Poser 5/6 AO & Lighting info
- What is AO?
Basically what it means is that where two surfaces are close say like the two walls in the corner of a room, the effect deepens the shadows at those points. On a figure, you would notice it in the nostrils, teeth, sides of the nose, eye hoods, under the chin, etc
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- Why is AO so slow?
Lots of added things to calculate! The more goodies you add to a render the longer it takes.
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- How do you speed up AO?
Well for one if you only want the effect on say a figure, it would be better to not use in the lights, and instead go into the material room and use the Ambient Occlusion wacro to set it up on the materials you want. Also the default settings arn't that good. You will want to play around with the Max Distance and Bias.
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- When is it appropriate or not appropriate to use AO?
If you are using anything with heavy transmapping, say like a scene loaded with transmapped plants... I would shy away from it. It handles transmapped items and strand based hair the slowest (But it does look great!) Again you can enable it on the materials you want it on if you want to use some AO in the scene.
It is spectacular on Scenery/Building elements/Interior Sets
I love the effect on figures if you tone the strength down from the default 0.7(Traveler)
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- My render is washed out when I use AO and IBL.
Use less lights. AO and IBL need less lights to function. Old global sets for previous versions will wash out the scene. Lowering the AO bias will also reduce artifacts in the scene.
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- I get artifacts (Black Spots) when I render in Firefly with AO
Increase AO sampling size and AO Bias to reduce artifacts when using AO.
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- The AO Node.
Lets Look at the AO Node and its parts:
Samples: The number of samples is resulting in a slightly better attunated shadow.
MaxDist: Controls Shadow Size. Large values equal large shadows.
RayBias: With low values we get some black spots: render artifacts. .00075 is a good base value.
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- How do you set AO?
Easiest way is just to add a default IBL with AO light from the preset lights Poser 6 comes with, then just change the IBL image to whatever you want in the material room. If you don't want to use IBL, just put a light in the scene, go to the light's properties palette, and turn on AO from the options. Remember, you have to render with "raytrace on" in Firefly to use AO.
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- "What Firefly render settings are important to exploit AO and IBL?"
Well you must have raytracing on for the AO, IBL itself doesn't require anything special. Of course the higer on the quality slider you go, the better things will look.
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- Where are you setting the MD/Bias/Samples?
On the Light Properties Panel, under the AO strength, there is a button for AO Scene properties or some-such. That is the one you are looking for.
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- Are the Poser "units" (feet, cm, meters...) important here?
They are in that Poser 6 now uses what units you have selected for figuring things like Bump, Displacement, the AO stuff.
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- What is the probe light node?
You connect the node to an object basically turning that object into a light. For example. If I have a burning candle in Poser 4 I would have to light it with the basic infinite or spot lights. But in P5 and P6 I can attach a probelight node to the flame material in the alternate diffuse channel. What this means is I actually don't need any lights in my scene for the flame of the candle to render. Of course if I wanted to light more that just the candle flame I would need extra light. I did try a point light inside the crystal and it lit up the room too much. -- Colm
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- How do I get rid of nostril glow?
Turn on AO.
and/or Turn on shadows.
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- Are there tutorials for lighting?
Yes!
How to add Specular Only lights to IBL renders in Poser 6
A Variation on IBL Lights
Poser 6 Ambient Occlusion Samples
IBL Lighting Varients http://irenes-place.com/Tutorial/Poser/poser6lightingwithIBLtutorial.htm
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- A shadow light is what again?
A shadow light (SL) has a black specular color. It's a light that casts shadows (raytraced or shadow mapped using or not AO) but don't generate highlights, in opposition to a HL that doesn't cast shadows but generates highlights (black diffusion color in the material rom).
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- I have a second shadow appearing that I don't want in the scene, how do I get ride of it?
You have 2 lights so 2 shadows sources.
Delete the light you want and you'll get only 1 shadow or turn of shadows for the light you don't want casting the shadow in the properties.
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- How do I add light to a Prop?
Change the values and of Translucence in the material room of the prop to match the light. Attach the light to the prop, you can select the light. From the menu choose Object > Change Parent, so that when you move the prop the light goes with it.
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- How do I setup the Sub Surface Scatter Node
Connect it to the alternate diffuse.
Plug your texture into it.
Use "strong" or "light" in the sss parameter.
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- Can I get volumetric lighting such as light through a window?
Yes Use 2 instances of the same window.
One with trans on that cast shadows and another with no trans and no shadow casting.
Be sure to place the opaque window a little bit in front of the transparent one to prevent any overlapping polygons issue.
Now, place your light spot behind, apply a gel onto it that will fit your stained glass texture, set its amosphere value and in the material room, activate the atmosphere.
Render, do some adjustements if needed.
Warning this will take a long time to render!