Poser Materials III Intermediate Surface Definitions

The articles in this section discuss some material definitions for object surfaces (the PoserSurface), which are handled through the Advanced Interface: the nodes from the Lighting group, and the nodes on image-maps and movies. It also discusses some principles on dealing with the PoserSurface root node.

• First, articles discuss the workings of the PoserSurface root node in general.
  • How do the various components (Diffuse, Specular, …) and elements (Color, Value, …) work together
  • Principal and practical limitations in combining components
  • A brief intro on node-tree building
• Second, articles discuss some elaborate details of components available in the Simple interface: diffuse (Lambert) shading, reflection details, render settings.
   
• Third, articles discuss the additional components of the PoserSurface node, like Shadow Catch, ToonID, Custom output,  refraction and translucency.
   
• Forth, articles discuss Alternate_Diffuse, Alternate_Specular and all the nodes from the Lighting > Diffuse and Lighting > Specular groups. The common ones:
  • Diffuse and Clay,
  • Specular, Blinn and Anisotropic
    And the less commonly used ones:
  • probeLight and Toon
  • Glossy, Phong and Ks_Microfacet
• Fifth, articles discuss the nodes from the Lighting > Special group, like Scatter and Hair.
  • Skin, Velvet, Hair and Fastscatter
  • Subsurface Skin, Scatter and CustomScatter
    After that, the various scatter nodes are compared.
• Sixth, articles discuss the nodes from the Lighting > Raytrace group.
  • Reflect, Refract and Fresnel
    After that, their complex relationship with Transparency is dealt with.
  • Ambient Occlusion and Gather
• Seventh, articles discuss spherical mapping, image maps and movie-based textures.
  • Spherical Map
  • Images and how Poser handles them
  • Movies and how Poser handles them

Next subsections present similar articles on an(IV) Advanced level, as well as on defining the properties of (V) Non-objects (atmosphere, background, lights) as far as these are handled through the Material Room interface. The Appendix lists all Material Room nodes and relevant Render Settings, and their availability in the various Poser versions.