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I also did not see the Advanced DAZ Studio Light Bundle I bought in DIM but that is because I did not have "Plug In" filter checked. Once checked AoA bundle shows up.
I'll be spending quite some time reading through your manuals. What I was trying to explain was that I was looking for a one click solution to illumnating a character already in a lighted scene. For example: a scene lighted with Predatron Essential Light and Skies. I wanted to maybe use your lights on top of that to enhance or illuminate better my character. It's a work in progress. Not really a critical thing. I think I have lots of tools. Thanks for checking back.
Hi Joe,
I've been thinking about your question more. Is the problem maybe that the lights are appearing in a different location than your character is so they aren't receiving all the light they should?
If that is the case, one easy solution is to create a null then shift click and drag all the lights onto the null. This will parent all the lights to the null so wherever you move it, the lights will move as well. Once the lights are parented you can simply move the null so it is in the same location as your character's feet. Then the lights should illuminate the character as intended.
A related note: An important distinction to make about the Advanced Lights is that they are special code which add new functionality to how light and shadows are calculated. The Advanced lights do not include any preset locations or arrangements. So, on their own, the Advanced Lights are intended to be manually moved into place around your scene and adjusted as you see fit.
Then there are lighting products (such as Gleam, Caressed by light, DT's Advanced Light Presets for AoA's Lights and Night & Day) which contain placement and setting presets for lights.
I suppose a way of looking at it would be to imagine a light bulb manufacturer and a movie lighting artist. The Advanced Lights are like buying a special light bulb and buying presets like Advanced Light Presets for AoA's Lights, Caressed by Light, Night & Day and Gleam is like hiring Dimension Theory, Khory, Mattymanx or Cake One to set up the lighting for your scene.
Now those different people may prefer and use different light bulbs. For instance Khory uses the lights (bulbs) which come with DAZ Studio such as the DS Default lights and UberEnvironment. I think Cake One also used the lights that come with DAZ Studio for Gleam. Whereas Mattymanx and Dimension Theory use the Advanced Lights for their "bulbs."
I know it can sometimes be pretty confusing discerning the differences between lights and light presets or shaders and shader presets. I hope this post clears it up a little bit. If someone knows a better, less loquacious, way of explaining it please chime in.
Quick question and its something that has confused me for a while now.
When using soft shadows on a light, they sometimes render all grainy, as displayed in my attached image.
I would spend hours playing with the different settings to get things the way I want them to look, but never really known how each one reacts with other properties.
I have done a little bit of searching and read that the grain can be corrected by changing the 'Shadow Samples' and/or the 'shading rate' properties set on the lights shadow settings.
I have also read that by changing the default settings for 'Ray trace Depth' and/or 'Pixel Samples' within the render settings panel can also help smooth the shadow, removing the grain in the areas that are meant to be blurry.
The attached image is screen capture displaying the outcome of using the 'DTAL-ThreePointD' light from the Advanced Light Presets 'straight out of the box'.
Looking at this makes me believe that it is my render settings that are the cause to this problem, as I have seen nothing but beautiful renders by others using this lighting set.
Could someone please shed some light as to why I am having this problem.
Thank you
Great images Paris and Matty!
Oh... I see now :) Sorry I was misunderstanding. While they aren't a one-click solution, the lights could be used to supplement other lighting.
One of the big benefits to the advanced ambient light is that you can control the range of the light so you can use it to illuminate just the character and area immediately surrounding the character without lighting everything else in the scene.
You can also flag the surfaces of your character and tell the advanced lights to only illuminate those surfaces. Dialing everything in so it looks like the character's lighting looks like it fits with the other scene lights might take some time though.
Thanks for pointing out the DIM plugin filter. I forgot to mention that and I'm sure there are probably people wondering why it is not showing up. I'll try to add something about that in the online user guide.
Oh... I see now :) Sorry I was misunderstanding. While they aren't a one-click solution, the lights could be used to supplement other lighting.
One of the big benefits to the advanced ambient light is that you can control the range of the light so you can use it to illuminate just the character and area immediately surrounding the character without lighting everything else in the scene.
You can also flag the surfaces of your character and tell the advanced lights to only illuminate those surfaces. Dialing everything in so it looks like the character's lighting looks like it fits with the other scene lights might take some time though.
Thanks for pointing out the DIM plugin filter. I forgot to mention that and I'm sure there are probably people wondering why it is not showing up. I'll try to add something about that in the online user guide.
I know personally for me, I already had the plugin filter selected in DIM and it did not show.
The Previous bundle lights were in DIM already.
I know personally for me, I already had the plugin filter selected in DIM and it did not show.
The Previous bundle lights were in DIM already.
Guys, you need bought it first. It won't shows on DIM until you bought it. It won't shows in your account automatically just because you have the previous Bundle or the 2 individual lights previously. It is free, the 100% discount is applied to everyone who bought previously the Bundle or the 2 Advanced lights, but you need put it in the shopping cart and make the checkout.
Hi Ascinct,
The grain is a combination of all the things you mentioned except ray trace depth.
The biggest grain factor is samples. Increasing the samples (on the lights, not the render settings "shadow samples") will improve that. Now higher samples take longer to render so it is best to only increase samples on lights which have the soft shadows. In your scene it appears all the lights have very soft shadows so you may, indeed, need to increase the samples on all lights.
An alternative is to lower the shading rate on the grainy lights. However, it is best to keep this setting above 3 if possible. The reason is that there is an internal optimization (Max Error) that only kicks in if you are using a shading rate higher than 2.
Now there is also the shading rate in the render settings. This will make your renders look sharper and shadows less grainy in general... even when not using the advanced lights. However, it is best to turn up the shadow samples for the lights first before relying on the render setting's shading rate. Same goes for pixel samples... remove the grain by turning up the shadow samples on the lights before resorting to increased render setting pixel samples.
The reason I say that is because pixel samples and shading rate (in the render settings) increase the number of calculations for every aspect of the render whereas adjusting the light's shadow samples only increases the calculation of shadows.
Here is what I generally do...
For draft renders I use a render settings shading rate of 1.0 and ,usually, the light's default shadow samples setting or lower. When my scene is all set and I am about ready to do my final render I will turn up the shadow samples on the lights till they look almost grain free. Not completely free of grain but close.
If the shadows are nearly grain free but look... umm... mushy, then it might help to cut both the samples and shading rate (on the light) in half. So if 128 samples and a shading rate of 16 looks smooth but, hard to explain other then mushy, then I might set the samples to 64 and the shading rate to 8. This is almost canceling things out, faster because of lower samples but slower because of a finer shading rate but it makes soft shadows more accurate and finer around details.
Then, for the final render I set shading rate (in the render settings) to somewhere between 0.5 and 0.1 depending on how sharp I need any fine details to appear. That finer shading rate setting usually will smooth out that final bit of grain that was in the shadows.
As far as pixel samples go, I almost never go above 4, even for final product shots unless I am using depth of field. Even with DOF I rarely go over 16 pixel samples. Having high pixel samples when not using DOF is almost always needless and just increases render times, and increases them by a lot too. There are some cases other than DOF where you need them but I find those situations to be pretty rare.
Does that help? If any of that needs clarification please don't hesitate to ask. I haven't been very good at articulating things lately hehe.
I know personally for me, I already had the plugin filter selected in DIM and it did not show.
The Previous bundle lights were in DIM already.
Guys, you need bought it first. It won't shows on DIM until you bought it. It won't shows in your account automatically just because you have the previous Bundle or the 2 individual lights previously. It is free, the 100% discount is applied to everyone who bought previously the Bundle or the 2 Advanced lights, but you need put it in the shopping cart and make the checkout.
Yes this is what I posted about previously, that what I had to end up doing to get it.
Yes, this is exactly what I would love to spend some time working on. Is this explained further in your manuals?
Thanks
There is more about it in the ambient light user guide.
Light Radius - The maximum range, in meters, from the light's icon that the Light Color setting and occlusion will be used. Beyond this distance no occlusion is calculated and the Falloff Color will be used to illuminate surfaces.
That probably sounds a little cryptic out of context but the gist is, if the Falloff Color is set to black, then nothing outside the Light Radius will be illuminated by or receive shadows from that light.
...the one other nice thing is these play well with Uber area/mesh lights.
In this scene I replaced the base UE sphere with a low intensity Advanced Ambient light and then added an Advanced Spotlight set to 360° spread with squared falloff to just illuminate the two characters to highlight them more. I kept the Uber Area light planes that are part of the set's lights active just to illuminate the background details.
Very nice!
..thanks. Took about a third of the time to render, even with higher sampling rates, compared to using the UE sphere.
The transmaps in the hair and reflectivity on the floor are a killer with UE.
nice example and thanks for the explanation
Is there a way to use the ambient light in the big tent? I tried loading it but the tent sides are all black but the ground is lit up
Nice Kyoto! The falloff really gives it a sense of depth. The reflections look great too.
The light should illuminate it. Check the Light Radius setting on the light. Maybe the sides of the tent are farther away from the light than the radius setting.
An easy way to check is just to set the radius to 0 meters. As strange as that sounds a setting to 0 turns off the radius setting making it go on forever (well, not literally infinite. More like thousands of kilometers).
Let me know if that works.
Awesome thanks I will try that in the morning
Now that you mention the Big Tent, I should have used that for one of the promos. If the ambient light was placed on the stage and the radius was set so it went just a little beyond the walls and Falloff Blend was adjusted a bit, it would probably look very realistic. It would make the stage area look bright while the audience area and tent walls would still be illuminated but get darker the further they were from the stage.
That might have been a good way of illustrating the radius and falloff blend features.
I'd like to see that setup for the Big Tent. I just installed and started playing with all three light sets today, and I've never really been happy with any of the light setups I've tried out on the tent. Maybe this'll be the one.
...thanks. I like being able to have a lot more control over the lighting. UE sometimes is just there or it isn't there is little "in between". being able to set the radius of the AAL effect works so much better.
Hi Ascinct,
The grain is a combination of all the things you mentioned except ray trace depth.
The biggest grain factor is samples. Increasing the samples (on the lights, not the render settings "shadow samples") will improve that. Now higher samples take longer to render so it is best to only increase samples on lights which have the soft shadows. In your scene it appears all the lights have very soft shadows so you may, indeed, need to increase the samples on all lights.
An alternative is to lower the shading rate on the grainy lights. However, it is best to keep this setting above 3 if possible. The reason is that there is an internal optimization (Max Error) that only kicks in if you are using a shading rate higher than 2.
Now there is also the shading rate in the render settings. This will make your renders look sharper and shadows less grainy in general... even when not using the advanced lights. However, it is best to turn up the shadow samples for the lights first before relying on the render setting's shading rate. Same goes for pixel samples... remove the grain by turning up the shadow samples on the lights before resorting to increased render setting pixel samples.
The reason I say that is because pixel samples and shading rate (in the render settings) increase the number of calculations for every aspect of the render whereas adjusting the light's shadow samples only increases the calculation of shadows.
Here is what I generally do...
For draft renders I use a render settings shading rate of 1.0 and ,usually, the light's default shadow samples setting or lower. When my scene is all set and I am about ready to do my final render I will turn up the shadow samples on the lights till they look almost grain free. Not completely free of grain but close.
If the shadows are nearly grain free but look... umm... mushy, then it might help to cut both the samples and shading rate (on the light) in half. So if 128 samples and a shading rate of 16 looks smooth but, hard to explain other then mushy, then I might set the samples to 64 and the shading rate to 8. This is almost canceling things out, faster because of lower samples but slower because of a finer shading rate but it makes soft shadows more accurate and finer around details.
Then, for the final render I set shading rate (in the render settings) to somewhere between 0.5 and 0.1 depending on how sharp I need any fine details to appear. That finer shading rate setting usually will smooth out that final bit of grain that was in the shadows.
As far as pixel samples go, I almost never go above 4, even for final product shots unless I am using depth of field. Even with DOF I rarely go over 16 pixel samples. Having high pixel samples when not using DOF is almost always needless and just increases render times, and increases them by a lot too. There are some cases other than DOF where you need them but I find those situations to be pretty rare.
Does that help? If any of that needs clarification please don't hesitate to ask. I haven't been very good at articulating things lately hehe.
Thank you so much for explaining this so clearly, you have been a huge help!
I knew it would be a tricky one to answer, considering I touched on a few different concepts into that one question of mine.. :P
Now there is no reason for me to render a grainy image or to spend so much time trying to remove the grain from my renders ever again.
Thank you so much again and to show you what I have learnt here is an update of that trial render I posted up before.
(a little grainy, but that's only because I didn't want to wait for the render - but I know how to eradicate it all together now!)
Again I am having problems getting the lights to work without the use of the install manager which I don't like.
Sorry double post
I have a problem that is driving me mad, lets see if someone can help me, cos I should make something wrong.
The thing is I am replacing my own light set ups with AoA lights, that means I am replacing UE for AoA with same specifications, its all ok except in hairs and eyes. Waht i do often with hairs is apply and ubersurface shader and turn off raytrace and occlusion. But with AoA light it always render the oclusion, even if I check respect object settings, the only way doesn't render is if I turn of accept shadows, but then hairs seems to light. Is this a bug? or I can do something? The problem is that I don't get real advantatge with AoA as it renders slower than with UE cos it renders the occlussion.
With eyes also have problems but not always, for some reason, lot of times it makes a double reflection, I suppose is cos V6 has a false reflection, its a texture that you can choose in the set up of V6, but with UE when i put this reflections never rendes the natural reflection but with AoA renders both.
I attach an image to see more detailed in the left you can see the same preset with UE and in the right with AoA, you can see the hair in the right is darker cos it aplies oclussion , and also the double reflection of eyes.
For the hair, you need to adjust the strength of one of the properties (such as Ambient Strength) and use that to tell the light to use alt samples, with that set to a lower value, or primitive hit mode - this is covered in the manual.
For the eyes, you can either remove the reflections or, if you want to keep those, consider using a different flagging strategy, setting one light to illuminate only the eyes (with no specular component) and the other to illuminate everything else - or everything but the hair, for which you could use a third light with different sample settings and a different flagging value.
Hi Xdye,
There are several ways to get the hair so it does not calculate AO or have it still do it but run faster.
First though let me explain why it is happening. There are two main types of shadow rays - occlusion and transmission. Transmission is what the renderer and DS consider shadows for the purpose of deciding what casts shadows and what does not. UberEnvironment uses occlusion and the DS default lights use transmission. The Advanced lights can use either but are set to transmission by default.
So the Occlusion On - Off setting on UberSurface is controlling occlusion rays but the Advanced Ambient is sending shadows (transmission).
So one solution is to set UberSurface to Accept Shadows - Off. Another solution is to set the lights Object Cast Shadows setting to Always cast AO Shadows. This makes the light send occlusion instead of transmission which UberSurface's Occlusion On - Off setting will recognize just like it does for the UberEnvironment light.
Now, if you do like the look of having AO shadows on the hair but want it to render faster, you can leave Occlusion and Accept Shadows turned on, on the surfaces, then use flagging to lower the quality of Ao for the hair.
To do this, simply set the hair surface's ambient strength to something like 1% then change the light's settings to:
Flag Surface Shaders With - Ambient Strength Of...
Diffuse, Ambient or IOR Value - 1%
If Surface is Flagged - Use alt Samples
With flagging you can now adjust the AO quality for the hair independently using the light's Alternate Samples setting. Because the texture of hair hides grain fairly well, you may be able to get away with a pretty low Alternate Samples setting. But that's not all... If you decide you don't like the AO on the hair at all, you can simply set Alternate Samples to 0 which will turn off AO calculation for the hair/flagged surfaces.
To get the hair to render AO even faster, you could also use the flagging settings listed above but change the last setting to "Primitive Hitmode and Alt Samples." That might make the hair look too dark though so give it a quick test with both settings and see what you think before doing you final render.
I think the double reflection you mentioned is probably the specular from the light. Unlike UberEnvironment, the Advanced Ambient also casts an additional soft specular light. If you don't want this you can set the light to Illumination - Diffuse only.
Let me know if that helps. Sorry I am always so long winded hehe.
Thank you! this I was searching, it worked perfectly. Maybe you should specify in the tutorial as it tends to confusion, I understood that cast always AO shadows, was refering that ignores object presets and always renderes the oclusion even if it was turned off. The diffuse was also a good trick, I supposed that the light rendered different than UE cos was always more shine but I dind'nt know why.
Now I won time with same results, before was 4 min to render, while UE was 3 min, and now with this tricks just 2 min. Thank you.
Huston I have a problem.
The image with the red pencil line is all AOA lights, 3 Spots/points and one Ambient. Notice the zagging artefacts? I tried increasing the spot's shading rate, Ambient's surface samples, AO samples, Shadow samples, render settings Pixel X and Y to 24, shading rate 0,10 and it still occurs. The other render is one Ambient light and 3 Uber Points lights and as you can see the artefacts are not there. So I am presuming it has something to do with the Spots. I also have Uber Surfaces applied.
Here are a few renders I did trying to work with the settings nothing fancy with the lighting though
Its not got anything to do with the shadow bias has it?
There's often an unnatural sharpness near the lightsource when spots are set to cubic fall-off. I can't remember if there's a setting you can use to compensate, I normally just use a low opacity blur brush in post when I get something like that.
But if that's nothing to do with it, maybe it does have something to do with how shader reacts in the light, but not something I know about really.