January 2024 Show Off Thread = Portraits

[Agent0013]

Agent... 3Delight has some wonderful lighting packages... The one I think looks the most realistic is... https://www.daz3d.com/advanced-light-presets-for-aoa-s-lights ..

https://www.daz3d.com/advanced-ambient-light  is what I'm talking about.  It gives even light all around the scene... Not just a spotlight.  As far as I know Poser does not have this... unless I've missed it somewhere... I'm still playing.

I do have some light presets, though I rarely if ever use them. I prefer to create my own lights for most of my scenes. That way I get lighting that is pretty much uniquely mine. I almost never save any of my light presets, except in the scenes I composed that have them, and only if I plan to do more renders of those scenes. That way I don't have any scenes that have exactly the same lighting setup. Even when I load a scene foe another render, while changing poses and positions of the characters or props, I also edit the existing lights I created to make the scene lighting appear to have change over time. For instance, an outdoor scene showing something happening, and then I do a later shot showing progression of the action, and the lighting gets changed to show it is later in the day; like the Sun is further along it's path in the sky. Even though the Sun may not be seen directly, the shadows it casts would be showing that it moved. This is something I used to do in my days when I was doing drawings and paintings, especially in the comics I made. It was one of the things that made the stories more believable.


I do appreciate the links to those light sets, but most likely I won't be buying them, due to my strong preference in making my own.

[sanbie]

You talking about 1 spotlight LL...I went up to scripts down to utilities and then went delete lights..they all deleted and then I added just the one spot light...
Oh this is V4

[DreamWeaver]

  Dreamweaver they are awesome renders...are they superfly or firefly?

I do believe these two were pre Superfly so yeah Firefly renders

[DreamWeaver]

Thanks. If I don't find the info anywhere else by then, I will ask for your help.
Oddly I used to know how to do that, way back when I had the old Poser 10 on my laptop. That was the 32 bit version, and not Pro. The Laptop was a Toshiba 64 bit, with 500GB hard drive, a 4 GBs of RAM. It had Windows 7 on it.

No worries, I have probably forgotten a bit too as its been a while since I even looked at Poser lol

[DreamWeaver]

Hi Dream.. yes.. that is sort of it... I was able to get similar using 1 spotlight... but the minute I add any fill or backlighting.. the nose is lit up like a lamp... and the nose holes go away... I may need to practice more.  FYI... I also found out DOF has to be turned on in Poser... grrrr... Finally figured that out.

From memory, (which has holes like Swiss cheese), the render with the black background was a single spotlight and the other was most likely the lights that came with the set I was using which was echoes of Andromeda.
You probably need to turn the shadows off on your fill and backlight lights and only have shadows on for your main light. You could also try setting your fill light to specular only, that can give some interesting looks too.
I am trying to remember if there was something that you had to turn on in the render settings for shadows if you were rendering with Firefly but my memory is failing me there

[Llola Lane]

From memory, (which has holes like Swiss cheese), the render with the black background was a single spotlight and the other was most likely the lights that came with the set I was using which was echoes of Andromeda.
You probably need to turn the shadows off on your fill and backlight lights and only have shadows on for your main light. You could also try setting your fill light to specular only, that can give some interesting looks too.
I am trying to remember if there was something that you had to turn on in the render settings for shadows if you were rendering with Firefly but my memory is failing me there

Thanks Dream... I've been playing all morning and Poser just crashed on me.  I have most of it saved though... ughhh... I will try your ideas and see what happens... I don't have much time to play today... got lots going on preparing gifts for my SecondLife Valentines event.  :)  I'll keep ya posted.  Stay well... Enjoy your trip.  Maybe by the time you get back I'll have figured out lighting for Poser!  lol.  Hugzzzzzzzzzz

[Llola Lane]

You talking about 1 spotlight LL...I went up to scripts down to utilities and then went delete lights..they all deleted and then I added just the one spot light...
Oh this is V4

That is lovely Sanbie... but if you look at her nose holes there is light going up there... With the angle of the spotlight the nose holes should have shadow.  Maybe if the light is up higher... or the head angled differently... I don't know... It's a puzzle to me... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  LOL

[Llola Lane]

I do have some light presets, though I rarely if ever use them. I prefer to create my own lights for most of my scenes. That way I get lighting that is pretty much uniquely mine. I almost never save any of my light presets, except in the scenes I composed that have them, and only if I plan to do more renders of those scenes. That way I don't have any scenes that have exactly the same lighting setup. Even when I load a scene foe another render, while changing poses and positions of the characters or props, I also edit the existing lights I created to make the scene lighting appear to have change over time. For instance, an outdoor scene showing something happening, and then I do a later shot showing progression of the action, and the lighting gets changed to show it is later in the day; like the Sun is further along it's path in the sky. Even though the Sun may not be seen directly, the shadows it casts would be showing that it moved. This is something I used to do in my days when I was doing drawings and paintings, especially in the comics I made. It was one of the things that made the stories more believable.


I do appreciate the links to those light sets, but most likely I won't be buying them, due to my strong preference in making my own.

That's fine Agent... I know budgets are tight these days... I just wanted you to know that 3Delight has some nice Area Lighting too... I know you can turn down the intensity of the shadows too in 3Delight.  Still trying to figure out how to do that in Poser... It just crashed after spending all morning working on a portrait.. grrrr... Back to it!

[Agent0013]

That is lovely Sanbie... but if you look at her nose holes there is light going up there... With the angle of the spotlight the nose holes should have shadow.  Maybe if the light is up higher... or the head angled differently... I don't know... It's a puzzle to me... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  LOL

The is something called SubSurface Scattering (SSS) in DAZ Studio and in Poser. It is something that is done to skin textures which when it is on, lets light pass through and scatter in thin areas of the body, like nostrils, earlobes, and thin parts of the hand. If you hold your spreaded out hand up toward the Sun, or a fairly bright light, and look at the hand, you can see the effect in real life; mostly in the webbing between the fingers and thumb, and in the finger and thumb tips. SSS simulates this effect, but it isn't perfect. Sometimes you get too much light. The quality of the textures must be high for it to be convincing, and there are lots of texture sets that are not good quality for such things. In DAZ Studio you can either turn the SSS off or on, or you can load version of a texture set that includes SSS. If you are using the best texture sets you have on your figures, it is quite likely that they have SSS, and it is on by default. I think it is also something that Poser has as well. Yes there are textures for even the Millennium 3 figures that have SSS. Victoria 3, Michael 3, Aiko 3, The Girl, Stephanie Petite, The Freak 3, Hiro 3, David 3, all have certain textures that have SSS.


The reason I'm telling you this is because what you are seeing just might be due to that type of texture sets. I think most of the best textures for human figures have SSS. To see if that is what you are seeing you'll need to look at the parameters for your figure's surfaces in Poser. I know how to do that in DAZ Studio, but not yet in Poser.

[DanaTA]

I could be wrong, but I don't think that's what she's talking about.  I have seen her issue in the past.  Many have complained about it.  The nostrils are lit, like the nose doesn't block any light at all.  I was pretty sure this probelm was solved, at least in DS.  I don't know if it was solved in Poser.  I think it was gone after the V4 family of figures, but I'm not sure.


Dana