Hi there all.

As mentioned, as part of my learning, I'm running Poser 3, 4 & 6 on a Windows 10 64-bit laptop computer. God-willing I'll re-install Poser 11 during the week.

On this Windows 10 64-bit laptop, in Poser 4, I seem to be getting 'black spots' on RENDERS .

The 'black spots' do not appear in the WORKSPACE... only on RENDERS, & only in Poser 4 on this computer... when I used to run Poser 4 on a Windows XP 32-bit desktop computer, I did not have this problem in RENDERS. The problem does not appear in Poser 6.

Also, the problem with the 'black spots' change depending on camera angle... it becomes better or worse depending on the camera angle I view the posed figure from.

Can anyone please tell me   WHY the 'black spots' appear in these RENDERS but not in the WORKSPACE? How can I prevent this problem?

Thank you kindly for your ideas, suggestions & tips! God bless.

It's artifacts.

There are two crease angles close together and the light ray bounces off one and misses the other, so it shows as a shadow.  Try adjusting to a higher crease angle like 120.

The other fix (if you've seen some of my renders), is to have a strong back light, it gives a nice glow on the edges.

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I've found that to do well with any figure you really need to have a passion for that figure,

...and I hope you develop that passion for yours.

Thank you, thank you.

Subsequent figures, with higher poly-count, seem less prone to such artifacts, but many props may still look 'weird' at unfortunate angles.

As you say, adding what I'd warily term 'fill-in' lighting usually resolves.

In theory, increasing sub-division should help, at cost of extending render times. In my unhappy experience, a lot of 'imports'  either lack that option, or sorta melt. Okay if 'nicely rounded' to start with, but finding 'clean' angular shapes have become 'blobby' is a bit of a pain.

At least, with superfly 'progressive' renders, I get chance to spot such oopsies before walking away and leaving the ray-tracing to run...

Thank you kindly

"a higher crease angle like 120" , I'm not sure what that means... how do I go about doing that? I'll try adding another light to assist with it, thanks!

Any idea why I haven't seen this in Poser 4 under 32-bit Windows XP? Actually, now that I think about your response, maybe this resulted because I placed an   additional light in front of the figure which I usually didn't place there in earlier work.

I wonder how it might look if I render this scene using "Poser 4 Render Setting" in Poser 6, let me check...

Also, now I'm wondering, if there was another figure or object in the scene, depending on how its reflective material setting is set, would enough light reflect off of it onto Posette to counteract this artifact effect, hmmm, curious...

Ah, I see what you mean,   nice render and lighting, especially where it shows on the shoulders here: http://www.posetteforever.com/album_showpage.php?pic_id=7497

Hi all
I must admit, I never used P4Pro, but I'm sure there wasn't any ray-tracing implemented as well as poly smoothing.
I think, the render engine was pretty much the same that I remember from P3, with  transparency added.
I remember fiddling around with the shadow map size and setting when getting "dirty" renders  way back...

The different result on your other system may be a result of graphics-card/screen resolution settings. Remember, way back in P4 times tube screens with much lower resolutions were common. Maybe your XP32 is closer to the old specs.

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Thank you kindly!

"shadow map size and setting"... I need to Google that

"The different result on your other system may be a result of graphics-card/screen resolution settings."... I forgot that it can sometimes be a factor with software packages

The shadow map settings can be found in the settings for each light.

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These are the Material, Light & Render settings available in Poser 4 Pro.



Unfortunately, no "shadow map settings" here.

I'm going to try one or all of the following:

1) remove the extra light I added in front of the figure

2) add a back light behind the figure

3) different graphics resolutions

Thank you very much for your advice !

There should be a place to adjust light and shadow intensity somewhere. Default shadow map size is set to 256 ant intensity to 1.0. I remember using 1024 and 0.8 for the main light, but I don't know P4P, so I can't tell you where to find it...

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I'll look around & check the user manual as well

Thank you kindly

Thank you for your kind advice!

I found the shadow settings in the Parameter Dials, silly me .

I applied your suggestions as follows, saving and rendering to check if the black artifacts disappear after each step 3, 4, 5 and 7 :


Step 1: Restart Poser 4 Pro to Default Factory setting

Step 2: Load base Posette, set pose & set camera

Step 3: Change all 3 the Default Lights to Shadow = 0.8 and Map Size = 1024

Step 4: Add a 4th back spot light to compensate

Step 5: Reduce screen resolution to 1024x768

The problem persisted in Poser 4 Pro after those settings.


Step 6: Return screen resolution to 1600x900

Step 7: Open and render the file in Poser 6 using its own native Poser 4 Render setting

There are zero black artifacts in this render.


Something I forgot to note is, when Poser 4 Pro starts up and runs on this laptop computer with Windows 10 64-bit, edges of the sceen flicker, even while busy with the application. That flickering doesn't occur when starting and running Poser 6 on this same computer.

Because of this, I'm going to conclude , up to this point, that the black artifacts which occur during rendering in Poser 4 Pro on this computer are a result of a slight incompatibility between Poser 4 Pro and this hardware or this operating system.

I think, while I'm learning   the details of Poser 3 and 4 on this computer (and hopefully Python scripting), I'll try to avoid the appearance of the artifacts with alternative camera angles and zooms, which increase or decrease their visibility. Also, if I do any artistic renders on this computer, I'll rather render them in Poser 6 with its own native Poser 4 render setting, to avoid producing those artifacts.

  I am grateful for your kind assistance in attempting to resolve this issue . Thank you kindly! May you be blessed.


(P.S. It's amazing how much different the Poser 6 render looks from the Poser 4 Pro render in terms of lighting. Even though Poser 6 tries to simulate the Poser 4 Pro render with Poser 6's own Poser 4 render setting. The Poser 4 Pro lights in Poser 4 Pro give a 'more red' tone to the skin... while the same scene opened in Poser 6, with no changes to the light settings, give a 'more neutral' tone to the skin. Also, the highlights appear differently. I don't understand why that is , or the technicalities behind programming lighting into an application, but it requires us to change lighting when we move from one Poser version to another.)

 

As you describe it now it is quite likely old P4 engine doesn't work too well with your graphics device.
Only one thing left I can think of is fiddling with the OpenGL setting of your graphics driver.
In your place I would consider keeping P3/4 just for evaluation purposes and do the serious work in P6.

PS: Generally,  try applying the shadow map setting for your P6 /P4-renderengine anyway.
At least for the main, shadow casting light source. For the back lights you should reduce the overall shadow and light strength. I tend to turn their shadows off completely.
That's just a hint from my experience working with mapped shadows, and a matter of taste, too.

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Thank you kindly! Yes indeed, on this computer, I'll reserve the serious work to be on Poser 6 but continue learning & practising on Poser 3//4. For now, I wouldn't change OpenGL settings, because I don't think I'd know what to change.

(I tried installing Windows XP 32-bit on this computer but it refused to install. I wonder if a version of Linux would install and run Poser 3/4 through a Windows emulator )

I'm also curious about something Chromium said about "There are two crease angles close together and the light ray bounces off one and misses the other, so it shows as a shadow.  Try adjusting to a higher crease angle like 120." If that is an issue when designing a 3D mesh, then I should learn more about it if I explore modelling in Hexagon .