Light Types

Poser allows you to create four types of lights: infinite, point, spot and image-based.

When you select a light, Poser displays a light indicator describing your selected light’s position in the Document. In some cases, viewing the indicator from a different angle can help you visualize your light’s position. You can switch Camera views and/or zoom to view light indicators from different angles. Additionally, you can adjust a light’s position by clicking and dragging the light indicator in the actual scene. The Light controls will reflect any changes you make to the light indicator’s position. Note that image-based lights have no light indicators, as they surround your entire scene.

Infinite Lights

Infinite lights are comparable to the sun or moon shining on the Earth. Rays from infinite lights are parallel as they enter your Poser workspace. If you have multiple figures and/or props in your scene, infinite lights shine on each item equally. You cannot place any scene element beyond an infinite light’s range, and no figure/prop can be lit differently than another.

Infinite Lights shine parallel, and equally on all items in your scene.

An infinite light’s indicator appears as a ring surrounding the currently selected figure/prop. This ring serves as the equatorial line of an invisible globe with the light shining down on your scene from the point on the equator indicated by the arrows, as shown here.

Infinite Light Indicators.

Then viewed from oblique angles, the circle appears as an ellipse, helping show if the light is in front of or behind the figure. The light is not actually on the edge of the indicator. The indicator simply represents a larger globe encompassing the entire Poser workspace. You can click and drag a light indicator to reposition the selected light.

Point Lights

Point lights are similar to a light bulb, in that they emit light from a single source point outward in 360 degrees. These lights are ideal for times when you want an omnidirectional light source that can interact with objects and cast shadows in ways that an infinite light cannot. For performance reasons depth mapped shadows are not supported for point lights; point light shadows must be calculated using raytracing.

A point light’s indicator appears as a small outlined circle, depicting the light’s position in 3D space (remember, you can position point and spotlights in 3D space, unlike infinite lights), as shown here.

Point Light Indicators.

As point lights emit light equally in all directions, there is no direction indicator as with a spotlight.

Spotlights

Spotlights cast light in a specific direction, throwing light along a cone-shaped path to create a classic stage spot effect. These lights are useful for illuminating specific objects or for creating lighting effects. Spotlights can increase rendering times.

A spotlight’s indicator appears as the outline of a spotlight in your Poser workspace depicting both the light’s position in 3D space and the direction the light is pointing, as shown in this image.

Spotlight Indicators.

Clicking and dragging a spotlight’s indicator moves the light around the scene.

You may want to use orthographic views (Left, Right, Top, Bottom, Front, or Back) to move Spotlight indicators, since doing so constrains the spotlight’s motion to two dimensions (YZ if using the Left or Right views, XZ if using the Top or Bottom views, and XY if using the Front or Back views). Using perspective views can move your spotlight in oblique directions, causing unexpected lighting effects.

Diffuse Image-Based Lights (IBL)

Diffuse Image-Based Lighting (Diffuse IBL) takes a light probe, which is ideally a 360 degree light distribution map captured in a single map, and illuminates the scene using that map. In Poser, only the diffuse component of the light is defined by the light probe. As this technique is based on complete light data for a given space, the lighting results are very realistic. In order to get realistic shadows when using an image-based light, we recommend using Ambient Occlusion (see Light Properties). You must activate raytracing in the Render Settings dialog in order to render Ambient Occlusion effects.

To attach a light probe to the image-based light, press the Advanced Material Properties button on the Properties palette (see Light Properties. Once in the Material room, you have the option of attaching simply a light probe image map, or a shader tree of any complexity, to the color channel of your Diffuse IBL.

Poser has the ability to apply the full functionality of its procedural shading system to an image map used as an image-based light. See Materials for more information about the image node manipulations available using the shading system in the Material room.

Area Lights

Area lights simulate real lights more accurately. They work a lot like a photographer’s “soft box” light. You can adjust the size to control the amount of light that is emitted.

Area lights are represented by a square outline that depicts the light position in 3D space. A dotted line protruding from the light shows the direction that the light is pointing.

Area Light Indicators.

Click and drag the area light indicator to reposition it in the scene. Use the Parameters palette to scale the light.