Rendering Questions
Q. What is the difference between a texture
map, a transparency map, a reflection map, and a bump map?
A. Texture - the colors on an object. Transparency
- the areas that let light through. Bump - the raised areas on an object.
Reflection - the reflected picture.
Suppose you had a sword with a leather hilt and a very shiny blade.
Texture map: The color of the hilt is determined by the texture map. The graininess of the leather would be created with either a bump map or the texture map. (If there is just a bit of graininess, you might as well do highlights and shadows on the texture map itself. If there are major raised areas and depressions, you'd use a bump map.)
Transparency map: If the blade is supposed to be serrated, you might use a transparency map to hide bits of the sword edge to create the serrated look. (White means visible, Black means hidden. Gray will give a semi-transparent effect.) People use transmaps all the time to turn a solid shirt into a lacy construct by hiding bits of the shirt, creating a lacy effect. You can shorten skirts by turning the bottom of the skirt transparent with a transparency map.
Bump map: As I said earlier, if the hilt is very bumpy, you might use the bump map to create the bumps. Another possibility is to use a bump map to create runes on the sword. Why do this? Because the more detail in the model itself, the more polygons. More polygons = larger file size = program gets really slow or crashes. Bump maps fake extra detail.
Reflection map: if the blade is very shiny, it will show what is around it - like a mirror. A reflection map is just a picture of what reflects off of the surface. (Think of all the car commercials where you see the shiny chrome. If you look carefully at the chrome, you'll see the background reflected by the chrome.)
Q. What is anti-aliasing?
A. Anti-aliasing blends the jagged edges
seen in renders. You'd use it when you are satisfied with your picture
and want a final, extra-smooth picture. Many of the newer hair models
don't look right unless they're anti-aliased, but boy, do they look good
after that final render!
Q. What Firefly vs. Poser 4 Render Engine
vs. Poser 4?
A. Firefly is the new rendering engine in
Poser 5. It has advanced capabilities and can produce some very nice results
but it is very slow. The "Poser 4 Render Engine" is a faster
render engine in Poser 5, but supposedly produces lower quality results.
(I prefer it over Firefly myself, but some people refuse to use anything
but Firefly. It's a matter of taste, I suppose.) The "Poser 4 Render
Engine" that you find in Poser 5 isn't the same thing as the Poser
4 renderer. It's definitely slower than if you rendered the same image
in Poser 4. It's hard to compare results, though, since there are a lot
more options you can use in Poser 5, even with the "Poser 4 Render
Engine."