Dark rendering

jrapp11

Hi,

I haven't found this in my searches, so I'll ask...

I have my scenes complete and lit the way I want it. Everything looks fine in the viewports.

I render them, and they comes out darker. I have added more lights and wash out some parts, but they are still darker in the rendered image. I have played with the render settings, and still can't hit the right combination. I have even gone to the extreme of setting the gain to 2.0. Interestingly, this did fix the dark render in some spots that I was trying to gain. But as you would expect, it also blew out things like skin tone making it useless.

I found a video on YouTube where the person said he had issues with his shadows due to his graphics card on his MAC. I have a Windows based PC with an NIVIDIA graphics display. If this is a hardware issue I may be just going around in circles, Has anyone else had this issue? Were you able to find a solution.

Thanks,

Still playing with setting...

Fishtales

Not sure if this might help.

In 3Delight/Advanced scroll down to Gamma and change it from 1,0 to 2,2 with Gamma Correction OFF.

jrapp11

I gave Gamma a try. The 2.2 setting blew out the image. But now I have another tool to tweak along with the lighting to see is I can find a balance.

Thanks

Steven-V

Have you tried softening or lowering the intensity of the shadows?

Also, at least for me, I find I am happiest with most renders if there are shadows coming only from ONE source (usually the main light). If I try to put shadows on multiple sources I don't like the result as well.

Finally, what kind of lights are you using, and how many, and where positioned? Are these standard DAZ spotlights? Distant lights? AoA advanced lights? UberEnvironment? And are you doing a 3-point light setup? 7 point? IBL?

All of these things have an effect.

One thing you can try. Keeping the camera in one place and all objects in one place, turn off all lights but one, and put that one to 100% intensity. Render. Save to file. Then turn that off, and turn the next one on. Render with 100%. Save to a different file. Do this with all lights, at 100%. Now with each file, load them all into Photoshop, GiMP or your image editor of choice. Combine all pictures into layers (make sure to paste-in-place so they are exactly overlaid on top of each other). Make a black background layer. Now change all layers to "screen." Yes it is blown out. But now, you can go into each layer and tweak the opacity. Lower/raise the different layers until you get what you want. This is much quicker than re-rendering over and over with slight lighting differences. Opacity sliders work instantly. When you're happy with the intensities, you can combine layers and use the finished product. OR, you can go back into DAZ, turn on all the lights, and set their intensities to match the opacity levels you set in their layers.

Deke

And don't forget you can use that little camera tool to make faster spot-renders to test changes to your settings. Makes trial and error a bit faster than rendering the whole shot.

jrapp11

Hi all,

Thanks to all your suggestions I have made great progress over the past two days.

I was using the 3 point light set up. And a single camera. I went back and saw I did have shadows turned on on two of them. And other things. Then I realized that I was hopelessly lost if little tweaks I had made here and there. They really added up. So I went back and reset defaults, made a list of your suggestions and saw a great improvement. I am still working on skin tones. But I am seeing progress. And I also now know I don't have a hardware problem. Just a learning curve problem.

Again,
Thank you all for your suggestions,
jrapp

Cris Palomino

Also, which version of Studio are you using? If you are using the 4.8 Iray Beta, you don't want to use DS lights, but the photometric lights under the create menu. Always state what software and version you are using so we can better help you.

Steven-V

jrapp11 said:

I was using the 3 point light set up. And a single camera. I went back and saw I did have shadows turned on on two of them. And other things. Then I realized that I was hopelessly lost if little tweaks I had made here and there. They really added up. So I went back and reset defaults, made a list of your suggestions and saw a great improvement. I am still working on skin tones. But I am seeing progress. And I also now know I don't have a hardware problem. Just a learning curve problem.

For 3-point, as a general rule, I only put shadows on the Key. I assume you know how to set it up, but in terms of values, usually I start with 100% key intensity w/shadows, 50% fill w/ no shadows, 100% backlight w/ no shadows. Then I will tweak.

You may also need a "background light" if you are using spotlights and not distant lights. Put it behind the character facing toward the background so it doesn't light the character. Set the spread nice and wide so it covers everything visible in the shot. Then you will probably want to turn the intensity down substantially, something like 25%. But you will need to try it and see.

One very helpful thing is to render one light at a time. See EXACTLY what the backlight is doing by itself. And so on. This can often show you why you are not getting the results you want.

Also if 3-point is not working, try 7 point. To the traditional 3 you add a background light (as stated above), an overhead light coming down from straight on top of the scene, a bounce light angled up at the main character from directly under camera, and an ambient light. Ambient can be done with AOA's advanced ambient or else you can use the omnifreaker Uber Environment 2 sphere set to ambient only. All those other lights should have low intensity (10-15% usually, and no more than 20%) or you will blow out the scene. Also you will probably need to dial the key and fill down some (to 80% and 40% or so).

Speaking of versions - I have 4.7 and use 3DeLight, so all my advice assumes that. if you are using Lux/Reality or Iray then ignore me. ;)