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New to DAZ-- why doesn't lighting even look close to my preview setup?

todd_750eba96f8todd_750eba96f8 Posts: 7
in New Users

Just wondering how folks work with setting up lights, taking time to get something close to what they might like-- and when you render it-- it looks drastically different-- or in the case of Iray-- nothing close to your set up at all.  How does one work in Preview mode  -- choose Iray as a render engine-- and even get something in the ballpark to what you set up?   

Here's a  test setup with Preview--3Delight--IRay...       How can you even set lights for Iray?    If I boost the intensity to illuminate my model ---- the preview model would turn white --and I'm sure no one works that way, since you can't even see what you're going for...   really sucks the fun out of the program.

Just not understanding the workflow, I guess... Helpful thoughts appreciated.

thanks

 

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Comments

  • fred9803fred9803 Posts: 1,564

    You should use lights specific to your render engine, so use Iray lights for Iray renders not Delight and vise versa.

    The preview won't really show you how the render will look in Iray. Make sure you have the camera headlamps turned off in the cameras tab.

    There are many different ways a scene can be lit and a great variety of lights and combinations, or no lights at all if you use an HDRI image for lighting.

    The easiest way for a beginner would be to get some lightsets and use them (and learn from them). Use the Iray preview for testing rather than full rendering. The Iray preview is quicker to get an impression of how the final render will look, or is supposed to be. Cheers.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    fred9803 said:

    You should use lights specific to your render engine, so use Iray lights for Iray renders not Delight and vise versa.

    The actual release 4.8 and later, the 'basic' lights (spot, point, distant) are context sensetive.  So when in 3Delight, they are for 3Delight, the same for when in Iray.  In Iray, for those, you would use the Luminence controls, not the Intensity control.

  • fred9803fred9803 Posts: 1,564

    Didn't know that, thanks mjc.

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854
    mjc1016 said:
    fred9803 said:

    You should use lights specific to your render engine, so use Iray lights for Iray renders not Delight and vise versa.

    The actual release 4.8 and later, the 'basic' lights (spot, point, distant) are context sensetive.  So when in 3Delight, they are for 3Delight, the same for when in Iray.  In Iray, for those, you would use the Luminence controls, not the Intensity control.

    True, but the lighting levels are very different in the two engines. Iray lights almost always want a notably higher luminance than they load with.

  • kyleforge_53ba91a483kyleforge_53ba91a483 Posts: 26
    I always use Iray so when I use lights, I don't touch the intensity at all, just the luminance. Also, if you use scene lights, try going to the environment tab and change it to scene lights only. Turn the camera headlamp off and then the preview will look more like the final product.
  • todd_750eba96f8todd_750eba96f8 Posts: 7

    Seems like I need to boost luminance on each light up to or over 100,000  or more   just to make a dent in the renders....   it is what it is, I guess.

     

  • todd_750eba96f8todd_750eba96f8 Posts: 7

    re: The Iray preview is quicker to get an impression of how the final render will look, or is supposed to be. Cheers.

         ---- IRay preview kills my iMac-- 16 gig RAM,   3.4 GHz Intel Core i7,  with Nvidia  GTX 680MX 2048 MB, OSX 10.11.4 ,  latestst Cuda drivers  -- even the simplist of items in my scene will eventullly crash the system and cause a reboot.  This should be more than enough to handle DAZ--- so something is wrong somewhere...

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    todd_750eba96f8 said:

    Seems like I need to boost luminance on each light up to or over 100,000  or more   just to make a dent in the renders....   it is what it is, I guess.

    What kind of scene are you setting up? Are you adding extra lights or going with the defaults?

    Something vital to remember about Iray lighting is that there are two defaults that don't exist in 3Delight — a Headlight attached to every camera in your scene, and an environment light set up for an outdoor bright sunny day. The default exposure settings will give you a pretty-close-to-good-enough render if you just load, pose and go. If your scene, though, isn't outdoors or a bright sunny day, then you must go into your settings and change them from the defaults before you change anything about any extra lights you might have added.

  • WonderlandWonderland Posts: 7,060

    I was going to ask a separate question, but since this is about lighting, I'll add it here...

    If you put a light emitter shader on an object and want that object to be bright enough to be the only lighting for the whole scene, how do you do that? Thanks

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854

    You just amp the luminance some. But I will strongly suggest that you not go that route without expecting to have a very long render time.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,343

    In iRay it looks like you have the Autoheadlamp turn on to 'Never' use and you have source of light in your HRDI environment dome rotated apparently to the sword fighter's back rather than her front. If you use the HRDI lighting supplied by the DAZ Engine by default (at least with 4.9) it gives a nice portrait style lighting at 0 degrees. If you load another HRDI reference lighting file then you must rotate the Dome until the lighting is coming from a direction that you wish to use for your render. I usually render for 2 or 3 minutes (I have slow PC) to see what the HRDI lighting will look like when I rotate the Dome through various degrees (like a circle 0 - 360 degrees).

  • todd_750eba96f8todd_750eba96f8 Posts: 7

    Many thanks for all the replies.   I'll be trying all suggestiions.  Currently, Daz4.9 crashes my  iMac every time- even doing the guided tutorial, especially when I select IRay (as instructed in Tutorial)   I have 2 iMacs--- does it on both.  latestst Cuda drivers, (7.5)    OSX 10.11.4     NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB      16 Gig Ram      So, aside from trying to learn lighting, the program crashes just trying to draw the IRay preview in the normal setup.

    Very frustrating.    If I get even a few test renders to succeed-- I know the system will completely crash on the next attempt to do anything-- (even move a camera)  and reboot the entire computer.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 14,100

    This sounds weird. What nVidia Driver do you use? Apples or nVidia WebDriver?

    I've been running on OS X 10.10 and now 10.11.3 (haven't upgraded to 10.11.4 as I'm not sure nVidia drivers are working (your problem, if you use nVidia webdrivers) is a sign they don't.

    But trying to work i preview mode can be VERY frustratiing, even with a GTX 780 (you need a pack of Titan-X to get it even remotly close to OpenGL. I never work i nVidia mode, I just use it for a quick preview.

     

  • todd_750eba96f8todd_750eba96f8 Posts: 7
    edited April 2016

    Nvidia drivers   latest Cuda 7.5

    I never work i nVidia mode, I just use it for a quick preview.

    Everything seems faily good until I switch to IRAY for a preview or render... then DAZ is history.

    So-- spot rendering is completely out--- program crashes after 2 or 3  tiny  head renders

    Post edited by todd_750eba96f8 on
  • Roman_K2Roman_K2 Posts: 1,253

    Not sure if this is relevant but here is a screenshot of me rendering an original Hexagon model (unfinished) that I've spent a lot of time on. Clearly what is in the preview pane in DS 4.8 is nowhere near what I'm getting in the final render. (Although I'm VERY happy with the render so far!)

    ???

    I think I missed the part about there being a special preview function for Iray... so it's not real-time then?

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  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,343

    I've, since you asked your question, learned a little more about how DAZ Studio and iRay work and I found the easiest way to get a vieport preview look similar to your rendered iRay view is to delete the spectral maps under Top Coat area on your character's skin in Surfaces and set the Top Coat Strength to 1.0 and the Top Coat Roughness to between 0.35 - 0.60 depending on how oily you want the skin to appear. Higher than 0.35 and the skin begins to look wet with water or rubbed with baby oil. The color will still be 'off' but the shadows and highlights will match up much better at least.

  • Roman_K2Roman_K2 Posts: 1,253

    At the risk of sounding dumb... do all objects or Iray-specific surfaces have spectral map under "Top Coat" or is this just for "skinned" characters like Genesis and M4.

  • BeeMKayBeeMKay Posts: 7,019
    Roman_K2 said:

    Not sure if this is relevant but here is a screenshot of me rendering an original Hexagon model (unfinished) that I've spent a lot of time on. Clearly what is in the preview pane in DS 4.8 is nowhere near what I'm getting in the final render. (Although I'm VERY happy with the render so far!)

    ???

    I think I missed the part about there being a special preview function for Iray... so it's not real-time then?

    If you want a real time "preview" klick on the ball left of where you select Perspective View. you can directly select a view mode there. At the bottom of the list is "NVidea", so if you select that, it starts doing a render while you work on things. A word of warning, though, this is eating up resources, and can lead to slow PC and a serious crash. Also, the result is not 100% the result of a 'real' render, as the preview uses slightly differents maths alogorythms.

  • Roman_K2Roman_K2 Posts: 1,253

    Thanks. It was all a muddle for the longest time: I just could not figure out what you meant by "clicking on the ball" for a preview "mode".

    I get it now, and the good news is that it (Nvidia preview) works. And I don't get crashes, at least not with small scenes and Genesis 2 say.

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