Mortem Vetus: Realis Lumina
 
Thank you for purchasing
Realis Lumina. 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 Candles will be in Figures:MortemVetus:Candles:RealisLumina:

So we're going to load Candle01, 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 Candle 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 Candle, or another of our self-illuminating items, such as the Nightlight or Fae Candle. In image 4a below, we've brought in a second Candle, and as you can see, they each illuminate the sides of the other very nicely. Adding several self-illuminating object 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 poitioned directly in front and above the Candle. 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'. If you bring extra Candles 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.



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

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 Candle10. 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 RealisLumina, 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 colour you want, or highlight the thumbnail of the library entry and click the single tick symbol, 'Apply Library Preset'. There are 26 material options to choose from.

To demonstrate, we've applied 'Candle_I' as shown in image 5c below. The colour of the candle has now changed to red. To change it back, make sure the candle is still selected and apply material 'Candle_A' to return to the default. And all without having to go into the Material Room.  :)



Image 5c: Select 'Candle_I'
Image 5d: Applied 'Candles_I'

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
:)