Mortem Vetus: Illuminantis Libris Thank you for purchasing Illuminantis Libris. We hope you enjoy using this product, and this User Guide is intended to just help you get the most out of your purchase. Mostly, this guide will be covering the basic operation of the items included in the pack. Ok, first things first. This pack is intended for use with Poser 8 and newer. You CAN use it in Poser 6 and 7, however, you WILL get a version number error message on loading, and in Poser 6, if you try to bring in a second instance of one of the figures, it deletes the lights from the first one, so in Poser 6, only one at a time will be self-illuminating. For the purposes of this guide, we'll be using PoserPro 2014, but there is nothing we'll be doing that can't be done in Poser 8 and above.  And initially, pretty much everything is in default, except Render settings. Once you've installed the product, your new self-illuminating CandleBooks will be in Figures:MortemVetus:Candles:IlluminantisLibris: So we're going to load CandleBooks1, and zoom the camera in a bit to give us a good view of it. So what we have in our preview window is as shown in image 1a, and if you render this now (image 1b), it'll be very bright, and not really showing the effect of the candles...kind of like lighting a candle at midday in summer. So we need to get rid of our default Poser lights. The default lights are named Light 1, Light 2, Light 3 and in Poser 10, there is a Light 4. Select the lights individually, either from the drop dow,n menu, or by using the Hierarchy Editor, as shown in images 2a and 2b. *NOTE* If you choose to use the Hierarchy Editor, then you will need to check 'Show Lights'. Then un-check the 'On' box in the Properties tab, as shown in image 2c.

Image 1a: Default in preview	Image 1b: Default rendered

Image 2a: Select from drop-down	Image 2b: Select from Hierarchy Editor	Image 2c: Properties Tab

Let's go through and turn off all of Posers default lights, and now our preview looks like image 3a, and if we render this, we get the image shown in image 3b. Right now, the ONLY illumination in the scene is being cast by the candles, with each light source being centred on the flames. This gives a very accurate representation of the light being cast by the candles. As with all our self-illuminating items, the light being cast by the item will produce a very true to life setup of light and shadow, without the need to twiddle around trying to fake it with lights that are not in the correct position for the apparent light source, which in this case is the candle flames.

Image 3a: Default lights off, preview	Image 3b: Default lights off, rendered

Now, while these items work best with little or no other lights, this can cause troubles when trying to set a scene up. *TIP* Leave one or more of your Poser default lights on while setting your scene. We actually leave all our default lights on until we have the scene set up, then turn off the default lights and make any minor adjustments to lighting once we can see how the scene is lit. As we can see in image 3b above, a single Candlebooks throws a nice illumination around itself, but because the light source is on top, this causes shadowing down the bookpile. There are a number of ways to get round this. The easiest is to bring in another self-illuminating item, such as another CandleBooks pile, or another of our self-illuminating items, such as the Nightlight or Fae Candle. In image 4a below, we've brought in a second CandleBooks pile, and as you can see, they each illuminate the sides of the other very nicely. Adding several self-illuminating objects rapidly increases the light levels in the immediate area. Another method is shown in image 4b, where we've turned on a single point light, which is positioned directly in front and above the CandleBook pile. The Distance End has been turned down until it just adds some light to the target object. This is a useful method for simulating indirect or reflected light. Or for creating the effect of a low ambient light, such as you get just before dawn. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, and will depend upon your scene and the effect you want to create. To change the amount or distance of light, select one of the lights named 'MainLight'. CandleBooks 1 and 3 have multiples of this light, andso have numbered suffixes. If you bring extra CandleBooks in, their light will have different suffixes. There are two important dials on the parameter tab of these lights, "Dist End" and "Intensity". Dist End controls how far the light travels. Turning this dial up and down affects how far the light travels before decay reduces it to nothing. Intensity, as the name suggests, controls the intensity of the light. Increasing or decreasing this one affacts how bright or dim the light is. 'MainLight' is the only one you will want to change. It controls the light that the candle is casting, whereas the other four are purely to help with appearance, and changing these may produce undesirable results. In fact, it WILL, no 'might do' about it, let's be frank.  :)

Image 4a: increasing light with another CandleBooks	Image 4b: Increasing light with a single point light

We've included a small selection of book piles, for making taller piles of books. These can be found in Props:MortemVetus:BookPiles: Since the purpose of them is for stacking them up, let's take a quick look at that. The BookPiles come in a variety of sizes, and by using the scale dials, you can quickly and easily create different size piles. In image 4c, we brought in BookPile1, and then loaded BookPile5, without moving the first pile. We then moved BookPile5 up using the yTran dial, until it was sat neatly on top of BookPile1. We've also included a single book. The prurpose of this is to be able to add part distances to height of piles, and to give visual interest, as in image 4d below. The single book is on it's own in the foreground, and leant up against BookPile1 behind.

Image 4c: Stacking two piles	Image 4d: The single book

By adjusting scale and rotaion values, we can come up with what appear to be a whole different load of books, just from our original selection. In image 4e below, we've used 3 instances of the same book pile at different scales. The bottom pile is at 132% scale, the middle pile is at 100% scale and the top pile is at 70% scale. We've also given each pile a slightly different amount of yRotate, so we end up with this lovely curling, tapering  tower effect. And if you change the materials as well, which we're coming to next, then you can create completely unique piles. In image 4f, each of the piles is made from the same books, but with differing scales, rotations and materials. Rotating by the way is best confined to the yRotate dial, as the piles are built to be stacked, not lined up.

Image 4e: Rotation and Scale	Image 4f: Scale, Rotation and Material changes

That's the essential basics, and the only other thing to cover is changing the materials. Now, we know a lot of people find the Material Room stressful or even downright scary. It doesn't need to be, from Poser 8 onwards, you don't even need to go into the Material Room to apply materials, except when you're changing individual materials. In this product, you won't need to visit the Material Room at all. Ok, so we've started a new scene and brought in a CandleBooks1. All the Poser default lights are still on, and we've brought one of them round to the front to better show what's happening as shown in image 5a. Next we need to go to the materials tab of our library, and find the folder for CandleBook1, as shown in image 5b.

Image 5a: Ready for re-materialing	Image 5b: Poser materials tab in the Library

Make sure the correct figure is selected, then double click the library entry of the element you want to change, or highlight the thumbnail of the library entry and click the single tick symbol, 'Apply Library Preset'. At this point you can change the books (Books 1-5), or the candles(Candles 1-4), or the whole thing(Collection 1-5). If you don't see any change on the first material you apply, that's because that's the material it has on when loading, so try another and you'll see an immediate change. To demonstrate, we've applied 'Collection_5' and as you can see in image 5c below, the candle colour and the books have all changed. Compare it with image 5a above and you'll see the differences. And to get the red candles back, do the same but using entry 'Candles_4' this time, and there we go, back to red candles as shown below in image 5d. And all without having to go into the Material Room.  :) There is also a folder to change the materials on the BookPile props, called Books. This contains 5 material collections, which can all be used on any of the five BookPiles. And one for the Single Book, which contains 11 material presets. Treat the props in the same way as the figures. Select the pile or single book you want to change, and apply the appropriate material in the same way as you applied them to the CandleBooks figures.

Image 5c: Applied 'Collection_5'	Image 5d: Applied 'Candles_4'

IMPORTANT NOTE: During the course of making this tutorial, and making renders for promos and images, we discovered a problem with PoserPro 2014 and saved Pz3 files that contain more than one set of CandleBooks. When you try to open a Pz3 with more than one CandleBooks in with PoserPro 2014, it all goes haywire. Lights are missing, or incorrectly parented, and even geometry is missing sometimes. This appears to happen with any Pz3 that contains more than one CandleBooks figure, regardless of the version of Poser it was saved in. For example, a Pz3 with all three stacks that has been saved in poserPro 2010 will open fine in PP2010, but not in PP2014. The same Pz3 saved in PoserPro 2014, will not open correctl;y in any version of Poser. Please bear this in mind when using this product. We are using Poser Pro 2014, 64-bit, with SR_3 applied. At the time of writing, we have not been able to find a way to prevent this happening. We are contacting SmithMicro to see if they can shed any light on the situation. (Pun intended)

And that's it. As with all our self-illuminating products, we've tried to create something that provides effective, realistic lighting with a minimum of fuss and trouble. We hope you enjoy using this product and we look forward to seeing what images you make with it. Happy Rendering Andrew and Tracey :)