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I got it working once I did it via the DIM
Nice, Endrance. Did it render fairly quickly with that hair flagged?
That's great to hear! I'm sorry it didn't install easier from the start.
Oh I had another though about volume. This is a tip someone posted in the forums a long time ago but I can't remember how it was or I would credit them...
This is not ideal but it is a trick to help make stronger God rays from a particular light. You can turn down the camera's light density a bit so the ambient light doesn't wash everything out, then make a copy of the spotlight you want the strong rays from and set the copy to secular only.
That will light up the volume just as strong as if it were on diffuse and specular but won't brighten the diffuse of things in the scene. You can crank up the strength of the specular only light to increase the volume effect. Now it will make highlights very bright so the trick really only works well if there are more matte surfaces in the light's path.
Again, not ideal but it can be useful in some situations.
Total render time was about 25-30 minutes if I recall. The render passed through hair quickly. With UE setup it probably would have taken a couple of hours, judging from past portrait renders of such a resolution.
Unfortunately not currently, but it is part of the volume revamp I am working on. After releasing the atmosphere cameras I kept running into the same need you expressed and started working on a solution. The main reason the advanced lights have the __category text parameter is to allow for that control in the revamped volume camera.
What I do if trying to do all lights in a single render is reduce the ambient way down (I'm talking an intensity of somewhere between 3 to 5%) and it works if you tweaked the spotlights to suit... but it will still take a bit of time to render - currently much quicker to do ambience and volume as separate renders and combine in post (separate renders will take about a quarter of the time of doing a single render using all lights with volume camera).
This sentence has a lot of importance to me, in seaching all over can only find the abilty to convert hdri
to tiff. I have literally hundreds of hdri both made and purchased.
The ability to use them is a big thing to me.
If I am missing something please help me
I don't think I understand the question. Are you still in the need to convert something?
Unfortunately not currently, but it is part of the volume revamp I am working on. After releasing the atmosphere cameras I kept running into the same need you expressed and started working on a solution. The main reason the advanced lights have the __category text parameter is to allow for that control in the revamped volume camera.
Thanks, I'm looking forward to that new camera, then.
I don't think I understand the question. Are you still in the need to convert something?
No not at all, with all your problems thank you for replying.
Will try a fast answer.
Previously you could not use a "pure" HDR image in DAZ.
You had to convert it to tiff file.
Dimension Theory, who had made the best hdri sets around created Real Light GEl for your Spotlight.
After I loaded one in noticed they were pure HDR images. Copied and Pasted them into anther program and
they worked fine. Imported my own (studio versions) into the gel and they worked.
Now.
1. How long has the abiltiy to use an hdri been here?
2 Can an Hdri image be imported into any other features ( mapping for skydome, Dimension Theory light sets, Umberenvironment>
I have a HUGE collection of hdri images that I use quite extensively in other programs, Maya, Vue, Poser, etc.
Have been collecting them for years.( Paid large amount to Dosch years ago)
The inabilty to use them in what I consider a productive way, in DAZ has been a source of enormous frustration
Oh I see. Yes, that is a handy thing isn't it? I'm not sure when DS first started supporting HDR fromat but I only noticed it just few point releases back. Now DS has internally supported high dynamic range images from day 1 I believe but, as far as I can tell, the ability to load the .HDR format wasn't until recently. It probably just needed the right dll to convert HDR to TDL, which is the high range format the renderer uses.
You should be able to load HDR onto all surfaces and UberEnvironment now :) Pretty cool huh? DAZ needs to advertise these things better. There are all sorts of cool little things I keep bumping into inside DS and saying "Whoa! When did they add that?" haha.
Pretty cool huh? DAZ needs to advertise these things .
To me this is momentous, and you cannot read any update except the tagline Dimension Theory wrote to the GEL
At this moment I love you, Dimension Theory, and DAZ.
When I consider all the names I called you yesterday......:-)
Thank you for the coupon, really wasn't necessary.
I considered the products worth what I paid.
As I mentioned, you make great products (as does Dimension Theory) truly sorry for your troubles.
A very sincere thank you for your help.
Sounds like you're as happy as I am, Bicc lol. The Real Light set is what I was working on when I realized HDR loads natively, I'd offered to send AoA some gels to use for promos and stuff but we didn't want to eat up bandwidth with huge TIFF files. Then when working with the TIFFs myself I noticed all of my HDR files showing up in the same folder when browsing for textures in DS when they didn't previously, I had to double check because I knew Luxus let you load them as a "stub" in DS but they wouldn't work with it's native renderer. It's the real deal though, they work perfectly now but they don't display properly as textures in 3D View just like those TIFFs. Which is fine for everything I use them for, so I'll be using them from now how since they're MUCH smaller.
i just bought this awesome item, but, for the moment, i got the daz 4.5 ...
do you think that it should work , please ?
Cheers
...so from what I understand, HDRI primarily is for IBL lights (like UE or Pendragon's ahEnvironment lights) which incorporate environment spheres.
Don't see how this would have work with the Advanced Ambient and Spotlights.
HDRI is just a high bit depth image format, which means it has a lot more information relating to brightness. It's used for IBL for this reason but that's not all it's good for. A good comparison is 16-bit TIFFS a lot of people use for displacement, those are used to reduce artifacts when displacing. These HDRIs are 32-bit, which means they are even better for that than the 16-bit TIFFs. For gels the extra brightness information means the textures are able to "dim" in a realistic fashion when you dim the light, rather than just being less bright these gel textures adjust to show what their light sources would look like dimmed (displaying the filaments inside like it would if you dimmed a real light bulb).
Ummmmmm. I'm not sure. It might. There is nothing off hand that I can think of which would prevent it. Since you bought them already I suppose it couldn't hurt to try. I would love to hear what you discover.
Ummmmmm. I'm not sure. It might. There is nothing off hand that I can think of which would prevent it. Since you bought them already I suppose it couldn't hurt to try. I would love to hear what you discover.
I should say the gels wont as far as I know, since they use HDR which was added in a more recent DS version.
...is that the recent "public release" {4.6.1.17) or the new beta release (4.6.2.23)?
Dimension Theory, can you update your HDR Pro sets with HDR files so we can get rid of the giant TIFF files and have better performance? It would make the download package much smaller and easier for people with slow connections or metered connections, too. Please! Please!
The ability to load HDR has been working at least as early as 4.6.0.18 but maybe earlier.
This is certainly a possibility, I'll look into what is actually required to do so and give it some consideration. I believe HDR handles brightness differently than the converted TIFFs so I may have to adjust presets to make it work properly. I'll talk about my Pro Sets more in another thread soon though :)
Amen Brother! The one thing I absolutely hate about DAZ Studio is the content manager. I keep DS4 on a SSD drive and all the content on HDs and found that the "products" and "categories" wiped themselves out so frequently that I feel no inclination to even try to update it anymore. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for P3DO and separate runtime folders.
I'm totally at a loss of what to do with these new cameras and lights. I just want to make nice even lighting with good shadows and use the Vignette option from the cameras. Instead I'm getting (after hours of messing all this) is washed out, overly lit skin and the camera is blacking out all the stuff behind it, I don't want that at all. Sorry to add to your stress but thinking this might not be for me. I'm too simple minded for this sort of stuff. I'm a creator myself but when I'm making promos I don't want to spend this sort of time setting up stuff. I don't see ANY presets at all so that's not helpful either.
The ability to load HDR has been working at least as early as 4.6.0.18 but maybe earlier.
...cool, thanks. After my experience with 3.Advanced, I no longer load a new update unless it is a full "stable" public release. I've wasted enough time (and lost enough hair) playing "beta tester".
That's fine RAMWolff if they aren't for you but the results you are getting sound unusual. Would you mind posting a render so I can see what is happening?
The reason there aren't any presets is because the real intent of the light is being able to control them for your situation. Since there is no way for me to know what settings someone might want for what scene object, there is no real way to set up any presets.
So if you want to post a simple image showing what they are doing maybe we can get it looking good for you. If not the lights turn out to not be to your liking please do return them. I only want sell things which people will benefit from.
...I've been used to messing around with light intensity, colour value, spread, and such since my days in tech theatre. The Spotlights work pretty much the same save for being able to flag shaders which is a real nice feature. Having the different modes of falloff (especially squared) is absolutely wonderful. In the few tests I've run I am amazed at the different effects possible. I also like the update for flagging surfaces makes it a lot simpler.
IBL is nice if you want a photorealistic look and it has it's place, but I frequently like to take a more cinematic approach to many of my scenes and both the Adavnced Ambient and Advanced Spotlight are totally up my alley.
Definitely need to get DimensionTheory's HDR Gels.
Hi, I'm trying to find out whether this product will work with Octane Render for DAZ or Luxus? Is it only compatible with the Reality renderer in DAZ? I'm interested in buying it if it will work with Octane. Thanks in advance.
Oh and RAMWolff mentioned wanting the Vignette function of the volume cameras. If that is the only reason you wanted the cameras you should definitely return them. This is embarrassing but the vignette stopped working correctly a few DS sub point versions ago. I actually didn't notice it until a few days ago. It kiiiinda works but not the way it was intended. I'm fixing it in the revamp of the cameras. FYI the contrast function has an issue too :red:
Hi, I'm trying to find out whether this product will work with Octane Render for DAZ or Luxus? Is it only compatible with the Reality renderer in DAZ? I'm interested in buying it if it will work with Octane. Thanks in advance.
The light will not work in any other renderer other than DAZ Studio and 3delight. It is maybe possible they might light up but I highly doubt they would look anywhere near correct in Lux or Octane. Even on the very remote chance they did look right, you would not get any speed benefits.
Sorry about that. :(
New manual installers should be available in your account downloads :)
..will there be DIM installers as well?
There should be DIM installers already (From within DIM) . If they don't show up check to see if the plugins box is checked in the DIM download settings.
As for manual zip downloads I don't know that there will be any. It appears to be one of those cases where the web software is over simplifying the problem and sees the lights as a plugin so it only allows exe's for the manual install... If I am understanding correctly.