Natural Iray lighning for rooms
I'm looking for some simple solution of the main light sorce in closed room. I'm thinking about something like fluorescent lamp. 
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Check out this thread: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/59766/lights-gloss-and-shine-on-skin-iray
I made some simple lights experiments there that maybe give you some ideas. Or are you looking for products?
http://www.daz3d.com/inaneglory has a lot light sets. Example: http://www.daz3d.com/ig-iray-lights-and-shaders-table-lamps
Man, when I'm trying to read/learn something new about the lightning my brain imediatly blows up and I want to run and hide at the corner. Some product would be nice.
I need light setup fo the whole room so I don't to reconfigure it every time I move the character.
Well, it's worth the time and effort to actually learn about how the light work, though I do feel your frustration. Lights are one of the things you really need to understand when doing 3D.
Perhaps, the best solution for you, if "light through Windows by Outside light" is not an option, and inane glory's stuff doesn't tickle your fancy ist ALR's lighting rigs. http://www.daz3d.com/architectural-lighting-rig-for-iray
EDIT: Thing is, if you want to have something properly lighted, you will have to adjust/add lights. If you were filming a movie, or take a picture instead of rendering, you'd also re-arange your light settings depending on where the person stands in the room. Of course, you could flood the entire room with tons of light, but then your lighing would look unnatural. Basically, what you'd do is have the room lighted properly, and add extra lights for the character. And yes, it takes time to learn.
And what is the best way to flood the closed room with one light source?
That depends on the size of your room, of course, and how you want the light to spill in the room. Also, if the light source can be visible in your render, or not.
It'd probably create a pane, use the emissive Iray shader on it, place it under the ceiling and then play around with the shader settings until it fits my needs. (Images below are old screenshots but they should demonstrate what I mean).
Perhaps, you can approach the question like this: If you had a real room and just one light source, where would you place it to give it the result you are looking for? What kind of light source would you use, just one light source? Several light sources?
Here's an example that uses several small panes under the ceiling, and the light is set to something close to neon light (again, old screenshots of DS 4.8):
EDIT: If you post a screenshot of what your room looks like, I could try whip up something later today, when I'm, at my PC.
There is no way to do that and have it look realistic.
Room lighting should be ambient lighting... it really shouldn't be your main source of light for your character. I hate to tell you this, but... if you are going for anything even slightly artistic, you are going to have to light your character specifically and not rely on environtmental lighting to give you a well lit character. If you really want to learn about lighting, you need to study lighting from an artistic perspective as well as a technical perspective: photographic lighting, lighting for the stage, TV and film lighting... its an enormous field.
That being said: Painter's Lights here in the store is incredibly versatile for most situations to use as character lighting in almost any situation, and I also recommend Render Studio Iray and Scintillant Portrait Lights.
http://floobynooby.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-cinematography-of-incredibles-part-1.html
http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/the-photographic-look/
Here's a very, very simple setup for a closed room. I've set up a closed romm and put a G3 character into it for demonstration. If you work with a room that has an opening, light will behave differently. Also, light from the default HDRI (or whatever HDRI/sun you use) will flood into the scene. As the HDRI is not needed in a closed environment, and actually slows down render times:
Set Render Settings to "Scene Only".
Then, create a plane from the primitives. I made mine 1x1m. Make sure that the number of divisions is set to 1 only, as more divisions will increase the render time.
The plane has axis, and you have to rotate it so that the y-axis (green arrow) points down. This is important as I'll turn the light to single sided later, and the green arrow is the direction the light leaves the plane surface. Then, open the surface tab so you can change the surface to light emitter.
This is where you'll find it the light emitter that comes with DAZ Studio. Apply it to the surface.
The plane now has become emissive. Scroll down to the emissive settings and locate the button for "single side". Set it to "Off". If you leave it to "on" light will come from both surface sides.
Rendering with the default settings gives not much light:
I change the emission temperature to the default 6500K to get a bright white light, and switch the lumiance units to kcd/m^2. As a result, my character is nicely lit, and even part of the room has light.
When I move the character, the natural thing happens, and I get a lot of shadow.
To remedy that, I add more light sources by selecting the plane and creating instances (Create --> Node Instances) in my case, I added 5.
Move the lights so they cover the room. You also need to change the y-rotation to -180. I left the y-rotation at 0 for one of the instances, so I will get some ceiling light.
Suddenly, there's a lot of light! You can also see that the one plane has a dark surface where the light doesn't emit.
Some fine tuning.
The light is less bright now and has a warmer color.
when you move the character around, he's still nicely lit.
But as evilded said, this type of light setup is not really anywhere near natural looking light. You can use it to get a base light amount in the scene, though, and then use "highlight" spotlights or something like that to make the character and image "pop".
EDIT: Set "Cutout Opacity" to a very low value, like 0.00001 to make the light invisible, but still emitting light. Then you don't have to hide them outside of the camera frame.
I can tell you in a closed model of a typical room if you create a point light and place it in the center of that room at about 8' it creates enough ambient light to light the room. The default for the amount of light from a point light in DAZ Studio is 1500 lumen. That's the lighting equivalent of about 2 LED lightbulbs that are designed to replace the old 60W incandescent lightbulbs. However it will do it at 6500K (sun at noon) which is common in the orient but in Europe and the New World it is common to use 2700K (sun at dusk or dawn).
Since the render is by default done at a simulated 100 ISO film equivalent you render will be grainier than it need be. The old rule I remember as a child from buying film for my pocket camera is 100 ISO for sunny days outside, 200 ISO for cloudy days outside, and 400 ISO for indoors. So you want to adjust the ISO to 400 for indoors.
I disagree that you have to learn photography studio lighting. Personally the best portraits I have seen of people have been painted portraits and just about all of those precede studio lighting, most by hundreds of years. There is a frequent poster of portrait painter-like iRay renders by a person that uses the name j.cade as a avatar name and they have a portrait lighting product in the DAZ 3D Store you may want to try but I'd suggest 1st looking at the actual lighting in painted portraits that you like. There are also free studio lighting presets, lights, reflectors, and all, in the Genesis 3 Starter Essentials meant to be used with iRay in indoor environments but they can be used to supplement outdoor lighting although the results technically will be less natural but most people don't look for those extra shadows.
One thing you will find though is if you are expecting the rendered skin tones of DAZ 3D characters to be the same as portrayed in their ad copy in the DAZ 3D store you will find using normal, default lighting at default levels meant to simulate actual natural environmental lighting will leave your Genesis 3 DAZ Original characters with a darker skin tone, if I was to guess, by a factor of 2 so doubling the light intensity might make up for that but it will likely wash out the lighting of other parts of your render.
nonesuch, you might not have to learn studio lighting, but you need to understand how your light sources behave. Understanding the difference between a spotlight, a distant light and surface light helps to make the proper choices. And using portrait lights will not help the problem of lighting a room, just like putting a single lightbulb into it may give you light (and long render times to boot), but you will not see much of the details that you are looking for.
Here are two more images from the thread that made the OP's head explode, with using exactly the same lights, just different tonemap settings, to illustrate what I mean about the details:
It's a learning curve, but a neccessary one. But it's time well invested, because each render is different and requires different solutions, lightwise. And the learning doesn't stop. Even after almost three yeras, I am still learning something new about light in each render, foring me to reevaluate my "lessons learned".
I don't know about tonemap settings they look similar though to changing the ISO ratings to match the recommended value for the lighting.
disagree all that you wish, it doesn't change the facts. Ask any 3D artist who's worth the title and they will give you the same advice.
And jcade bases her lights on the exact subjects you are talking about: classical painters, hence the name: Painter's Lights. And what do you think the ideas of studio lighting are based on? Classical painting, of course. They are all intertwined. There is no single discipline.
@beemkay you give good advice, thanks for sharing.
Bottom line is the OP in the interests of their own time and limited resources can teach themselves how to compose portraits using natural lighting just as the great portrait artists did in the past. The OP should learn the principals of natural lighting before delving into studio lighting.
In cases where a portrait artist has used unnatural color choice to simulate a light then the OP can use color choice for that emitted light color in a studio style setup or such choices for man-made natural places such as a disco dance floor. They are not going to be effective though if they don't understand outdoor light and the ambient light from it before they start adding studio lighting, which will be unneccessary for a properly composed naturally lit scene anyway. If you take a picture in the near darkness you get a silouhette. Fundamental.
Lighting used in photography during the Great Depression is informative:
https://lis471.wordpress.com/
No studio lighting but effective.
You can't ignore nature in studying light. Windows will be more dramatic and effective than a typical studio lighting setup when composing portraits. It's what the old masters used. So given that the typical DAZ model for a room isn't properly set up for iRay start by increasing the light reflected off those walls just as in nature.
I, totally, agree with that! Lighting is one of those things that you really need to learn to understand if you want to be successful in DS. One of the best things I ever did was find a great vendor who had an awesome light set that I bought and, totally, picked apart to learn how they did what they did. Then, I bought another light set by a different vendor and picked that one apart. This accomplished two things for me. I had a click and go light source that I could use in my scenes to get me started and I had and great light set that I could play with and learn from. I have a lot of test renders that will never make it into my gallery, but I learned from each one of those what works with lighting and what doesn't. I still have a lot to learn. I even learned a thing or two reading what BeeMKay wrote here! Thanks, BeeMKay!
I have been having a ball playing with tone mapping, too. I had no idea how useful it was or what some of those tone mapping settings did until I got Tonal Rage and started picking it apart! Now, I love playing with Tone Mapping. Again, not all of my images have been successful, but I'm learning a lot and, hopefully, getting better. And, since I mostly render in Iray, I've played a lot with the camera settings, too. While I'm not sure how much someone really needs to know about photography to do well, I do think it helps to have at least a basic understanding of photography given that Iray uses real world type camera settings. Playing with the ISO and other lens settings can certainly give you some interesting effects and it useful to know what you can expect from understanding what those settings change.
I have learned a lot from evilded777, too, over the past year. He has a fount of lighting knowledge that he's shared in several threads that I've read.
You keep missing the point.
Its a lot easier to control spotlights and make them act like natural lights than it is to attempt to recreate "natural light" that's why photographers have adapted to the studio. The concepts for lighting haven't changed, only the methods.
And thanks KnittingMommy, you have no idea how much that meant.
I have now spent a week just trying to light this room. I tried the mesh light - adding it to a sphere and putting the iRay Uber on it (making it white)... but still no light at all (1). When I render the default scene (3), it lights with seemingly some ambient light and candle and fireplace light. When I add a Point light and really bump up the settings.... Nothing again (3).
The ONLY thing that lights the scene is the fireplace light. So I looked for a light there. The fire emits light, but I see no parameters for it other than XYX and scale. When I scale and move it, it it DOES brighten the scene. What is this fireplace light - how do I access it's parameters. Can I create other 'lights' like this and change color? For some reason Spot and Point lights do nothing….
getting pretty frustrated....
kurt
Can you try this: in one of the upper posts (post 9 from the top), it is described how you can make a light from a plane. Can you please go through the first six steps of that (creating a single plane light), and let me know if that works?
EDIT: also, you need the surface tab to change the emission setting. The XYZ is in the Parameter tab. If you don't see the surface tab, click on "Windows--> Panes (Tabs) -->Surface"
Bee,
That did it! Worked like a charm - I've been playing with it for a week! I still do't know why actual lights don't work tho..
thank you!
kurt
What are you changing when trying to change their ibrightness?
Actual lights work very similar. As you have seen, the values of lumiance changes the amount of light you get. So, in your image, select the sphere, and check the surface tab, just like you did with the plane. The only thing you need to skip is the 'switch off two sides".
please try if your sphere gives light if you adjust the lumiance setting like you did with the plane.
If that works, then select one of the lights, spot light, for example. In the Light Tab under Parameter, make sure that Photometric Light is switched to On. If the light doesn't have the Photometric On/Off, it can not be used in Iray. In the Light Tab, look for the Lumiance. Do not use the Strength setting, that will only work in 3Delight. Change the Lumiance the same way you did in the plane.
Please let me know if thiese things work. I can not do any screenshots at the moment as I am not at my PC.
Bee,
The Sphere also worked also. Is there a way to turn off the primitve, but keep the light emission?
I tried a point light and pushed the luminence to 1000000 (mine says Luminous Flux - is that the same thing?)... Still nothing. When you said to make sure the Photometric Light was on, I got excited, because I thought that's where my problem was, but alas, it was already been on. Lights DO lighten my Viewport, but they simply have no effect on my rendered indoor scene (attached).
thanks for all your help!
kurt
One idea: Check your rendering settings to make sure it says Scene Only, or Dome and Scene.
Hi Kurt,
the viewport works with OpenGL, and not Iray. The way it displays light is quite different from the way that Iray does.
Unfortunately, Meshlights can't be hidden; just like you can't make the lightbulb or light filament invisible.
The Point light use a setting in the Parameter tab, called "Luminous Flux" for strength. I made three examples for you at the default 1.500, at 50.000 and at 500.000 units. Note: This was rendered in the preview window, so it still has the light marker from the light I selected.
As you can see, only higher values will have any effect at all.
Linear Point light at 1.500 units.
Linear Point light at 50.000 units:
Linear point light at 500.000 units:
Point light at 1.500 units:
Point Light at 50.000 Units:
Point light at 500.000 units
Throwing a lot of light at a scene is one way to get more light. But there is a second setting that you have to keep in mind when lighting indoors. It is called "tonemapping".
The default light setting in "Tonemapping" is done for bright daylight. The lights in DS have a strength very similar to what a real lightbulb would have (exception: distant light). When you use the tonemapping setting made for outside inside of a room, the effect is the same as if you enter the room with sunglasses on. Even if you have lights on, everything will be very dark.
On the right side, you can see the linear light using the default strength of 1500 units. On the left side, you can see the render settings, and I selected the tone mapping tab. You can see the four values at the top. This is the setting that is default, for sunshine.
On this second image, the light strength is unchanged. But you still see light in the room, because you took the virtual sunglasses off. If you look at the tonemapping settings at the left side, you will see that certain values are increased and others are lowered. The lower ones are shutter speed and f/Stop. The increased one is ISO. The exposure value changes automatically when you change one of the others.
So what you could do is you could change the tonemapping settings for your render, and see if that makes any different. A word of caution, though. The fireplace you use has very high light settings. It tries to make the scene bright through the sunglasses, just like what the earlier examples did. Now, with "sunglasses off", the extra strong light will be too bright, and you probably have to decrease the lumen setting of the fireplace.
Happy experimenting, and I hope your render will turn out as you want. It's a learning curve, so don't be too frustrated; this all took me weeks to figure out.
Wow Bee, thank you for all this. I will try these - right now for some reason my renders (small 300 x 200) are just stopping aftewr a few seconds. This has happened before, then stsrted working again. I've re-booted, bu still the same thing. When it's rendering again, I'll let you know what happens.
Thanks again!
Kurt
And though this program can be frustrating, it's pretty mind-blowing. We had paid $50,000 for Vertigo software in the early 90's and it didn't do 1/1000 of what this program can do....
What does the log file say? You'll find that under Help-->TRoubleshooting-->Logfile. Check the last entries for error messages.
Perhaps, you just accidently unchecked the CPU or GPU in the advanced render settings?
As for the complexity, I feel your pain. I'm three years into trying to understand the program, but I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. There's so much stuff, like the Geometry editing tool, which allows you some pretty interesting things... which I have only used once or twice. Or you can use your own scripts for rendering. And more.
EDIT: Oh, and one word about the way light behaves in Iray - it decays pretty fast. This is why, even if you crank up your point light, it is simply too high above the table to make a difference, i.e. with all the other light sources in the image. If you look closely at the image you posted, you will see that ther actually is a slight difference betwen the images; the one with the point light has slightly less dark shadows in the table area.
Try to bring down the light a bit (location wise), and you'll probably see more of an effect.
Bee,
<<What does the log file say? You'll find that under Help-->TRoubleshooting-->Logfile. Check the last entries for error messages.>>
I'll check when I get back to work (I've also loaded it on my work Mac).
<<Perhaps, you just accidently unchecked the CPU or GPU in the advanced render settings?>>
I hope so.
<<As for the complexity, I feel your pain. I'm three years into trying to understand the program, but I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. >>
I ordered, and just received today "The Complete Guide to DAZStudio 4." This should answer a lot of questions and get me up to speed.
I've been having an ongoing tech help with Daz about the lighting. The cabin is a Daz product. After a bunch of e-mails they said the only way that they could light it was by removing the roof. I told them that that was not really an answer. I'm hoping that whomever created the package can look into it and send an update. I took some small solace in the fact that I wasn't the only one who couldn't light it.
Thans again for all your help!
kurt
ok hey,...thanks a million...i had to redo the primtive, then apply base, then emissive....i just made the subdivision on modle 10. ,,,,so then i found the advanced render setting tab and imported them i,,,,and i got it,,,gotta tune it,,,but got it,,oh,,yes that 125,000. lumx work great. thank you so much...mac
i love lighting,,,but the up grade mixed things up,,its wonder i found any thing,,but when you get a good map,,,it anit no hill for a climber...hhahah
i will post a pic or and animation or something thanks