The Reality 3 Webinar for Poser

Just recently Paolo Ciccone at Preta3D released Reality 3, which is a pathway to allow folk who model in Poser to use the LuxRender engine, rather than the Firefly engine, which comes with the program. There was a presentation on the program in the very useful Poser Expo hosted by 3D Art Live, but this really only introduced the technology. Now Paolo has, through the same agency, released a Masterclass on Reality. Although the Webinar was held back in July the recorded version became available last Friday, and it was packed with very useful information for neophytes such as myself, presented in a simple way that was easy to follow and learn from as you will see, from a couple of examples.

In the introductory part of the class Paolo pointed out that the role of lighting is not to illuminate and make things visible, but is an artistic choice as the light is painted into the scene to create the art. Then in the main body of the course he spent the first twenty minutes showing how to create moonlight and the illusion of a lamp burning to illuminate a doorway. I took that lesson and applied the easy steps that he outlined to created an updated version of The Witchtaker.

Figure 1. The Witchtaker on a cold night.

(Angus on Michael 4 (with morphs), wearing the Witch Hunter garb, and carrying a flintlock pistol. He is standing outside the Courtyard tower near some dead bushes. The lighting is with two Mesh Lights from Reality, one simulating moonlight, and the second strengthening the light from the cresset (burning wood), which has, itself, been made into a light. Rendering by LuxRender. (The slightly odd pattern of light on the wall comes from the shadows of the boards burning in the cresset – took me hours to realize that.)

UPDATE: An additional figure has been added.

The scene was used in an earlier post when it looked like this, before the lighting was changed.

Figure 2. Original illustration.

Both scenes are meant to be at night, but the more recent is more reflective of what it should likely be (i.e. reality). You may note that the texture of the shirt changed – well that was part of my mods to the original textures, but Paolo spent the remaining 40 minutes in the Webinar on changing material properties and textures, particularly leather, and so it is going to take some time to work through how to make those alterations. At some time in the future, no doubt, I will show how they incrementally improve the picture.

The second twenty minutes of the Webinar dealt with Portrait Photography, and just to prove that I can follow the step-by-step instructions that covered this topic, herewith is my rendition of Dublin, the original cover girl for Reality, with no post-work. (Only the hair has been changed from the Webinar version, out of curiosity to see if it made a difference). It took less time to make this than Paolo took to spell out the steps to do so.

Figure 3. Dublin in Reality

( Dublin from the Metropolitan on Victoria 4.2, with Sissy Le Beaux Hair style, two mesh lights and a gold reflector).

In short the Webinar was definitely worth the time, and cost and will help considerably in moving me down the road to where I can produce something that others might consider art.

UPDATE: One of the recommendations that Paolo has was to look to Portrait Photography books for ideas, and now having read some dozen of these I did adopt the initial pose based on Neil van Niekirk's book "Direction and Quality of Light." He uses the Short lighting pose, which I rather like, and so here is Dublin using that position (and re-arranged key light and reflector).

Figure 4. A preferred posing for Dublin.