Render Problems

alexhcowley

Guys,

I recently acquired a copy of Stonemason's excellent Utopia Labs environment, and a copy of Shuttlestar.. My first attempt at a scene, combining the two with a Victoria, has given mixed results. The shadows are very dark and hard-edged and poor Victoria has distinctly orange skin. I suspect that either the lighting or the render parameters need a tweak.

I'm obviously making a beginners mistake here, can anyone point me in the right direction?

Cheers,

Alex.

Totte

Hello,

What lights did you use and how where they setup?
To avoid hard shadow, increase the shadow softness on lights.
The orange color might also be the result of a light.

alexhcowley

Thanks for the fast response.

The product is used "straight out of the box", with no tinkering. I have attached a jpeg showing the scene tab.

Cheers,

Alex.

Totte

OK, The I suggest you "tinker" a little with the lights, as they are often good, but setup for a certain render. I would set the softness on the sun first, to about 30%, then check the UberEnvironment. I cannot post screenshots right now as I'm rendering.... But I can in about 30 minutes or so (Trace depth of 8 really makes renders take a looong time )

alexhcowley

Thanks again for your help. The screenshots would be most appreciated.

Incidentally, I liked Life of Brian as well. It annoyed the people who deserved to be annoyed.

Cheers,

Alex.

Totte

OK, I changed the shadow softness and I think you like the results, see picture.

Totte

Moving on to Vicky.
What skin did you use? And what shaders? Anything special like HSS or Interjection?

Totte

Took a plain V5 with some clothes, looks like this.
So I guess you need to check the skin you are using.

alexhcowley

Thanks, once more.

Victoria is the Genesis Victoria 5 with the Nicola for V5 skin tone. I've tested exactly the same model using the GIS Sigma and got the same slightly orange results so it's clearly the model that's the problem, not the Utopia Labs environment.

Setting the shading parameter to 30% has softened the edges of the shadows but they are still very dense and black. I am going to do another test to confirm this.

Totte

Try to set Shadow Samples to 32 (you use 10), and the Max Trace Depths to 2 instead of one.

Richard Haseltine

One way to reduce the strength of the shadows, if the environment light isn't doing the job, would be:

Select the Sun light
Create a new Distant light - click on the toolbar button, or Create>New Distant Light.
In the dialogue, click Show Options>>> (if it isn't already showing the additional options)
Click the Copy Selected Item option
Click Accept.

Now, reduce the Intensity slider for the Sun by the amount of light you want in the shadows - if you want 15% intensity in the shadows lower the Sun's intensity by 15%.
For te new light, set Shadow Type to None, and set the Intensity to the amount you want in the shadows (15% for example).

You might also adjust the colour of the lights, perhaps making the shadowless slightly blue and the sun slightly yellow.

Totte

I rendered my image up there with the exact same set and the same lights and the only difference was shadow samples and trace levels (and I had a slighter better shading rate 0.1 compared to 0.5).

Stonemason

alexhcowley said:

Thanks for the fast response.

The product is used "straight out of the box", with no tinkering. I have attached a jpeg showing the scene tab.

Cheers,

Alex.

I'm wondering if maybe you don't have Uberenvironment installed?..and that's why your shadows look so dark.
also should mention the Utopia lights are designed to work alongside the included Utopia cameras,which will provide the atmospheric effect.
just tested in ds4 and ds3 and I'm not getting the dark shadows,if you don't have uberenvironment I'd recommend adding a couple ambient direct lights with very low intensity,with maybe a touch of blue in the light to match the color the uberenvironment offers

cheers
Stefan

Totte

Stefan,

very good point indeed. I think it comes with DS 4, but you never know.

alexhcowley

Guys,

Many thanks for your suggestions. I spent most of Thursday evening and this morning working through them all.

Richard's suggestion has given the best results. I created a new light with an intensity of 50% and no shadowing. I then reduced the main sunlight to 75% with 50% shadowing. The background, sky and trees are still a little on the dark side, though.

I took up Stefan's suggestion and tried the render with Utopia cameras 3 and 10. This eliminated the dark background problems but gave the image background a rather washed out look.

barbult

I just got Utopia Labs and I'm trying to use it in DS 4.6.0.18. I'm having a strange problem.

The image has the dark shadows described by the OP and overall has a very murky look to it. Through a process of trial and error, I have concluded that the UberEnvironment light loaded by the Utopia Labs set isn't contributing anything to the lighting. If I turn it off or turn it up to 100%, the render is the same. The parameters for that light are not what I'm used to with the UberEnvironment 2 that comes with DS 4.6. It only has intensity and color. I'm wondering if it is some other UberEnvironment light that doesn't come with DS 4.6 and that I don't have. There is nothing listed as being required on the product page, though. If I delete that light and add UberEnvironment 2 from DS 4.6, that works as expected.

Richard Haseltine

barbult said:

I'm wondering if it is some other UberEnvironment light that doesn't come with DS 4.6 and that I don't have.

Could you paste this into the Script IDE pane and, with the light as the only selected item in the scene, click the Execute button then copy or screenshot the output that appears under the script area.

if ( Scene.getPrimarySelection().className() == "DzShaderLight" ) {
 print( Scene.getPrimarySelection().getDefinitionFile() );
}
else {
 print( Scene.getPrimarySelection().className() );
}

barbult

Richard, this is what I got;

Richard Haseltine

Looks as if it's UE1, not UE2. That would be a problem for users who don't have the former - please open a bug report on it.

barbult

Thank you, Richard. I have filed a bug report. https://bugs.daz3d.com/view.php?id=50452