Really cool. The only thing I would change would be the glow, needs to glow more, don't know poser though so cant help you out. you cold add a glow with photoshop i guess. Do light sabers cast shadows?? love the stance.

Yeah, I worked to get as much glow as I could. There is actually a bright green spotlight on the blade, with the intensity up to 1000%. I struggled to get it to glow as much as it does, without ruining the rest of the scene. Interestingly, I didn't post about the lightsaber's shadow beacuse I wanted to see if someone would pose the question. Believe it or not, I debated the question for about an hour. Here is my thought process... In Star Wars, lightsabers are not actual sources of light. Their glow does not radiate of other objects. (This was part of the reason I couldn't get the glow of the blade right, otherwise, it started becoming its own light source.) By the same token, since they aren't an actual light source, they are not transparent. My assumption was that since they aren't transparent, and actually not even translucent, they should block light, as any opaque object would. In considering this, I tried to think about whether a saber ever actually cast a shadow in the movies. As far as I can recall, the answer is no. However, my thinking went to the lighting of scenes in the movies. Although the tone was dark in all of the movies worth watching, there was always what I want to term global lighting. Take for example the Death Star, when Obi-Wan fights Vader. There are lights coming from all directions. This makes shadows an impossibility. In scenes where there is no global lighting, such as Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith, it is too dark to cast shadows. I will disclaim that this was probably a consequence of Lucas' vision of the movies. In doing the 10 billion other tweaks involved in the making of the movies, the shadows were probably just ignored. Maybe I am wrong, but I decided that it was an "oversight" and my design decision was to allow the saber to cast a shadow in this scene, since the major light source comes directly at the sabre, resulting in a significant shadow. Thank you very much for your comment. I was actually hoping to provoke a bigger discussion with the shadow, but I am content that someone did feel it was worth mentioning. Thanks again for taking the time!

Kool pic,But? after a little looking around i checked the best sorce 4 the shadow question. JEDI KNIGHT JEDI ACDEMY,this 1 game does everything right ,and if your P.C can handel it you will see the sabers dont cast shadows.AT the games highest settings EVERYTHING cast a shadow on your player,Whereever light hits theres a shadow Everything but the SABER that is....The hilt even cast a shadow but the Lightblade itself doesnt.If u havent played this GREAT JEDI GAME please do so ,if u have maby i`ll meet u on-line.

Hmm I have had this thought too but I came with the conclusion that, since the Lightsaber is called a laser sword it would cast a sort of laser light when ever it is close to something. (example wall, character ,ground etc.) So even if there were to be global lighting, the intense heat coming off the Lightsaber would still have some type of glow on anything that it is close to. So since your character is close to a wall, and the lightsaber is pretty close to your character, some green lights would have helped out this scene. ____ Another way you could get the lightsaber to have the white glow in the inside would be to trick the eye. Have another closed cylinder in the inside of the green cylinder and set its color to a high intensity white and then have the green color have some degree of transparency so you could see through it. Well there goes my tips hope they help

FWIW, I have a friend who's an absolute SW fanatic. He says that the plastic cylinder they used as a lightsaber blade (to provide a reference for the CG people) would sometimes leave slight shadows or caustics on a few frames of the shoot - and the director wou;d freak out, insisting that the entire thing be reshot with lighting changed (or position, etc.) to eliminate the shadow. ---------------------------------------------- In their view, the blade was an energy construct, and didn't change the light flowing through it in the slightest - just generated a little light of its own, by design.

Hmmm...Interesting. Well I love Star Wars, but I am by no means a "fanatic." I did just see Revenge of the Sith for the second time yesterday, and I have seen the Original (Episode IV) more than a dozen times, but I do not obsess over the details. If I do another SW pic, I think I will go with the lack of shadow though. I was tossed about the decision, but I guess, in the end, it does radiate its own light, so a shadow may not be appropriate. Making it radiate is really not too hard in the Mat Room. While working on the image, I was able to make it glow so much it made the wall behind, the right arm, and half of the face a neon green. Thanks for the comments all. I will definitely keep them in mind for any future works!

Woo Hoo! You Go Jedi-James! Looks like you could have smoothed the robe a tad more with Wardrobe Wizard before converting it to dynamic. Not sure if that would help with those dark spots on the robe or not though.