Ocean Wide renders all black. Help?
mateo250_df7d4aefb4
Posts: 27
So I bought the Ocean Wide set from Marshian. I load an ocean prop, load the included Skydome with lights, and click render. I get a black image. I have messed with the intensity sliders on all of the lights, still black. I loaded the Skydome alone, still black. I've tried all three skydomes included in the set, with the same results. Sometimes, I can see a hint of the clouds in the black. Where am I failing here? I've tried using other skydomes, the horizon is visible above the waves. I'd really love to use this product as intended, but I'm running into a wall here. I really shouldn't have to adjust a bunch of settings to use an environment set out-of-the-box, so where am I going wrong here?
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Comments
Is it possible that you are accidently trying to render in iRay since this is a 3dl produc and won't work in iRay? If you tried to render in Iray, the scene would be jet black since the skydomes emit no light and block light from entering the scene.
Yup. That's the problem. And I don't 'accidentally' render in iRay, ONLY in iRay. I tried it in 3DL, which I do not use, and it worked fine. It would have been REALLY nice if this had been mentioned in the product page. Really nice. Oh well. I've tried changing the dome to emit but so far no luck. I'll keep at it but this is the last time I buy anything from Marshian. I've read and reread the product page several times and no mention that it's only 3DL. Not OK. It says it's for Studio 4.10, but no mention of whether or not it will work in iRay. Not OK.
iRay is the new guy; products that don't say iRay are by default 3dl. The reason it doesn't say that it is 3dl is because every product was either 3dl or 3dl compatible (w with very few Poser, Vue and Bryce products which were labeled as such) and there were no iRay products. My advice is to contact Support, get your refund, and enjoy some of the other Marshian products. There is pretty much no chance that Daz3d is going to pause its store and retroactively relabel tens of thousands of products as 3dl only so looke for the word "iRay".
It works in Iray if you delete the Skydome from the scene and add the Skydome image to the Iray dome. You can also use any HDRI in the Iray dome too. There are ways to get the Skydomes that are for 3Delight to work in Iray without deleting them but that way is easiest.
These are the settings I sometimes use.
https://direct.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2402331/#Comment_2402331
I'm not looking for a refund. Nor would I expect them to go and relabel everything in the store. My point is that it clearly states that the only software that it works with is 4.10. This led me to believe that it would work in iray. If it had mentioned multiple versions of Studio, I may have had a bit more trepidation.
I'll have a look at that. I tried applying the sky textures to the environment dome, but it just rendered out with the usual grey checkerboard, no sky was visible. I'm not done playing with this product yet, I'm sure there are ways to get it to work with iray, I'll just have to experiment some more.
It sounds Like you had Draw Dome to off.
You definitely should get a refund since one of the rules of the store is the 30 day refund.... I will add that, unless stated, anything that is older than three years old in the store is almost certainly going to be 3dl only since it was the default so keep that in mind when you see a sale for older products and FastGrab. They do work in Daz Studio 4.10 but they may not be iRay.
It can be confusing on older products, especially when 3Delight was the only game in town. One of the ways you can tell if it is for 3Delight is if it uses the UberEnvironment light by omnifreaker or the Advanced Lights by Age of Armour, which are only made for 3Delight. This product does list the UberEnvironment light in the "What's Included and Features" section and also one of the promos.
I'll keep an eye out for that in the future. At some point though, the required software had to have said an earlier version of Studio if it's that old. So someone updated that, but didn't see a reason to state that it wouldn't work in iray at all, which is what 4.10 defaults to when you open it. That was my main gripe.
The reason I'm not going to seek a refund is because I'm going experiment with the product and get it to work with iray. It's a simple matter of materials and I'm reasonably decent with manipulating them. I could not in good conscience ask for a refund for a product that I'm going to use one way or another.
If that's the setting out of the box, it likely was off since I've never really messed with it. I did load the environment sphere this morning before work and tried applying the sky texture to that, but I still got the grey checkerboard when I rendered. I'll keep playing with it, and when I figure it out I'll post what I did.
Well, Fishtales had it down. Turn Draw Dome on in render setting, apply the Ocean Wide Skydome texture to the dome, and render. My apologies for venting so profusely last evening. I was irritated and have a tendency to be a bit dramatic when I get that way. It's a character flaw of mine. >_<
FWIW, the (almost) reliable method I use to check for Iray-capability is the SKU number on the store page. If it's under about 21000, it definitely isn't Iray. If it's between 21000 and 22000, it might be. Note, though, that not everything added to the store after this point was instantly made for Iray; some things might have been held back for known-only-to-DAZ reasons, so they were actually made before the release of D|S4.8 (the first version to include Iray) but not released until afterwards. Another reason is that the content creator might not use Iray.
Adding to the confusion, that "Compatible Software" line on the store pages is a teensy bit misleading. It doesn't actually mean "this is the D|S version this item was made for", it means "this is the current D|S version" — it changes automatically whenever there's a point version update, e.g from 4.9 to 4.10. We've complained for years that it confuses people, but I don't think it'll be fixed at this late date.
This is why Daz makes me simultaneously rejoice while also banging my head on my desk. Clarity is an awesome thing and a lot of the time, lacking.
For most users, it isn't a problem since it is just scripts usually that are affected by a version change. The particular product is quite usable in the current version of Daz Studio... in 3dl.
The thing is most do work in Iray as long as you know what to do to get them to work. If they put 3Delight in the description people who only use Iray might not buy them.
I was a Poser user going back to 2000. I finally switched to Studio two years ago. I had to completely rethink how I do things and I've made a lot of strides, but "getting things to work" still consumes the bulk of my time, LOL. I have a MASSIVE library of Poser stuff, and getting it to look right is definitely trial and error. Thanks again for your advice.
I usually just hit everything with the Iray Uber Shader and then work from there :)
That's my start point as well.
Not sure if it would work on the skydome but there is a converter from Iray to 3Delight in the store.
https://www.daz3d.com/rssy-iray-to-3delight-converter-and-merchant-resource