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Cool, thanks for the comments - i thought it was about time this thread had some more pics, hehehe.
As far as problems installing with DIM, I'm fairly certain it needs to be run as administrator or it won't install the stuff that goes into the appdata folder (could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that's what gives apparently dodgy installs).
no probs installing with DIM here
win7 64 DAZstudio 4.6 8gb ram
just the crashes with all 3 apps on
I installed via DIM. No problem, everything is there. Having fun but nothing to post yet. Being able to turn these into area lights is a great feature. I'm getting the best results (for me) with squared falloff; looks very natural.
Thanks AoA. I'm sorry so many others are having problems. Here's hoping that all gets sorted out quickly.
I did not install using DIM, and my PC didn't find any of those files mentioned above.
Have sent AoA a PM.
Installing the lights manually is very similar to installing shaders. If you open the zip file, there will be 2 folders inside:
1) "Content" - the contents of this one go to your content library
2) "DAZ Studio_4.5;4.x Public Build;4.x Private Build" - the contents of this one go to your DS install directory. And if you use the public beta of DS also to your install directory of DS public beta.
I use between 50 and 90% quality on the volume camera in most final renders. Start around 50% and see if it is too grainy.
The volume camera effect generally looks the best when the spotlight uses squared falloff. Because of the insane intensity differences right near the spotlight's origin in squared falloff mode you will likely see heavy grain near the source even on high volume camera quality.
Two solutions for grain are to not show the light's source but put it slightly off screen or inside a light fixture. The other thing is to set the volume camera quality to something that looks good everywhere in the scene except right near the light source then blur just the grainy spot a little in post.
When rendering with the volume camera use Primitive hitmode as much as possible on the lights. It should be fastest to set the lights to Primitive hitmode then flag just the surfaces around transmaps to use Shader hitmode.
Avoid raytraced reflections in scenes which are rendered from the volume camera. Raytraced reflections really slow things down a lot. Of course I say that yet I have that troll in the rain promo in which every single surface except the sky and rain had raytraced reflections LOL!
I'm currently working on the volume camera to see if I can't get it much faster. There is one feature already working in the draft version that will make it much much easier to control God Rays when used along with the advanced lights. There is a lot of work left to be done still so it might be a while but I am actively working on it.
Interesting. I finally got a good god rays render a few days ago, sadly I didn't have access to the new spotlight at the time. Any tips for settings on the spotlight and ambient light? Even doing stuff like setting hair to use the alternate samples it still seems like my renders are quite slow.
When I downloaded the lights manually I did not get a zip file a only got a .exe file.
When I downloaded the lights manually I did not get a zip file a only got a .exe file.
You are right. I install manually files downloaded via dim. Now that I check product library, there are only exe files for both lights (and zips for mac). I wonder where the installer is putting shader data if you have both non-beta and beta DS? Anyway, sorry for adding to confusion.
Could it be possible to get a zip file with all files instead of the installer .exe file which does not work as expected?
I have tried to run installer on Windows 7 64-bit both as an administrator and the normal user and it does not install anything in
AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\scripts\support
I think it will be pretty easy to put the files in proper places ourself, if we exactly know in which folders the files will go.
Pretty please.
This is how I went about figuring out what the lights do:
1. Load a new blank scene and add a single plane for a floor and a sphere.
2. Load either the Ambient OR the spotlight in the scene.
3. Move it around a little and Render.
4. Change the setting on ONE dial, hit render and see what happens.
5. Put that dial back to its default.
6. Change the next dial and render, see what changes.
7. Repeat 5-7 until you get a clear picture of what each setting does.
8. Repeat with the other light.
Use the PDF as a reference for a bit of detail on what you are "seeing" when you render. This helped me A LOT in figuring out how these work and what each setting actually does. Hope this helps.
I I'm not seeing any of the listed things when in the parameters tab when I load the ambient light. when I render the figure is just black.
It must not have installed correctly. Did you use DIM or the .exe version of the installer?
And thank you all for reporting your findings and searching for the installed files. I'm chatting with the lead quality assurance now and will see if we can't get this resolved right away.
@AoA or someone else who knows:
if i render with some of your nice atmospheric cameras i dont get the dazinternal edit-backdrop
can I get it rendered somehow?
Neither programs show in my DIM, so I couldn't have downloaded it from there even if I'd wanted to.
Just a little something I got together today. Lots of items in here, but the ones from AoA are 1 Advanced Ambient Light, 2 Advanced Spotlight and also 1 volume camera wit ha bit of vignette thrown in, plus I re-colored the color of the volume a little :)
There is a pointlight for the fire, which actually comes from the lightset that comes with the Mage Tower
Best Friends
The library were slightly dark now and yet they stayed in there, the crackling fire from the fireplace spreading warmth and what little light it give off. She had placed herself on his leg to easier be able to show him what was written in the book. A soft sigh emitted from the ogre as he gazed upon the little elf, her smile lighting up the dark and warming him. They had been friends for little over twelve moons now, despite that her own people shunned her for being friend with someone like him. Twelve moons and so much had changed, she had taught him how to properly read, taught him the joys of friendship, and she even was giving him advice to court that lovely ogre girl from one of hte other clans. He looked up to the doorway where his father stood, smiling at them both with fatherly pride.
Weird. I bought a bundle and both were available in DIM right away.
After reading your post I launched DIM just now and it showed up an update for Advanced Ambient Light :)
You will probably have to composite it in Photoshop or some such program. Create a new camera based on the position of the Fog Camera and set its focal length the same. Turn off all the lights, and you should get a "mask" image with the backdrop. You can then add it as a layer over the fog camera layer in Photoshop (with the Blend mode set to Screen).
@cayman so you think ist not possible in dazstudio?
thx for trying to help though
Weird. I bought a bundle and both were available in DIM right away.
After reading your post I launched DIM just now and it showed up an update for Advanced Ambient Light :)
An Advanced Ambient Light update was just posted. It adds a few features to the light including AO Color and a setting to allow more control over what settings in surfaces are flagged.
The DIM version appears to be installing fine at first glance but the download EXE version isn't. I'm still working with QA to track down the cause and get it fixed.
I don't know, ruphuss, it appears not - but maybe someone else knows how to do it. I would do it this way because I always use layers now anyway. :coolhmm:
Is it possible to add a setting like other lights have where when you bring it into the scene it asks if you want to load it in the default position or use the active viewport ? A lot of times I use perspective view to sort of 'scout' lighting locations and this would help my workflow immensely.
Sorry, I'm not ignoring the volume camera questions. Just working on this installer currently. I'll try to go over some of the volume setup as soon as the installer issue is resolved.
This one uses 2 Advance Spots and one Advanced Ambient. (faint light rays are post....) Leaves and Pumpkins are also using the Subsurface Shader from AoA.
All products are available here at DAZ:
Pumpkin Avenue
Halloween Pumpkin
Earth & Moon Super bundle
I Used the EXE.
Yes, It appears that only the DIM installer is installing all of the needed files. The exe is not.
Today I'm not getting the same resutls as yesterday.
I've been experimenting with a simple scenes with Mavka, her hair, a backdrop and an advanced ambient light. Yesterday I was pleased with the result.
Today, after installing the Advanced Ambient Light update and an also upgrade to 4.6.1.17 Pro the results are significantly different even though I'm using the same duf file I was using yesterday. Unfortunately because I've changed two things I'm not sure which is a fault.
It looks like the light is in Primitive hitmode. Try using shader and see if that gets the correct results back.
Hitmode is already Shader :-(
Weird! Hummm... was/is there anything flagged in the scene? The way flagging works was changed in the update.
Just FYI for anybody, I got the coupon a moment ago, used it on Spotlight and all went well. :)