SKYLAB CHAT

[skylab]

Here's the first render test...I ran the sims on the dynamic robes separately, exported them as objects, then imported them into this monster-sized scene (the water plane is huge) in order to fit them onto the figures. For some reason I could not get a robe to run right for the guy on the boat, so I stuck a loin cloth on him, since it wasn't unusual for fisherman to strip down this way, especially if they were about to jump into the water...so he may have to stay that way. I'd really like the lights to focus on the two hands about to touch, but if I get too carried away with adjustments, the horizontal shadow line reappears....so I'll have to work with that when I have fresher eyes. You can imagine what the scene was like when I had 11 people in the boat plus what you see here...my computer was going "no, you're not doing that". Oh well, best I could do.

 

[skylab]

Well, I'd better go off and get some rest now...I'm making a lot of typos since I'm having trouble seeing. It's getting light here and I have yet to go to bed...but I have to work on stuff like this at night when the phone is quiet. See you all later on today

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Sky, this might be a little odd, but... what about using maybe a POINT light, and positioning it between the two hands that are about to touch? Just a single point light with a low or medium-low intensity white on it, cast shadows turned off? I know Poser has point lights. With a point light you wouldn't have to worry too much about the odd line on the water plane, because the light from those is much smaller in range, or at least it is with DS point lights... I'm not sure if Poser point lights work the same or not...

Anyhow - have a good sleep, Sky. See you tomorrow.

 

[skylab]

I'm still winding down at the bedside, so thought I'd come on the respond. I can certainly try it Seliah. I had originally wanted the Jesus figure to have a bit of an aura, since the account of the story indicates that they thought they were seeing a "ghost" at first...so if there is a way for him to emit the light, maybe that would work (?) This would probably take seachnasaigh expertise. By the way, I noticed he helped you with the basics of Poser lights...I didn't realize you were not familiar with the light tool control in the Poser interface. I'll share what I know about it later when I can provide screen shots....but that "ball" with lights on it (looks like a sewing pin cushion sorta) is capable of creating lights, deleting lights, and if you click on them, you can select that particular "pin" (light) and change the color when the Windows color picker box pops up....when you select it, you'll see that color not only appear in the "pin", but also there's a color indicator toward the bottom of the settings....I'll do screen captures later so you can see what I'm talking about. That part I know very well...it's just when you get down to "looking through" a cone like you all were describing, can't really help you with that, or the advanced stuff like seachnasaigh does, like light emitters and glowing mats.

Shoot, I'll just do the screen capture now. When you click on the head of one of the pin, all the options become visible, and if you hover the mouse over them, it tells you what they do, where it normally says Light Controls, that changes to whatever you're hovering over.

Now if you delete a light, don't freak out if everything goes black. First time it happened to me, I was panic striken. The way to get everything to show around the light ball again is just click once anywhere on the preview screen....clicking once will bring everything back.

If you want to create a light, click on the * shape, to delete a light, select the "pin head" representing the light you want gone, and click the trash can. Finally, the little slider thing with the gold ball on it is your intensity control. All of these settings can be accessed through the parameters box as well...select a light and watch what happens to the parameters box...more precise controls for colors and intensity. This is why I like having these tools handy on the desktop, because I use them so much. As far as the "pin cushion" light control goes, I use it a lot...by just "grabbing" the "head of the pin" and moving it around, similar to a gear stick in a car. If you have any questions about any of this, I'll be back on later today. I could have shared this with you long before now...I didn't realize this was what you needed...so sorry about that. Better late than never I guess....see you later today

By the way, this is what the light control looks like before you click on one of the "pin heads"...so you won't see all those options until you click something.

 

[skylab]

Forgot to illustrate how to change the colors of the lights. If you hover the mouse over the area, it shows an eye dropper symbol, as shown below.

Think I'm done this time. Hope there are no typos. See you later

 

[skylab]

Of course I've got one more thing....haha...I failed to illustrate the parameters/properties tab box (the same box that's used for posing controls). This screen cap will show you all you need to know in terms of their functions.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Hi Sky.

I do know the very, very basics of the light ball controls. I remember them from Poser 4. (Yeah, I'm showing my 3D age here. ) I ended up using the parameters to manipulate them in P4 because at the time, I was doing 3D on a Compaq Presario 1272 laptop... Windows 98... and 32mbs of RAM. Yes, megabytes, not gigs. LOL It caused my interface to slow down to such a crawl that trying to use the light ball controls was impossible, so I ended up going to the parameters dial instead.

With P11, it's the stuff under the Properties tab that I'm still trying to learn as far as what setting does what and on which type of light, and what the differences are between all of the lights... how to control shadow direction, shadow opacity, softness, etc... I understand the Min Bias thing just fine, I have no clue what all the Attenuation settings are, or how to use the Atmosphere settings, stuff like that.

The main issue I had with Poser lighting was the inability to look through the lights and see what the light is seeing, because THAT is how I set up my rigs in DS.. I have to SEE it in order to set up a light rig. The other issue I have still, is that moving the lights around, shadow casting... it's all a guessing game... I can move lights into this position or that, and most of the time, when I render, it looks awful. It's a constant game of move a light, render, move a light, render... heck it takes me longer to set up a light rig than it does for me to build the entire scene.

Being able to look through the lights helps IMMENSELY. Also, being able to see the light cone helps a lot as well. From the other thread, we're told that you basically don't ever get to see the actual light cone without a third party script, but Seach demonstrated how to look through the Shadow Cams to see what the light is seeing - and that does help at least a little bit.

At the moment, I've been relying on Fabi's Boreal light sets to do my materials work. Once Nataani's finished, I'll try to dig in and do some play renders or whatever to get a better grip on the interface. I have this very strange mix of knowledge when it comes to Poser... some stuff I know because I remember it from Poser 4 and Poser 5, and then lots of other stuff I haven't got a clue because I moved into DS around about Poser 7 and between P5 and P7, my hardware had aged so much that I couldn't even render with shadows enabled or the whole thing would crash on me. A single Mike4 with one shirt and a hair object, on my old desktop rig was enough to crash Poser 7 at the time. I went into DS and pretty much never came out again until, well... heck, not until I started trying to do HiveWire stuff and wanting to try and support both programs. LOL

So some stuff it's like I'm a green newbie on, and other stuff I remember from P4/P5 or P7. And then there's stuff I know I've just plum forgotten - like with this that you posted up above. Totally forgot that you could control the light intensity from the little slider with the yellow dot on it...

 

[phdubrov]

what all the Attenuation settings are

Light intensity falloff with distance. Natural (physical) is inverse square (1/r**2, no sup/sub font here... grrrr... how to write all the math ).

And many settings is FF only - look the manual.

Here BB on SF lights TUTORIAL Area lights

 

[skylab]

Well Seliah, at least you know now what the slider does...figured I better start at the beginning, to close in all the gaps. And now you're all the up to the math equation

 

[Miss B]

Morning, Ladies.

I finally finished the anniversary book!! I'm just in the process now of putting all the jpg's into a single PDF file and then I have to ship it off to the priest for his review...

Congrats on getting it done.

Oh - and I found out the other night, that apparently I also have to present this thing to the church board this coming Thursday night. Me! Give a presentation in front of a whole bunch of people! And without running for the hills!!

Ohhh, now I'd love to drive up there to see that.

 

[skylab]

Hey Miss B

 

[Terre]

Good afternoon.
Glad to see everyone's projects are getting somewhere.

 

[skylab]

Hey Terre How's it going for you? I'm just getting up, and getting functional...wish my eyes would work...been a couple of days struggling with that, so sorry if I leave out words or miss typos. They will clear up, just takes a downswing occasionally, especially if I work on big projects.

 

[Terre]

If there isn't a time limit perhaps taking a short break might help.

 

[Miss B]

Hey Sky, hey Terre.

 

[skylab]

Have tried that...about all it does is lose time in terms of concentration. If I put it away too long, I have to re-think certain things, so I wait for plateau points to take breaks....like now...the pose set is basically ready to go, just needs last minute checking and tweaks, nothing to figure out....unless I mess with the lighting more. We'll see about that...I could try it on one of the backup files. The only "deadline" I have is the desire to get these done while I'm yet able. Going for another lab check up early next month...so when I say while I'm yet able, that's what I mean. It's funny, I was ready for retirement when it happened....I had been thinking about it nearly five years, so it I was preparing for that change. The same thing is happening with 3D art....there are aspects to all this that have gotten very wearisome, so maybe it's the beginning of preparing to put it down. If so, I'd like for my last work to have some meaning and significance. So...taking breaks are okay...but then I have the thought that it's using up valuable time, so I try to be sparing with that.

 

[skylab]

Hey Miss B

 

[Terre]

OK, that idea's not going to work then.

 

[skylab]

Well, it's a balance of the two I think. Obviously I don't want to run what's left of my strength in the ground for the sake of a few more pose sets...haha. But when the labs drop below a certain point, it will do the deciding I guess is what I'm trying to say. Until then, I'll keep plugging away...whether it's years, or months

 

[Terre]

Taking care of yourself must come first. The rest isn't possible if you aren't well enough to do it.