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Poser Shadow Cams

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
I don't set up my own lights, but have seen them used in some of the Light sets I have. I know Fabiana uses them in her Mild Boreal lights. Not sure about her Warm and Soul lights, I'd have to check those.

As far as how they're used, I'm not sure. Hopefully someone with more Lights experience can answer your question.
 

Satira Capriccio

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
Shadow Cam Lites are the cameras created automatically when a light is created. When you select the Shadow Cam Light for a Light as the Camera view, you are looking through the light.

Shadow Cam Lites are named in the order in which the lights are created, so it helps to rename the Shadow Cam Lite to match the Light name. Otherwise, it can get tricky selecting the right light camera for a light.
 

eclark1894

Visionary
I've been trying to study them for my Patreon page. I think I'm pretty up on them, but would like to make sure. You can't see through the light, but you can through the camera, right?
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Not sure, as I haven't tried it. I know I used to look through lights and cameras with older versions of DS, but not sure I've ever tried with Poser.
 

eclark1894

Visionary
See, that's what I didn't understand at first about the Shadow Cameras and the Poser Reference manual doesn't quite explain it right. If you could see through the light then why do you need a camera? The camera doesn't and can't move until the light does.
 

DanaTA

Distinguished
I use the 3DL lights in DS like that all the time. Just select the light rather than one of the cameras in the scene. You see what's being illuminated by the light, where the falloff is, etc. It helps. I wonder why Poser creates a separate object to accomplish this. Wouldn't that eat up resources more quickly?

Dana
 

Satira Capriccio

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
Unlike DS, you can't select a Poser light and look through it.

With Poser, you can see what's being illuminated by the light, how brightly it's illuminated, where the light no longer reaches, and how these and the shadows are affected by adjusting the light with any of the "normal" cameras (Main Camera, Face Camera, etc.). Is that not the same with DS? Or do you need to look through a light to be able to see how adjusting the light affects a scene?

Apparently adjusting the Shadow Cam Lite affects how the shadows render. Which would explain why they are named Shadow Cam Lite instead of Lite Cam :p With a Spot light, I can see how the shadow changes when I adjust the Shadow Cam Lite xTran and yTran.

I imagine the resources used by the lights and camera is rather negligible compared to figures and props.
 

eclark1894

Visionary
Unlike DS, you can't select a Poser light and look through it.

With Poser, you can see what's being illuminated by the light, how brightly it's illuminated, where the light no longer reaches, and how these and the shadows are affected by adjusting the light with any of the "normal" cameras (Main Camera, Face Camera, etc.). Is that not the same with DS? Or do you need to look through a light to be able to see how adjusting the light affects a scene?

Apparently adjusting the Shadow Cam Lite affects how the shadows render. Which would explain why they are named Shadow Cam Lite instead of Lite Cam :p With a Spot light, I can see how the shadow changes when I adjust the Shadow Cam Lite xTran and yTran.

I imagine the resources used by the lights and camera is rather negligible compared to figures and props.

Well, apparently they're designed to do the same thing, just either differently or called differently. In Poser, you can adjust the shadows through the camera, but you have to move the light to move the camera. To where, requires pulling back with either the Main or Auxilliary camera.
 

DanaTA

Distinguished
Unlike DS, you can't select a Poser light and look through it.

With Poser, you can see what's being illuminated by the light, how brightly it's illuminated, where the light no longer reaches, and how these and the shadows are affected by adjusting the light with any of the "normal" cameras (Main Camera, Face Camera, etc.). Is that not the same with DS? Or do you need to look through a light to be able to see how adjusting the light affects a scene?

Apparently adjusting the Shadow Cam Lite affects how the shadows render. Which would explain why they are named Shadow Cam Lite instead of Lite Cam :p With a Spot light, I can see how the shadow changes when I adjust the Shadow Cam Lite xTran and yTran.

I imagine the resources used by the lights and camera is rather negligible compared to figures and props.

Yes, you can see how the light is affecting things, to a degree, in DS with 3DL lights. I'm not sure about Iray. I haven't done much with Iray. When you select a light in 3DL you can move it around with the transform dials and see how that changes the shadows, where the fall-off is, and such. I suppose they are similar in purpose. And I suspect you are correct that the resources the Shadow Cam uses are minimal compared to figures.

Dana
 

eclark1894

Visionary
Yes, you can see how the light is affecting things, to a degree, in DS with 3DL lights. I'm not sure about Iray. I haven't done much with Iray. When you select a light in 3DL you can move it around with the transform dials and see how that changes the shadows, where the fall-off is, and such. I suppose they are similar in purpose. And I suspect you are correct that the resources the Shadow Cam uses are minimal compared to figures.

Dana
The Shadow Cams in Poser aren't created until there's a light, and even then they have reduced parameters and properties. So basically, all they do is to allow you to look through them, but they occupy the same space as the light.
 

raven

Admirable
The shadow cameras show you where the area that the shadow map will cover (when using shadow maps, not ray-traced shadows). You can actually move the shadow cam without moving the associated light and have an object illuminated by (for example, a spotlight) and move the shadow cam so that only a specific object casts shadow.

Example:
Here is a quick scene, from the overhead camera, showing a cylinder prop and a cube prop illuminated by a single spotlight (light 2 from the default lights, the others deleted).
01.jpg


Here's the main camera view.

02.jpg


Now, here is the view from the shadow camera. I have moved it and zoomed it to only cover the cube prop.

03.jpg


Here is the finished render (using Firefly, I don't believe Superfly takes any notice of the shadow cameras as it only does raytracing).
As you can see, the light is in the original position, but the shadow is only cast in the field of view of the shadow camera.

04.jpg
 
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