Iray renders
I am happy to be redirected if necessary.
I have been trying 4.8 with the Iray render engine, but I don't seem to be able to get any lighting without having 'sky' light.
Advice will be welcome, since the 3Direct renders look good where the Iray ones are flat.
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Comments
Iray needs to use "IRay lights". Uber Environment or AoA Advanced lights just won't work.
Use Photometric Point or Spotlights, and for softer lights just add a plane and set the surface to IRay Emitter and pull up the wattage!
As someone told me, go to your light and add a few 0's to the lumens.
Also, read and watch this: http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/journal/Tutorial-Getting-Started-With-Iray-519725115
I had discovered and tried the photometric lights without effect. Now trying with a lot more lumens, but not hopeful......
Try using the K/cm^2 setting (I think that is it. I am not at my rendering computer). You will not have to set the lumens so high with this setting.
Ramping the lumens helps - I am halfway through a reasonable render. I can't therefore see what the K/cm2 thoing is. I also don't have an Nvidia card, which is annoying if it is needed.
I do not have one either. I render on CPU power. It just takes longer without a card.
You can also make adjustments in the tone mapping if you want to leave the lumen more comparable to real world lights. For example changing the IOS film setting to 200 for lower light outdoors renders or 400 for inside renders will help. You can also make adjustments to the EV (exposure value), f/stop or shutter speed. If your unsure what any of those do there is plenty of information about photography on the net and you can look those up really easily. Also, if your using photometric lights be sure that the environment mode is dome and scene or scene.
Definitely, I use 400 for interior light a lot now. Completely eliminates the need for super high lumen values.
For some reason these two haven't been notified to me, so I apologise for non-responsiveness. I will try messing around with the film IOS settings - assuming I can figure out how. I couldn't work out how to find, let alone change the K/cm2 thingie.
I am getting decent renders using my blunder approach, and am happy with the results, especially compared to the same scene in 3Delight - although I still think 3Delight is better for simplicity and indeed 'plent' of illumination. Iray undoubtedly works more happily with no ceilings.....
Do we mean ISO settings, in the tone mapping tab?
Yes. For me at least, it is easier to start with the film as a base and then make some additional adjustments with f/stop or shutter speed. It is fairly easy to remember which film speed for what type of light (bright day, moderate day to bright interior, etc) so that is a foundation I am pretty comfortable with. I also noticed in one render that no matter how much light was on a backdrop it was not getting any until I made an f/stop change so that tends to be the second adjustment I make. If the light still looks wrong then I may make a shutter speed tweak.
Basically, I start with what light levels that I can understand. I can turn on a 100 watt light bulb and see how much light that should cast so it is easier for me to think about how the light will be in the render. Then I want to make adjustments to my "camera" via the tone mapping to take advantage of that light.
I am still struggling, though. I can manage to light a figure with 'personal' spots and points, but the background is often in complete darkness. I am, for example, experimenting with a scene using Planet X-1 and it is terribly gloomy.
Try making some of your light level adjustments via f/stop in tone mapping. I was able to bring light into a dark background with that.
The Luminance Units option only appears when you use Emission. I apologize for misleading you. I knew I had used them but I was at work and did not have access to my rendering computer.
This does not appear to be an option when using Photometric Spotlights or Point Lights.
Here is a screen shot for future reference.