Lighting is very important when it comes to rendering your 3D models. Just like in traditional art forms such as painting, sketching, and photography, your lighting will create the mood and energy that your art gives off. The challenge of creating amazing renders that grabs the attention of the viewer starts with knowing the basics to lighting. Poser uses a very simple lighting control that is found in all versions of Poser. Poser 8 has a newer lighting feature called Indirect Lighting which simulates lights natural behavior such as light reflecting off of objects. This tutorial will show you the basic lighting features that we use to create Poser By Design art.

Below we have a screen shot of Poser 8's lighting controls and light properties. The look and location of the light tools are the same for Poser versions 6, 7, and Poser Pro. For the basics to lighting in Poser we’ll only focus on the Lighting Controls, the Light Parameters, and the Light Properties (Located under the Light Name).

The Light Controls allow you to Select Light, Create Light, Delete Light, Change Light Intensity, and View Light Properties. You can see what the Icon does by placing the mouse cursor over that Icon. The basic structure of the Light Controls is a big sphere with smaller circles surrounding it. The big sphere represents the model that you are using. It will always be a sphere even if your model isn't. The smaller circles that surround the sphere represent the lights and their position in relation to your model. In the image above we have chosen to use Poser's sphere primitive prop model .

Being comfortable with positioning the lights is key to getting a great looking render. A light setting for a 3D human may not work well for a Prop such as a building. This is especially true for Poser versions 6, 7, and Poser Pro. It is the same with Poser 8, but Poser 8 has an indirect lighting feature that allows light to reflect of objects in a more realistic manner. The fastest way to become comfortable with the Poser Light Control is to use a limited number of lighting. Try to create the lighting effect that you want by using only 3 lights to create the desired look that you want. Using only 3 light settings will help you to create quality light settings in which to build more complex lighting. It is also a faster way to learn which light positions work better with specific models..

The light that shines on the object reacts very similar to real light. We have used a sphere primitive from Poser to show how different color lights blend. In the image above we used 3 different light colors (Green, Red, and Blue). You can see that the light (starting left to right) begins with green and then turns yellow. The reason why it is yellow is because the green light is mixing with the red light. Depending on the color range of your monitor you will also see orange and purple as a result of the color mixing. The ways that you position lights for your model will also blend in a similar way. The way that you position your lights and the color lighting you use will also determine the art style that your rendered image will have.

The light control model helps to give you an idea of the direction that the light is shining from and an idea of how it falls on your model, but you won't know how it all works out until you actually render it. Sometimes you can have a light setting that looks excellent in the preview window but looks terrible when rendered. For the most part this is going to be a trial and error learning process until you are able to have a few template light settings and understand which models the light setting works well with.

To position the lights left-click and hold on the light circle that you want to move, then drag the circle to the position that you want. You'll be able to drag the light any where around the 3D figure or prop, but this only works with the Spotlight and the Infinite light settings. The Point light setting radiates in all direction. Here are the simple description of the lighting along with examples of when we use the type of lighting.

Infinite Lighting - We use the Infinite lighting when we want to simulate a light source like the sun or a well lit room with ceiling lights. This type of lighting fills the entire scene with light.. Infinite Lighting Example

Spotlight - The Spotlight shines like a flash light showing light in a specific direction. We use the spot light to simulate car head lights, streetlights, and lamps. It is also good for 3D figures where you only want to have light shine on certain areas of a figure. If you want to give the appearance of someone stepping out of the shadows then the spotlight will help you to easily create this effect. This is an example of the use of the Spotlight.Spotlight Example

Point Light- We use the Point Light for car head lights and for creating lights that are coming from an inside source such as an outdoor scene that requires the appearance of lighting shining from the inside of a building, or car We would also use it if we wanted to simulate a light bulb without a cover since the Point light radiates in all direction. Example of blue Point Light from inside a car, Example of Point Light from inside of Pumpkin Head.

These 3 different types of light can also be used together such as in this Example that uses all three. When using all of the light settings to create a scene, we separately render the objects that use different lighting. In the example, the figure uses a different light setting than the building in the background. Both the figure and buildings share the lighting used for the Moon but the other light settings are not shared. The yellow light is a point light setting that creates the effects that light is coming from inside the buildings and from the street.

Poser allows you to name the lights that you are using. This is useful when it comes to organizing lights and knowing which light is which. For example if you have 6 lights and one of them is a lamp light then naming the light "Lamp Light" will make it easier to know which of the 6 lights belong to the lamp. By default Poser will just name the lights Light 1, Light 2, Light 3, and so on.

The Light Parameters is where we can adjust the settings for the lights color, rotation, and position. For the most part on a basic level there will be no need to make many changes in this area beyond the position of the light. We rarely have to change the settings after we position the light in the control panel. You are more likely to make changes in this area when using more advanced lighting techniques.

Most Poser users will spend most of their time in the Light Properties changing the light type and determining if they want the light to cast shadows or not. This is where we spend most of our time making necessary adjustments of our lights and the management of shadows in our scene. We rarely use the Diffuse IBL (Image Based Light) with our art. The Ray Trace Shadows will give you a solid shadow like the ones found in Comic Books and the Depth Map Shadow will create realistic shadows like the ones we cast everyday. As for the Shadow Blur Radius, Shadow Samples, Shadow Min Bias settings we don't play with these much since the default settings work well. As a beginner these settings will work fine for you. The Ambient Occlusion is used when we want to capture the shadow from clothing on the skin. It is good for giving the clothing the appearance that it is not completely in contact with the skin. Ambient Occlusion also works for the hair when you want to capture the shadow from strands of hair.

Poser 8 has an indirect light setting that adds more realism to the way that the light is bouncing off of objects. In previous versions of Poser you would have to create a separate light to simulate the light reflecting off of an object. The indirect lighting in Poser 8 takes away the need for creating that extra light. The indirect light setting will bounce lighting off of one object and onto another object. In short the indirect lighting will allow you to create "one light renders" that would normally take 3 or 4 lights without the indirect light. The indirect light setting is found in the render settings. The image below is a screenshot of Poser 8's render settings. Here you can see the Indirect Light setting is checked. Indirect Light takes longer to render but it is well worth it.