Picture this if you will... a Posette-sized tub of Cookies N Cream icecream.

Nicely rippled, lovingly textured, good enough (almost) to eat.  My problem is that being somewhat [CENSORED] - if you will pardon the expression - I put little drops of icecream on the inner rim of the tub, using a bump map because even I'm not crazy enough to individually model 50 drops in geometry - yet. But even though there is only one light throwing a shadow, some of the furshlugginer drops end casting shadows in THE WRONG DIRECTION!!

Is there some setting I'm missng?

(and yes... there is a reason the tub is Posette-sized...)

I'm used to doing renders in 3D Studio MAX, which is somewhat more precise at setting up lights and rendering options. But I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi GrouchoC!
... Posette sized ice cream tub   
Well, talking about your shadow problem.
A bump map is no real geometry, and doesn't cast real  shadows, it "draws" shadows where it's defined in the map, in the older Poser versions, at least.
Assuming, you used a cylindrical mapping for the tub, the map is wrapped around the obj, so the texture on the backside of the tub work the other direction. Try to mirror or invert this parts of the map, you're using for bump.
This might work

I understood your problem but maybe things go differently from Poser to 3D Max render engine. As far As I know the new bump map system on Poser should give shadows too (there is the old bump maps system too for retrocompatibility). For what you want to obtain a displacement map should be more appropriate in Poser.

P.S. I have to censor a little your post   , we pardon but the site is PG 13  

Thanks for the help... and yeah, it's because I'm used to how MAX does things that I did what I did.  Seems as though a fill light was responsible for my hassels and making what LOOKED like shadows in the wrong places.  I toned it down, and hey presto... no problem.

Too used to being able to tell a light not to affect an object if required.  Guess I got lazy...

Picture is almost showable, and I think it's kinda cute. Will upload it later on this week.

Oh, and as for language, mea cupla...  though in my defence [SEMI-EXPLETIVE DELETED]-retentive is a legitimate psychological descriptive term.  Though maybe shortening the term wasn't the brightest of ideas...!  

(Bows down low in anticipation of punishment... >THWACK!!< Owww - that smarts....!)

GrouchoC

  

Quote:

Too used to being able to tell a light not to affect an object if required.  Guess I got lazy...

If I'm not wrong you can see in the properties of the object if you want it to cast shadows or not. What I don't like in Poser's light system is that the preview is every time very different from the final render so that I've to spend a lot of time in test renders when it comes the time to set up lights   . I will see if something will change in the next version ( I preordered it 'cause of I got Poser 5 for free, used a 10% discount coupon for the upgrade and the low exchange rate euro-dollars helped   )