Problems whith defaut UberEnvironment Rendering - SOLVED!!!
bringho
Posts: 239
EDITED
Finally solved the problem...
I only have to turn the normals inside out on all the surfaces in the right model and everything is ok.
Conclusion: Left figure have the normals pointing outward. Right figure, have the normals reversed, pointing inwards.
Weird and simple but a fact, I won't mention all the weird things I've tried until I figured that out... :ahhh:
I've tried to figure out what could be wrong with my figure that makes default UberEnvironment Render it like this:
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I'm just now trying to learn UberEnviroment, my very first render I encountered an odd issue. One of my props renders completely black. This same scene rendered fine before Uberenviroment, and the prop was the proper color.
I think it's the same issue as this thread. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/1234/
However, I have no idea what he means by turning the normals inside out to fix the problem.
Rather than start a new thread it's generally better to reply to the original, though it's well to make it clear that you are a new user. Normals are how 3D software tells which way a surface is pointing - whether it's the front or back of the polygon that you are looking at. Think of an item being made of one-way glass - when the normal is pointing towards you it's opaque, when it's pointing away it's theoretically see-through. DAZ Studio actually shows a polygon whichever side you look from (which is just as well, it can be very hard to sort things out in a model-making application that makes things invisible from behind) but there are times when the normal direction matters. Fixing the item is fairly simple, you just need to open it in a modeller (such as the free hexagon) and apply the reverse Normals function to the whole thing, but it's as well to be sure this is the issue - what prop are you using?
The main reason I created my own thread, along with being a new user is this one has "solved" in the title and my issue isn't solved yet. I assumed the title would also mean I'd get less views, and less chance of help. Plus I'm not 100% sure it's the same issue, I was just hoping it was because he seemed to fix his problem.
I'm using Adzan's HiroGens v1.5. I would have posted a photo, but I'm not sure what the policy is on nudes, even if it's a recreation attempt of a famous statue pose.
Back on topic, I tried re-rendering, I set everything in the scene to invisible except for the lights and the prop. After doing that it rendered properly again on the empty plane. It's only in the context of the full scene that things look wonky and jet black.
That is odd. Unfortunately UE can be fussy. Do you have occlusion turned on? If so, try lowering the trace distance setting and see if that helps.
The UE Occlusion settings are:
Occlusion with directional shadows
Occlusion strength 100%
Occlusion 128 samples.
Occlusion color is black. RGB 000
The Max trace distance is set at 500.
Dropping trace to 250 and doing the render again now.
Update: The new render is definitely not as dark. It's no longer jet black, but it's still black. Assuming if I turn it off or put the trace settings at 0 or 1 it'll get even better. I still don't understand why this is though. It didn't seem to bother the skin on the rest of the figure.
The trace distance is how far, in cm, the surface will look to see if there's something occluding it - the default 500 seems way too high to me for a lot of things, it's really an outdoor setting. I'd suggest, if this is an indoor scene, knocking it back to the sort of gaps you get under furniture - probably no more than 100. For a portrait you can probably go down to single digits, since it's only body parts you have to worry about.
Thank you to telling me 500 was way to high. I just did two renders, at 1 the prop is still tinted although it looks more like it's under a shade tree than than dipped in tar. However, the shadows on the rest of the scene are lackluster. When I bumped it back up to 30, it's an indoor scene, the shadows on the body and surrounds look wonderful compared to before. Of course, the prop is now decidedly discolored again.
So now I'm inclined to
A) leave trace distance at 30 and
B) I believe I might have a second issue causing the tint?
I've read the wiki @ http://www.omnifreaker.com/index.php?title=UberEnvironment and I can't say I learned anything that seems helpful.
See my "Learning UE2" thread, found in my Freebies and Tutorials index below for how the different settings of UE2 work.
I solved my problem, the fix wasn't in UE but rather the surfaces tab. My ambient setting on the prop seems to have been the problem. I'm still not sure why UE pointed this problem out and not my other lights before.
Is it simply because UE uses raytracing instead of deep shadow maps?
I suspect this is the reversed normals issue, then - the shader looks out from the surface in the direction of the normals, and since they are pointing in instead of out it hits the other side of the object and decides it needs to occlude the surface, making it dark. Since this is a Poser-format item, I think, it should be possible to fix it with many tools - I think the free UV Mapper Classic has a reverse Normals option - just make sure you have a copy of the OBJ file (or the original zip to hand) to be safe.
How do you turn the normals inside out? I read the rest of the thread, and couldn't figure out how to do this.
MrWizard1024
Sorry for resurrecting a dead thread, but I have this problem as well, and I don't understand any of this.
ADM, I've read your UE2 tutorial multiple times and it doesn't address the whole "all surfaces black silhouettes" issue at all, I even ran a search for "black". I also searched for "normals" and it's NOT EVEN ADRESSED?!?!?!?!??! in your tutorial.
I don't understand what a normal is, and why UE would need nearly every model to have them reversed just to be functional. I've looked up glossaries and the like for "normals" kmany times, and I still can't wrap my head around it. Maybe if there was a description of them with visual guides? (but absolutely not a video!!)
The neon UE light does the exact same thing.
I've also read stuff (maybe not necessarily UE-related) about diffuse, specular, and ambient-type lights-- what are those and how does one create them?
Also, slightly different subject, but how come there are almost no recipes for the Ubs and SSS shaders outside of skin? Nobody has tutorials for creating SSS for snow, UbS anisotropy for hair, SSS for teeth, or anything, it's just skin, skin, skin or UE, UE, UE... I know there are loads of people out there who know how to create these things, yet all that's out there is skin or commercial products, and even the latter is pretty limited... There are quite a few HSS shaders for various surfaces out there, yet very few for the UbS or UbS2...
Oh, while I'm remembering: what is the Photon node/dial in the DAZ glass and chrome shaders? (i.e. what foes it do)