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Well, this is an awesome addition to the lighting options in Studio. I usually only render in Vue, but this one got me started with playing in Studio for a change. Here is a quick result of last nights exercise. I used the advanced ambient light plus one infinite light and some new shaders I bought this month. Click image for full size!
Ciao
TD
One side note - that "shot on video" look with all the lights for TV was actually mainly to deal with the problem that there were millions of TV sets out there that all read NTSC color signals slightly differently. (hence the b*stardized acronym "Never The Same Color.") Not only did you have people with color sets from the 60s running at less than 350 lines of resolution (NTSC standard was 525,) with tubes that all had different contrast ratios, but the images also had to be pleasant looking on black and white TVs as well, given that the B&W information was part of the color signal. To add to the problems, NTSC sets were notorious for intense colors, particularly reds, bleeding over the edges of the images, and it only got worse when VCRs, with resolutions as low as 230 lines in EP mode and even worse color artifacting, hit the market. The solution that was more or less forced as a compromise was to minimize the contrast on the image so that the extremes weren't as obvious, which gave shooting on film a bit of an advantage, as the contrast of a film image could be lowered after the fact by using a a low contrast stock like Eco, or flashing and filtering the image during the telecine conversion. If you were shooting on video, however, you were pretty limited in what you could do in post, so they had to light and filter for the worst case scenario. A too dark shadow or blown out highlight was pretty much un-fixable, so if you didn't get it during the shoot, it was gone. (For you young uns out there, this is why shot on film shows like I Dream of Jeannie and GIlligan's Island still look good in reruns, as the latent shadow and contrast details are all still there on the original negatives, whereas things were shot "live" with multiple video setups, like talk shows and most post sixties sitcoms, have that flat look despite being "restored." On the other hand, by the time the 80s had started, video could look just as good as film... but most of the people working in TV had trained during the 60s and 70s, so they kept doing things the same old way...
thd777: just one word: WoW!
Very nice render. Thanks for showing us
Wow, that's gorgeous. Are you using some kind of Atmospheric to get the diffusion, or is there a graduated set of ambient lights as it goes towards the background? The fill-in on the rearward buildings is amazing.
Here's another interesting new wrinkle I've co me across. I've been going back and re-rendering some old images with the Ambient lights to see what different sublties they can bring, and one I pulled up was an image I originally did with Magix 101's Worldbase XT and Uberenvironment. For those that have used Worldbase, you'll know that this can be a pain to do, as the uberlights tend to make the seams in the sky and terrain show up as little black lines that have to be taken out in post. Happily, the Ambient lgihts DON'T do this. However, what they WILL do, if you're not careful, is what happens at the bottom right corner of this image and in the attached closeup: If the light is placed near one of the 2D billboards, they'll render it partially transparent. Funky!
On the other hand, the lights DO let me get a lot closer to the saturated blue shadow look of Maxfield Parrish that I was aiming for. Whereas the original version had around seven lights and never got close to what I really wanted, this was done with just three Ambient Lights... one orange, one blue and one specular only, plus a single orange distant light set low to give a bit of extra modeling and make the gold on the flowers and costumes kick up a bit.
(And yes, yes, I know... contrails in the sky in a period piece? What can I say, they're what came with the set and this was just for practice...)
Thanks! Yes, that is an atmospheric effect from Age of Armour's Atmosphere Cameras (one of the things I got with 44% coupon). I used the Fog camera with the haze preset and then tweaked it until I got the look I wanted. There is only one advanced ambient light with distance set to zero to light the whole scene and an infinite light with soft raytraced shadows (2.8% softness).
Ciao
TD
I have been trying this out and I am sooo happy with Age of Armour right now. It's working really well for me. :)
Here is the result of tonight's experiments. One advanced ambient light set to distance 0 as main environment light. One infinite light as sun. And 5 advanced ambient lights for local effects. Very nice system for lighting with great control. Love it for this kind of scene. I also used the atmospheric cameras with a tweaked smog preset. Click the image for full size!
Ciao
TD
I dont know if I'm dumb dumb but I dont seem to understand how to use different ambient lights for different surfaces. ._.
...beautiful. Now that I'm finally done with my last project I can finally play with this.
Hmm. Our friends hang around the same neighborhood. :0 Straight out of DAZ, no post except shrinking a little in size. Three ambient lights, though you can't really see the ones that are parented to the the light posts, one distant light tinted orange, and I pulled out the atmosphere cameras again. It's an awesome combination. ;)
Select the light and on the Lights tab under Lighting Control you'll see 2 drop down boxes - Flag Surfaces With and If Surface is Flagged.
You choose a method to flag a surface with the first one - say Diffuse Strength 99%. Then with the second one you tell the light what to do if it encounters a flagged surface - say Illuminate Flagged Only.
You then go through your scene and any thing you want the light to effect you change the Diffuse Strength to 99%. When you render that light will only illuminate the surfaces you selected.
If you haven't already I strongly suggest you check out the user guide that comes with the lights. It should be in your library folder under ReadMe's (mine is called 17031_advanced-ambient-light.pdf). There is a ton of useful information in there.
Select the light and on the Lights tab under Lighting Control you'll see 2 drop down boxes - Flag Surfaces With and If Surface is Flagged.
You choose a method to flag a surface with the first one - say Diffuse Strength 99%. Then with the second one you tell the light what to do if it encounters a flagged surface - say Illuminate Flagged Only.
You then go through your scene and any thing you want the light to effect you change the Diffuse Strength to 99%. When you render that light will only illuminate the surfaces you selected.
If you haven't already I strongly suggest you check out the user guide that comes with the lights. It should be in your library folder under ReadMe's (mine is called 17031_advanced-ambient-light.pdf). There is a ton of useful information in there.
Oh, that was simpler than I made it out to be haha. Thanks!
Great light for a little bit of goth. I ambient light, and I set the ao samples to 160. That's it. Nothing else and no post work. You know AoA, I'm going to get your atmospheric cameras as well. I think the two together would be great.
Thanks.
Love the light, even if I have barely started to scratch the surface on it :) Did this render with it today, amongst a few others of your products AoA... please don't run into this creature, we do want to see more of your stuff *winks*
Items used : Degeneration, Advanced Ambient Light, Undead Fiend, Atmospheric Effects Cameras, Monstrous Touch Weapons Pack and The Executioner
Undead Warrior
Amongst the death, there is those that can not find rest and so they rose again. Most of them nothing but mindless critters others becoming warriors of Destruction, their goal? To kill the living so their master can reap the souls...
Excellent render THD777!!!
I'm still trying to come up with the ideal caption for this shot, which will probably be my entry in the Out of the Blackness contest. Straight out of DAZ except for a tiny bit of poke thru I didn't notice until after rendering and blipped out in Photoshop.
When I started working on it I was using a half dozen spots trying to get the Corben-esque lighting I wanted. Three ambient lights ended up doing a better job and there's a really subtle fourth one I plopped in just to get some extra definition on the two guys' cowls. Beyond that, there are still three spots and a dozen or so point lights. I also tried a variation using the Age Of Armor Atmospheric cameras, but I ran into the same problem I ran into with the hallway shot... only this time it was the clear areas of the frayed edges of the cowls that kept showing up.
Looks like the guys are happy that the Executioner's Union started allowing women in; and even happier that there is an Executioner Dress Code. :lol:
Another one I did for the Darkness contest. There's one small pointlight, and everything else is covered by just three Ambient lights, one of which is flagged to illuminate only the skeleton. The only postwork is a slight Gaussian blur I put on the ghost's eyes, which are "lit" by glow shaders from the Supersuit bundle.
"Trying to get a head in a male dominated occupaiton"
2 x AAL 1 x Distant Light - Camera AoA Atmospheric
This is an old Urban Future 2 scene that I did a while back. I thought it might benefit from the new ambient light. There are 4 point lights at various places and 1 ambient light. I set the light radius to 100. No postwork.
...it would be interesting to see side by side comparisons of older scenes reworked with AALs to see the difference.
Currently working with one but the structure in the foregrond keeps coming out black in the render while the rest looks fine. I'm using one AAL with no falloff or shadows taking the place of UE light sphere originally used in the scene. There is also a skydome (from another light set) as well.
And that brings up another issue. So far most skydomes come with specific environmental or lighting sets. It would be nice if someone released just a collection of good standalone skydomes for the various times of day and weather conditions, that could be used with any light/scene set.
Wow! Stunning renders everyone!
Good job getting the Maxfield Parrish look! I've always loved his paintings.
Were the transmapped billboards set to Primitive Hitmode? If so that could be the cause. If changing flaggign them as shader hitmode doesn't fix it then be sure to let me know. And what release of DS are you using?
Absolutely wonderful renders everyone. It is so fun seeing my stuff getting lots of use :)
I'm addicted to setting hair at 99% diffuse to use alt sample rate, it renders so much faster than 'normal'
Just curious, what was the update for this? I didn't see any change notes on the readme.
There was an update? I didn't submit an update LOL! Maybe DAZ did something to address the installer issue.
Yea, I launched DIM this afternoon and found an update waiting. Package date is listed as 10/14/2013 now.
I was just chatting with Dimension Theory and he said DAZ updated it to be "Now more ambientier" LOL!
Update was probably to fix install destinations; to allow installation to General Release, Public Build and Private Build of DAZ Studio.
-Rob