae134]

I wish I had the cash, they had all those for $2.40-$4 in the sales recently but of course no monies

 

[NapalmArsenal]

Xmas list them? =)

 

[Rae134]

haha they won't be on special anymore

 

[Bonnie]

If anyone know of some good (free) videos on the basics of Poser 11 pro (or relevant) I would love a list of them
With DS I didn't have much problems setting up a basic scene when I first started. I could work out lights (maybe not so they looked good, but enough to light up a scene ) and my first render wasn't so bad. With poser I'm like a deer in headlights!

I'm in the same boat and found that the PDF manual that comes with Poser is pretty good. I have it open on a cheap laptop while I work with Poser on my computer. It's different than Studio, but quite a few things make it worth the money. I have a video from Renderosity (

) that clears up a lot. It's horribly done, but free. The speaker's diction is terrible and there are a lot of "ums" and "Ahs". However, the gentleman really knows his stuff. I wrote down the points I needed and took a lot of screenshots. There are many videos on YouTube that are worth watching and will get you started.

 

[NapalmArsenal]

@Bonnie thanks for the post!! Looks most helpful indeed and welcome to the Hive!
I hope you will post some images you have done in Poser!

 

[Mythocentric]

Hi Bonnie! Welcome to the Hive!

 

[Miss B]

Hey Bonnie. Welcome to the HiveWire Forums.

 

[jecnodde]

When I went back to poser from Vue I use this little tip when doing lighting:

Got this tips from daz3d forum:

1 HDRI light (or plain IBL) with AO. Checking "Ambient Occlusion" on your light's properties gives a good natural shadowed effect where two objects are close together. No shadows on this light.

1 specular-only light. This light can be a spot, infinite, or point light.
Indoors: a point or spot. Outdoors;an infinite light is best. To make a light specular-only, go to the light's material settings and make the diffuse color black. No shadows on this light.

1 "sun" light. This gives the directional light in your scene -- the one which casts shadows. For outdoor/natural light scenes, use an infinite light with raytraced shadows. For indoor/studio lights (especially with backdrops), use a spot with depth mapped shadows.

I then add a very few "highlight" point or spot lights. Point lights are nice because you can set the "distance end," making the light fall off in a very small sphere -- perfect for highlighting a face or other feature, without altering overall lighting.



Another tip is to decide what you want to be shown and start with getting light set up right for that, then do the rest - ohh and dont be afraid of shadows.

On superfly I cant give much, since I'm still using firefly (poser 7)

 

[Darryl]

When I went back to poser from Vue I use this little tip when doing lighting:

Got this tips from daz3d forum:

1 HDRI light (or plain IBL) with AO. Checking "Ambient Occlusion" on your light's properties gives a good natural shadowed effect where two objects are close together. No shadows on this light.

1 specular-only light. This light can be a spot, infinite, or point light.
Indoors: a point or spot. Outdoors;an infinite light is best. To make a light specular-only, go to the light's material settings and make the diffuse color black. No shadows on this light.

1 "sun" light. This gives the directional light in your scene -- the one which casts shadows. For outdoor/natural light scenes, use an infinite light with raytraced shadows. For indoor/studio lights (especially with backdrops), use a spot with depth mapped shadows.

I then add a very few "highlight" point or spot lights. Point lights are nice because you can set the "distance end," making the light fall off in a very small sphere -- perfect for highlighting a face or other feature, without altering overall lighting.



Another tip is to decide what you want to be shown and start with getting light set up right for that, then do the rest - ohh and dont be afraid of shadows.

On superfly I cant give much, since I'm still using firefly (poser 7)

These are great tips on a subject I should be better versed in by now. I've often heard folks mention a Specular light but no one ever explained how to make one. Still not sure of its purpose. Increase specular I guess. Why would I want to do that on a regular basis?

I've used spots and point lights with the distance end setting. If I increase the intensity the light travels further though, then I pull back the distance, then I have to increase the intensity. Still trying to get a grip on that one.

While we're talking about lights, I still don't understand why there is a light intensity control in the parameters panel AND that little movable dot around the light widget. They appear to do the same thing but moving one doesn't affect condition of the other.

Thanks for the tips.

 

[Miss B]

I did a SuperFly render a few months ago that had a Specular Only light, but I can't for the life of me remember which light set I used. I know I didn't create it myself, but I wish I had made a note of it so I don't have to try out all the light sets I have, many of which came with PP11.

 

[jecnodde]

These are great tips on a subject I should be better versed in by now. I've often heard folks mention a Specular light but no one ever explained how to make one. Still not sure of its purpose. Increase specular I guess. Why would I want to do that on a regular basis?

I've used spots and point lights with the distance end setting. If I increase the intensity the light travels further though, then I pull back the distance, then I have to increase the intensity. Still trying to get a grip on that one.

While we're talking about lights, I still don't understand why there is a light intensity control in the parameters panel AND that little movable dot around the light widget. They appear to do the same thing but moving one doesn't affect condition of the other.

Thanks for the tips.

The specular light - I use it to increse highlights without having the light influense other part + without altering material of character for example. I used this light setup in both images for the halloween challange. Another tip is to scroll down in camare selection and choose the shadow camare for the light you want to alter that cast shadows. If you have slected the shadow camera for the view point of the scene, you can then alter the lights properties for that light and "see through that lights camera" Wich is very handy when finetuning the shadowcasting light (this also work great with other light that have none shadow to get them to sync better)

Ohh when we are at shadowcamera - If your shadowcamera for the light that cast shadow, dont show item you want to cast shadow - it want cast shadow. So if you have a tree in a scene that you want to cast a shadow- the tree must been seen in the shadowcamera for the light. Now I know that shadowcamera for infanity light is hard to see, so start as a spot light then when it is where you want, change it to infanity light.

 

[Pendraia]

Welcome to the Hive Bonnie...