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"I love Poser because it is so easy to use and quick to create my worlds and tell my stories to share with you all."
Interview with Poser4me
What got you interested in digital art?
As a kid, I always loved cartoons, so as a teen comics were my next love. The stories and the artist showed me the power of telling great stories through the medium. My first job as a young adult was working as an apprentice at an art studio. I already owned an Amiga 1000 computer playing with software programs like Deluxe Paint 3 and 4. But at this studio, I was introduced to a program called Swivel 3d on the Macintosh, and wow I was hooked into the digital landscape. In the early 90's I was a computer enthusiast going to local computer trade shows buying parts all to be able to build and play with 3d programs on x86 pcs. All this has the power to create your own worlds and narratives like George Lucas and Spielberg. And then there was Poser as if heaven had heard my prayers! I had the ease of use to create like a rockstar, and here we are today.
What is your workflow when creating scenes with Poser?
"Morning has Broken" is a remarkable Poser scene. Can you tell us how you created this scene and what your inspiration was?
I had recently discovered how to bring Daz assets into Poser and this one, Forest Road, I just finished adding bump maps to. So I wanted to use it in a render and I often listen to music while working. I love all genres of music and Cat Stevens's song Morning has broken was ringing in my ear for a while. I guess a light bulb went off and worked on this scene for a while minus the lady pushing the bike. I put it away for some time and later went through my scene library and said to myself what could I do to make this scene pop. I've always loved the State of Main and the beautiful leaves and envisioned myself in an early morning sunrise watching a person enjoying the views and nature. I never thought this would get the views it did, just goes to show you never know what will connect to people as you might think.
Can you expand on your render settings for "Morning has Broken"?
Morning has Broken, as are many of my renders, was an attempt to solve the problem of trying to capture a certain lighting mood.
Any medium you work in has strengths and weaknesses, understanding this and yourself is a process of trial and error. For the longest, I was so intimidated by the lighting in Poser and really wouldn't try to get too deep into it. I think my breakthrough was a combination of reverse engineering scene assets lighting and never giving up. Even if that means saving a scene you working on and coming back later with a fresh set of eyes. I still have a lot to learn but the fear of lighting and materials is at a minimum due to understanding.
I rendered this scene at 3000x3200 at 72.00 pix/in. I love the ability to view the whole screen being rendered all at once by checking the progressive refinement. I usually render at 10 pixel samples with an adaptive setting of 0.20 while I am doing test renders before my final. My final pixel sample was 44 with adaptive at 0.0 when I'm ready to render for print. Poser 12 new Intel de noise feature was really great to play with and I crank it to 100% here. I remember rendering via cpu that took forever for one scene, I used a Nvidia GTX 1600 Super for this render which made render times night and day.
Later I invested in a RTX 3090 with optix capabilities and wow what a difference. I went from a Bi plane to a supersonic jet in the end. I know a lot of people have laptops and don't have powerful GPUs but if you can I highly recommend a graphics card that and take full advantage of Super flies optix render setting. Now with Poser 13 out the speed of renders is blinding fast.
Here for instance I wanted the light to break through the trees casting shadows on the asphalt. This was accomplished by having an area light above the trees at a high intensity of 3400 at a high scale of 11568%. I found this solved the problem of creating that feel of walking under a canopy of trees.
