I'm doing something wrong with the lighting settings in Iray

snapdragon@compusmart.ab.ca

I've been having an awful time getting Iray scenes properly lit. I have to literally put a point light on top of a character's nose, and set it to 3,000,000 lumens before there's enough light to see their face.

As a test, I loaded the Enchanted Forest default set, and rendered it. I realize that it won't look as perfect as the product images on Daz, but it should be better than "Midnight in the Enchanted Forest". The attached image has 7 distant lights loaded, believe it or not.

What setting have I inadvertently messed up, or not tweaked to work properly? It can't default to these ridiculously low levels of light, can it?

Thanks!

kenshaw011267

Try a single distant light behind the camer set to about 150k lumens.

The built in lights in Daz simply don't work very well for Iray, at least at default settings. Try making a primitive, a plane or something like that, and making it emissive. A big surface with a decent output is a much better approximation of photography lights.

MelanieL

You mean this one? https://www.daz3d.com/the-enchanted-forest

I can't quite remember (it's a while since I used it) but I think there is a skydome in the full preload. That wil block any distant lights in Iray (it was designed for use with 3Delight renderer). If you locate the skydome and delete it from the scene that should let your distant lights in, but you will lose the background texture that was on the skydome.

MelanieL

Oh and there is an Iray light set for it here: https://www.daz3d.com/iray-presets-for-ds-enchanted-forest - I dont have it so can't say how useful it is.

Sevrin

Keep in mind also that the base lights are not very bright.   You really need to crank them up in your Light settings for Iray.

snapdragon@compusmart.ab.ca

kenshaw011267 said:

Try a single distant light behind the camer set to about 150k lumens.

The built in lights in Daz simply don't work very well for Iray, at least at default settings. Try making a primitive, a plane or something like that, and making it emissive. A big surface with a decent output is a much better approximation of photography lights.

Thanks! I'll try that!

 

MelanieL said:

You mean this one? https://www.daz3d.com/the-enchanted-forest

I can't quite remember (it's a while since I used it) but I think there is a skydome in the full preload. That wil block any distant lights in Iray (it was designed for use with 3Delight renderer). If you locate the skydome and delete it from the scene that should let your distant lights in, but you will lose the background texture that was on the skydome.

Aha!! I'll bet that's the problem. I was wondering why there'd only be a tiny hole in the top for light to get in.

 

Sevrin said:

Keep in mind also that the base lights are not very bright.   You really need to crank them up in your Light settings for Iray.

I knew they needed tweaking, but going from 1500 to 15,000,000 seemed a bit excessive. Maybe not?

Gr00vus

If you're going to have a long term relationship with Studio's Iray, you'll probably want to get familiar with the Tone Mapping inputs. Proper adjustment of the fstop, shutter speed and ISO go a long way toward improving the results you get for "indoor" renders using the photometric lights. You can google for basic info on tone mapping, and good settings for those  parameters for various indoor/outdoor lighting situations.

fastbike1

@mugwumpr "I knew they needed tweaking, but going from 1500 to 15,000,000 seemed a bit excessive"

They don't need to be that high. The skydome was blocking things. A value like 150000 would not be out of line though.

You also don't need to make a mesh light either. Many people don't seem to understand that the Iray spotlights have geometry. They default to point lights but can be discs. squares, rectangles etc. The untis are in cm, and a 200 x 100 rectangle performs in Iray pretty much like an equivalent softbox in a photography studio.