A couple of questions

[dizzydills]

New user here, I was wondering if it was possible to get some really deep shadows. I am using light emitters (no daylight) at the moment and even on low settings they seem to produce excessive amounts of light. In poser this was simple because spotlights were conical in shape, but with emitters I am a bit lost.

Second question is, how do add reflect/refract to surfaces. Not necessarily a wet skin thing, more like a shiny chitin look.

Thanks,
-Dizzy

[kavorka]

deep shadows, try turning off your environment light. Use an ies file for your mesh emitter.

Also, using the direct light kernel, you can manually adjust the shadows (I don't use that kernel much, so I don't have much to say on how to do it)

[dizzydills]

Environment, always forget about that. That helped a ton, thank you. Would you mind explaining IES?

[wimvdb]

IES lights is your solution for shadows
Here is a set you can use with a preview: http://www.mrcad.com/download-free-ies-lights/
Simple add the image file to the distribution node.
To see what it does create a single side plane in Poser. make it diffuse and make it an emitter.
Now set the efficiency to 1 and add the image file to the distributon node. Set gamma to 1
Then render it.
If you chose a spotlight type file, you can see a light on the floor with nice shadows.
This setup can be controlled in the following way:
- increase the plane to create softer shadows or make it smaller to have sharper shadows
- Change the scale of the distribution map to increase the lit area or to make it smaller
- change the rotation of the distribution map to point it in a different direction.

Try this out with a single plane and the ground and see how it works. It is pretty simple, but you have to do it once in a simple scene to get a feel for it

refract is the index in glossy and specular materials
Play with specularity and roughness to get the reflection you need: Spec to 1 = complete reflection, roughness means how accurate the reflection is - 0 = mirror

[dizzydills]

That's incredible, thanks!

[bpzen]

dumb question, ill use the im new card i guess

how do i make a single sided plane an emitter? I have the plane made and its diffuse now im stuck

[bpzen]

Ambient value set - got it sorry for spam post

[bpzen]

ok i am stuck now, how do I set the efficiency to 1? Is this the Power value to set?

The efficiency or texture color node for me is set to = Color, im not sure how to set it to "1"?

[face_off]

Use the Create Emitters from Lights script to automatically create your emitters.

Or load a single sided prop from the Poser library. In the plugin Materials tab, select the square and set to "diffuse". Emission to "texture emission". Set "efficiency or texture" to a texturemap ("image") or power value ("floattexture"), or "RGBspectrum".

Paul

[wimvdb]

As Paul said - make the one plane a diffuse material, then set the emmision to textore of blackbody.
Now you have the efficience and distribution pins to plug something into
The efficiency could be a texture or a color and defines what percentage and color is emitted
Distibution is the way that light is distributed (1 = even) and a map defines the fall off in space. IES images are these type of maps.
Power is the strength of the light. Multiply with efficiency to get the actual strength

The Emitter script is creating the one sided planes automatically from the poser spotlights. So you can use those as well. The plane is parented to that light, so it moves when you move the light in Poser

I prefer to create my own because then it uses world coordinates for postioning and rotation - I find that easier to use