Iray Light Question; What is Causing This?

bueller1998_df4ca4b697

It renders in 5 minutes, but so far spent 8 hours trying to fix the problem: Washed out whites and harsh shadows.

I've deleted all lights and turned the headlamp use to "Never" in render settings. Yet something is so bright it is lighting the scene, causing the white lace on the dress to wash out (overexposed) and some pretty harsh shadows. It is lighting from the front, at the camera angle.

I often use a simple primitive plane with an emissive shader to light my scene, but none is present here. The scene is the i13 Visions in White, which I retextured with Iray shaders.

Could anyone help me troubleshoot this Iray lighting problem?

Tobor

Hard edges in shadows is caused by a small dimensional light source. I don't know the Visions in White product you mention, but look to see what type of light source she's using. If it's a spotlight or point light, try increasing the size of the emitter for the light -- the larger the emitter, the softer the shadows. You can change emitter size by first setting the emitter geometry from Point to either disc or rectangle.

If she's used a distant light (doesn't look like it, but check), get rid of it, and relight the scene to your preference.

If she's used an HDRi (for the Iray environment dome), that image has a *very* stark point light source. You're best off just using a different HDR image.

Tackle the washed out look of the whites after dealing with the lighting/shadows. Certainly one thing you always want to do in an Iray scene is change the base color from stark white to some off-tone. If you have a selection of Iray cloth shaders, try to find one for ordinary cotton. The well-designed ones will have little or no reflectivity.

bueller1998_df4ca4b697

I've deleted all lights and set render settings to "Never" for the camera headlamp. No dome, either. How can you detect other hidden emissive surfaces? Something is lighting this small "vignette" scene up.

gerterasmus

Try going to the camera's parameter settings and turn headlamp off there. See if that helps

Tobor

bueller1998_df4ca4b697 said:

I've deleted all lights and set render settings to "Never" for the camera headlamp. No dome, either. How can you detect other hidden emissive surfaces? Something is lighting this small "vignette" scene up.

I don't know what you mean by "No dome." Try choosing Scene Only in the render panel. That will deactivate any lighting from the Iray environment dome, either Sun/Sky or HDRi. The environment dome is virtual; there's no scene element for it, and it won't show up in the scene list.

The type of shadows you are getting strongly suggest it's not an emissive surface that's providing the light, and that the light you see is coming from a single source.

bueller1998_df4ca4b697

Thanks gerterasmus! That was it!

I thought disabling the headlamp in render setting did the trick, but apparently you have to turn the lamp off manually, also.

Is this a bug or is this just how the software works?

In previous forum posts I was always to advise to turn the render settings off regarding the headlamp and it would override everything.

Anyway, thank you again!!! You saved me more hours of frustration.

Tobor

Was the headlamp set to Auto or On?

bueller1998_df4ca4b697

Hey Tobor--The lamp on the camera was set to "on" despite the fact I thought disabling them in render settings would have taken care of that.

Tobor

bueller1998_df4ca4b697 said:

Hey Tobor--The lamp on the camera was set to "on" despite the fact I thought disabling them in render settings would have taken care of that.

The render setting is for Auto Headlamp; turning the headlamp to On (or Off) overrides this.

If a preset scene comes with lights and cameras, it's always a good idea to check through them for settings you don't like. 

 

Cenobite

I ask why Daz3d feels the need to ruin everyones scene with bad light settings, either the light is following the perspective mode or stuck to some other view point which always makes the light off set to  you're scenes.

First example if you load a chararcter into the scene with no environment and use perspective mode to move around the model you'll note all light appears from the left side, this light has a habbit of changing at will, sometimes it's set at a correct distance giving you the perfect light and all tones & displacement show fully"specially when close" but then other times the light is blasting the chararcter white and there is nothing you can do but shut down the program restart load everything again and hope that this light isn't stalking your every move. JUST LEAVE THE LIGHT SOUCE IN ONE SPOT, if we need to add other add a function that works! because all distance lights set don't light anything up as this primary headlamp take priority, in most cases you can't find the settings in the environment panel because most settings there effect 3Delight not Iray so marjority of these environment settings to use here are pointless in Iray.

Second example is you set up your scene lights are all working then you add a new prop or chararcter then all of a sudden the light is offset and no additional light other then emissives effect the light source, you're left with this shadow cast ruining high detail of models you paid good money for! i mean why one minute the light is perfect you save it thinking yes this is exactly what i want, reload the scene and something has changed and the light is now comming from another direction and even if you move that light seems to move with you so no matter what angle you try to get light from it changes always giving you a shadow cast in the wrong places... I feel this is programmers just making things difficult and annoying, you spend 30 or an hour setting up a scene then a whole day trying to figure out what they have done to your lighting killing all detail on the models... why did i just spend 50 dollars on this chararcter bundle with a bunch of props and environments that only work for the person that created them while we get subpar scenes with poor lighting that you have to fix to get working.. I don't know how many times i have purhcased a new scene only to be left with this pitch black no lights at all in scene because it's all done in 3Delight not iray and 3Delight doesn't work for most good things, iray has the best graphics i have bought an expensive maccine paid good money for this content now i get silly light controls that near everytime i enter a scene something changes ruining the whole scene.

 

If you use emissive light to light the scene up it has to be really bright or you get too many white dots that never render out of the frame, if you use too much emissive light shaders then it's way to bright washing out all textures, I find this editor extreme difficult to balance the light settings as half the setting don't work in iray & when your working with large scenes that require huge memory this is time consuming trying to fix these issues just loading scenes and props just to test settings.

In this pic below the one chararcter is darkened with no sources of shadow cast in that direction, there is nothing that should cast shadow on this map yet this chararcter is like dark while the others are bright, like a bunch of tress are there but none are in scene. The tree's in scene should have shadows beind them from the way the light source is set but this keeps changing even tho the sun is set to one angle and should be the only light source in scene.

I just want the light to follow in centre of the prespective mode for the render which usually goes of the perspective view point unless specified otherwise. If i move in perspective mode i expect any light backing the view point to follow at a set distance if not just leave the light at the angle the scene has set it an allow people to use distant lights to light upthe scene because i don't see distance lights working and spot lights only produce a limited area of light which is not what i need for most scenes.

So far i have managed to get one shot of this scene with the light i want but soon, these take about 2 to 4 hours to render i don't want to stuff around testing lights!

Richard Haseltine

blackrain696969 said:

I ask why Daz3d feels the need to ruin everyones scene with bad light settings, either the light is following the perspective mode or stuck to some other view point which always makes the light off set to  you're scenes.

First example if you load a chararcter into the scene with no environment and use perspective mode to move around the model you'll note all light appears from the left side, this light has a habbit of changing at will, sometimes it's set at a correct distance giving you the perfect light and all tones & displacement show fully"specially when close" but then other times the light is blasting the chararcter white and there is nothing you can do but shut down the program restart load everything again and hope that this light isn't stalking your every move. JUST LEAVE THE LIGHT SOUCE IN ONE SPOT, if we need to add other add a function that works! because all distance lights set don't light anything up as this primary headlamp take priority, in most cases you can't find the settings in the environment panel because most settings there effect 3Delight not Iray so marjority of these environment settings to use here are pointless in Iray.

The headlamp, which by default appears when there are no true lights in the scene or when Window>Preview Lights is off, follows the camera/view. If you want to have a different set up create the desired default lights (and Render Settings), save as a Scene, and in Edit>Preferences (Daz Studio>Preferences for a Mac) use the Scene and Start up tabs to set DS to load that scene on File>New and Startup respectively.

If the tone mapping of your scene suddenly changes are you using the Iray drawstyle? If be wary of clicking the +/-  icon next to the drawstyle button as hat activates an exposure meter whi0ch can easily have undesirable consequences - though you shouldn't need to restart to get back to good values.

3Delight has no environment settings, and few tone mapping settings. It doesn't have any entries in those groups in Render Settings.

Second example is you set up your scene lights are all working then you add a new prop or chararcter then all of a sudden the light is offset and no additional light other then emissives effect the light source, you're left with this shadow cast ruining high detail of models you paid good money for! i mean why one minute the light is perfect you save it thinking yes this is exactly what i want, reload the scene and something has changed and the light is now comming from another direction and even if you move that light seems to move with you so no matter what angle you try to get light from it changes always giving you a shadow cast in the wrong places... I feel this is programmers just making things difficult and annoying, you spend 30 or an hour setting up a scene then a whole day trying to figure out what they have done to your lighting killing all detail on the models... why did i just spend 50 dollars on this chararcter bundle with a bunch of props and environments that only work for the person that created them while we get subpar scenes with poor lighting that you have to fix to get working.. I don't know how many times i have purhcased a new scene only to be left with this pitch black no lights at all in scene because it's all done in 3Delight not iray and 3Delight doesn't work for most good things, iray has the best graphics i have bought an expensive maccine paid good money for this content now i get silly light controls that near everytime i enter a scene something changes ruining the whole scene.

That sounds as if there are no light nodes in the scene so the headlamp is on, or Window>Preview Lights is off.

Most scenes are set up for Iray or Iray and 3Delight (in which case be sure you are loading the right scene).

If you use emissive light to light the scene up it has to be really bright or you get too many white dots that never render out of the frame, if you use too much emissive light shaders then it's way to bright washing out all textures, I find this editor extreme difficult to balance the light settings as half the setting don't work in iray & when your working with large scenes that require huge memory this is time consuming trying to fix these issues just loading scenes and props just to test settings.

In this pic below the one chararcter is darkened with no sources of shadow cast in that direction, there is nothing that should cast shadow on this map yet this chararcter is like dark while the others are bright, like a bunch of tress are there but none are in scene. The tree's in scene should have shadows beind them from the way the light source is set but this keeps changing even tho the sun is set to one angle and should be the only light source in scene.

I just want the light to follow in centre of the prespective mode for the render which usually goes of the perspective view point unless specified otherwise. If i move in perspective mode i expect any light backing the view point to follow at a set distance if not just leave the light at the angle the scene has set it an allow people to use distant lights to light upthe scene because i don't see distance lights working and spot lights only produce a limited area of light which is not what i need for most scenes.

So far i have managed to get one shot of this scene with the light i want but soon, these take about 2 to 4 hours to render i don't want to stuff around testing lights!

I'm not following most of this - you seem to be contradicting some of your earlier comments about keeping the light constant, it's not clear what you mean by settings that don't affect Iray (though it may be you need to make sure that Prefernces>Show Hidden Properties is off in the Parameter pane's option menu - the lined/hamburger button in the top corner, or right-click the tab).

One thing to be aware of is that different vendors may et their skin materials up in different ways, mixing and matching may require adjustments.

marksinister_0f3a44cacc

Here's what you guys should do. Before making a HUGE scene... try playing with some lights first. You know like take a figure by itself or a object like a ball and just light it. Try enviroment lights like this, try using Emissive Lights like this, play with ghost lights like this, and play with spot lights like this.

Doing basic single object renders like these will help you better learn how lighting works in Daz studio so you don't make epic scenes with crappy lighting only to find out months later that you could've made your scene much more epic.

I spend more time render single characters on plane background more than anything else.

 

The practice of doing these helped me figure out how render settings, camera settings and lighting and environment lighting works.

Start simple and Youtube a lot.

 

vukiol

marksinister_0f3a44cacc said:

Here's what you guys should do. Before making a HUGE scene... try playing with some lights first. You know like take a figure by itself or a object like a ball and just light it. Try enviroment lights like this, try using Emissive Lights like this, play with ghost lights like this, and play with spot lights like this.

Doing basic single object renders like these will help you better learn how lighting works in Daz studio so you don't make epic scenes with crappy lighting only to find out months later that you could've made your scene much more epic.

I spend more time render single characters on plane background more than anything else.

 

The practice of doing these helped me figure out how render settings, camera settings and lighting and environment lighting works.

Start simple and Youtube a lot.

 

agree :) shadows have the same rights as the lights (omg after this beter i go bed )