Ballroom Floor Doesn't Render

ColinK

I've been playing with The Ballroom and found something I don't understand.

The floor renders as a black plane instead of wood.

I experimented with pointing a spotlight at it.

I experimented with loading the Poser instead of the Daz Studio files.

Is there something I have failed to do?

Cayman Studios

If you look very carefully at your render you will see that there is some texture on the floor, though very faint. The easiest way to get a clear look at the floor is to set up a Distant Light shining down directly from the top, with no shadows.

Jaderail

1. Not enough light, as in Ambient fill light.
2. Camera Angle causes the floor to blend together.

sriesch

Here are some comparisons of what you will see with various lighting options.
1st is the default, where you won't get the lighting you want.
2nd I added a spotlight. Now you can see the floor under the spot, but the default lighting is gone so you can't see anything else.
3rd I added an Uberenvironment, now you can see everything AND the spotlight. This is probably what you want (the ambient lighting plus one or more light sources such as ceiling lights or windows, doesn't have to be spotlights)
4th is just the Uberenvironment, with the spotlight deleted; it'll work kind of like the default, but probably won't look right without light coming from room lights or windows.

(Those are just the default settings for the Uberenvironment for quickly getting the scene started and doing test renders to verify positions of objects, you'll need to make minor adjustments to the default settings to get your final high quality render.)

ColinK

Thanks!

I put a distant light straight above, pointed directly down, and the floor is visible now.

Played around with some of the ambient and glossiness settings of the floor, also.

Now I just need to replace my old computer with something that doesn't croak when attempting raytraced shadows.