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...that is really nice.
I'm working my way through the videos (thanks Jabba!) and I keep going back and forth through the thread taking notes...one thing I'm a bit confused about tho, is that sometimes people will say they used the ambient to "only light the figure"....and I'm not sure if I'm confusing myself and thinking it means somthing else but.... when a person mentions they used 2 Ambient lights, and one of those was JUST to light the figure, how exactly is that happenign? I understand "flagging" but I thought you could ONLY flag one thing...for instance, flag the hair to make the render shorter.
Am I understanding that right? That you can use one ambient light that will ONLY light up say, the figure, for example, and not light the rest of the scene?
There are several flagging options that will work on any surface that is set to match the flag criteria e.g. if flag is set to "diffuse strength of 96%" then any surface in your scene that has its diffuse strength set to 96% will have the selected flag option applied to it.
The flag options can be (this is the "If Surface Is Flagged" dropdown):
Don't Illuminate
Illuminate Flagged Only
Use Alt Samples
Use Shader Hitmode
Use Primitive Hitmode
Shader Hitmode and Alt Samples
Primitive Hitmode and Alt Samples
So to only illuminate one prop/figure/character in a scene, its surfaces needs to be flagged using a different setting than any of the other surfaces in the scene e.g. set all surfaces to Diffuse Strength 96% and set ambient light flag to match (diffuse strength of 96%)... then set the flag option to "Illuminate Flagged Only" - a test render should show only the flagged figure being lit (assuming all other lights are switched off or not yet loaded into scene)
Then use second ambient light as normal to provide light to the rest of the scene.
If you need purity of separation between both lights, you can flag the second ambient light to avoid shining on the flagged surfaced (again using same example settings as above), flag diffuse strength at 96% and set the flag option to "Don't Illuminate" and each light will then not interfere with the other.
thank you Jabba!!!! Suddenly, it's making a LOT more sense now!
In regards to the settings:
Don't Illuminate - won't light any of the things that have been flagged
Illuminate Flagged Only - will ONLY light the things that have been flagged
Use Alt Samples - renders a bit fast, useful for hair
Use Shader Hitmode - ?
Use Primitive Hitmode - renders faster
Shader Hitmode and Alt Samples
Primitive Hitmode and Alt Samples
Is that correct? My interpretation of the choices?
thank you Jabba!!!! Suddenly, it's making a LOT more sense now!
In regards to the settings:
Don't Illuminate - won't light any of the things that have been flagged
Illuminate Flagged Only - will ONLY light the things that have been flagged
Use Alt Samples - renders a bit fast, useful for hair
Use Shader Hitmode - ?
Use Primitive Hitmode - renders faster
Shader Hitmode and Alt Samples
Primitive Hitmode and Alt Samples
Is that correct? My interpretation of the choices?
Pretty much correct.
Alt samples CAN render faster but it could, in theory, render slower. By default the AO samples are set to 128 and the Alt Samples are set to 16, so the alt samples would render faster. However, there is nothing to stop you from lowering the AO samples and upping the Alt samples. I'm not sure why you'd want to do that but it's an option :).
Shader Hitmode is the default for the light but I can see that you might want to set a light that illuminates a large section of a complex scene to use primitive hitmode and then flag certain objects so that it used shader hitmode just for them. Especially when doing test renders.
Yeah, that's pretty much it :)
An example of flagging Shader Hitmode might be something like this...
maybe we have a scene that contains mostly fully-modelled props with only one or two props that use transmaps - rather than setting entire scene to use shader hitmode, we can speed up rendertime by setting overall Hitmode to primitive (in the Occlusion tab) and flag the surfaces we want to use shader hitmode so we still get light/shadow effects of the transmapped parts.
Just to clarify one thing (I got this arse-about-face in my second ambient light video, tried to correct later but not sure if I made it clear enough) - the surfaces that need flagged with shader hitmode are the ones on which the transmapped shadows will be cast, not the surfaces that have the transmap applied to them - you only need to flag transmapped prop with shader hitmode if you also want accurate shadows internally within the prop that has the transmaps on its surfaces.
Yeah that covers the gist of the settings. I'll fill in out a bit...
Don't Illuminate - won't light any surface that matches the flagging criteria.
Illuminate Flagged Only - will ONLY light the things that have been flagged
Use Alt Samples - renders a bit fast, useful for hair. Yes, most of the time, but you can also use it so alt samples is higher than the base. Maybe you have a scene where everything looks good at, say ,32 samples except one surface looks grainy. Usually large, smooth, evenly colored surfaces such as a white wall will show AO grain more clearly than something like a bumpy rock wall. So you could flag just the white wall and use alt samples but crank that setting up to something like 256 samples.
Use Shader Hitmode - Takes transmaps into account when calculating shadows. It is much slower but gives accurate shadows when transmaps are used.
Use Primitive Hitmode - renders much faster. If you have no transmaps in your scene definitely use this mode. You should be able to get good results even with Garibaldi spline hair or LAMH mesh hair (When using the DS Default or Ubersurface on LAMH) because those types of hair do not generally use transmaps.
Shader Hitmode and Alt Samples. Good for transmapped hair because it will use lower samples (by default) but also allow for proper transmapped shadows for flagged surfaces. When using this mode set the light's base hitmode setting to primitive and flag only the transmapped surfaces and items receiving shadows from those transmapped surfaces.
Primitive Hitmode and Alt Samples. This is probably going to be the most useful when you need the light's base hitmode set to Shader for some reason but you have one or two surfaces which are taking forever to render. You could flag the slow surfaces to use this setting while doing setup and test renders so things go quickly but will likely turn flagging back off for your final render or change it to Shader Hitmoder and Alt samples.
And additional case for Primitive hitmode and Alt samples is for Garibaldi hair since it renders just fine in primitive hitmode and a lower sample rate is often acceptable since the hair has enough variation that shadow grain is not as easily noticeable as it would be on a smooth even surface.
I hope that helps and doesn't make it even more confusing hehe.
thanks guys! Things are definitely becoming a LOT clearer! :D
Thank you so much! The third video gave me the info I needed about combining layers of render passes to complete a Halloween render I gave up on. Better late than never. :lol:
...OK here is what I did with Ruphuss' setup. Now again I don't have the same content but used what I had that was as close as possible: (well save for Aiko's pointed ears)
I used the setup of her shooting into a campfire/torchlit area.
Ailko5 with the V4 Ranger clothing and hair
Rolling Plains
Glow Moon
Mil Horse
Point of Impact (fence)
Lisa'a Botanicals: Creepy Trees 2
Dystopia Blocks Skydome - Night.
Aspect ratio 3:4 1,024 x 768
Lights:
...One AAL set to 0 radius for overall illumination at 15% with light blue tint (230, 252, 255) at base coordinates - all other settings default.
...One AAL set to Radius 4 of Metres Illumination of 20% with light blue tint (179, 219, 252) with falloff blend of 75% at coordinates of -86.3 X, 137.3 Y, 44.0 Z with Rolling Plains flagged at 17% Ambient: Don't Illuminate. Hitmode: Primitive, Hit sides: Front, Polygon Facing: Forward (eliminates the transmap shadow from the horse's mane).
...One ASL set to Squared Falloff, light colour 231,148,4 with Gobo Ripple Gel at coordinates 0 X, 147 Y, 315.5 Z with hair flagged at 17% ambient - Primitive Hitmode, Shadow Softness 0%.
...One Distant light AT 45% intensity Light blue tint (183, 209, 255) behind moon (Coordinates .29X .19Y, -194Z Rotation -24.45 X, 163 Y 0 Z. Shadow softness 1%
Think I have it all.
now pls where do These light freckles come from
AAL with 2 distant lights blueish
hair shadows turned on and off
the distant lights dont cast shadows
AAL is Default
...the lighting looks much better.
Does the Ranger Character use SSS (I don't have her)? If so you might want to check your AO Occlusion and SubSurface samples. For the AALs they should be default set to 128 and 16 respectively.
On close examination, it appears to be a texture issue similar to what I dealt with in my pic of the girl and the elf.
Where are your AAL's placed in relation to the character? Also, where is your distant light coming from?
Try rendering with the Distant Light turned off.
thx Kyoto for all the advices
i will do some Investigation on this
That's interesting. It almost looks like specular highlights coming off of a really strong bump or displacement. If it doesn't take too long to do a test re-render I suggest setting the ambient lights to diffuse only under the illumination menu. If the speckles disappear then we know the cause. If not maybe try turning Adaptive Sampling off. Sometimes the adaptive sampling can cause dark and light patches when a low AO sample count is used.
I know it is not the look you are after but, in a way, are kinda kinda cool looking hehe. I'd like to know if you find out what was causing it. Someday I may have a creative use for glowing freckles :)
i will try
i'm on your side with liking random effects like that sometimes
hair casts shadow off (displayoption)
hair casts shadows on
illuminated with AAL -yes
now AAL only without hair
you see it's the shadow of the hair causing the effect
occlusion is on default
Has the skin (or hair) got any reflection settings, I'm wondering if that could be the cause of the light on the face from the hair.
another Skin
leah for V5
Illumination of the hair flagged to off
Display shadows on hair on
no other lights
everything else on Default Settings
some interesting effects though
...you're welcome. I'm still learning these lights myself but find them a lot more fun to work with than IDL as I can experiment to my heart's content (the way I usually learn things) without having to spend hours waiting for a render tests to complete.
Thank you so much! The third video gave me the info I needed about combining layers of render passes to complete a Halloween render I gave up on. Better late than never. :lol:Cool, glad they're useful... I was a bit fingers-and-thumbs using GIMP instead of Photoshop, but even so was still clearly saving a lot of time compared to doing it all in a single render.
Wow. That is really strange. Is that the ranger hair you are using? If so I just tested it with Genesis 2 and the Advanced Ambient Light but am not seeing the same effect.
So you have 2 AALs in the scene yes? Does the effect happen when only one of the lights is on?
If you are using a different hair or special shader on the hair let me know and I will try to buy and test them.
One ASL shining through the window, one AAL as a fill light inside the room.
"Jamila"
Looks great tjohn!
Just an update on the updates... I have solved the issue where the ambient light was not correctly using shader hitmode in all cases. This is evident where you might see eyelashes and transmapped hair casting shadows on the face which appear too dark. I've also corrected a few other small issues which should make using copy and paste from default DS lights less likely to cause problems.
The update hasn't been uploaded to DAZ just yet. I want to thoroughly test one other small change again first.
..any progress on the crash issue?
Tried using the Clear Undo Stack script after each move and setting change, but the app still crashed. Last night had four crashes occur.
Unfortunately not yet though a DAZ employee who uses the lights all the time contacted me the other day. She asked, because she sits in the office right next to the developers, if it would help she showed them her system every time DS crashed. I said "Absolutely!" of course :)
Now just to check... all of you are only having crash issues with the spotlight right?... The ambient isn't having any problems with crashes correct?
...yes just the spotlight in .4.6.1.17. I filed a ticket after it happened and attached the crash report that was generated.
@ Age Of Armour
Can you tell me why on stonemasons's enchanted forest the lights render the alpha in black on the leaves on the ground?
I have tried different settings with different samples/hit modes ect but just cant get it to render right.
if you have the stonemason scene could you take a look please?
Thanks
Steve.
I just got notice from DAZ that the latest DS ver 4.6.1.33 has fixed the issue that was causing the advanced spotlight to crash. I am testing it now. Please let me know if the problem persists for any of you after upgrading to ver 4.6.1.33.
To Sal UK,
I made an error in the last ambient light update where the base Shader hitmode switch wasn't properly switching to shader hitmode for all surfaces. I have an update to fix it but was waiting to make it live until I had a chance to test in DS 4.6.1.33
Until the update goes live, a temporary solution is to flag the ground surface and set it to shader hitmode in the lighting control section of the light.
Remember that the shadows are calculated by the surface receiving the shadow so you will probably need to flag the ground not the leaves. Of course, if that doesn't work then you can try the other way or flag both.
Sorry for the inconvenience. Hopefully the update will appear soon to fix that.
...was holding on installing to find out more of what all the fixed entailed. thanks.
Hey thanks for the reply, I did manage to work around it by turning off cast shadows in the leaves properties. I haven't used any other lights since you made these available. Really love them I have Reality 2 and 3 but prefer your lights no messing with materials except to change diffuse to 99%. ect.
The Leaves dont look too bad with no shadow.
look forward to the update. :)
Steve.