Differing light levels

Cat_Dancing

Could someone with a better understanding of DAZ3D than I have please explain why I have different light quality before and after render. (Please see attached pix) I have also attached a pic of my scene list showing what lights I've used.

Thank you.

 

Leana

The viewport uses OpenGL which can only aproximate lights (especially lights like uberEnvironment), is limited in the number of lights it can display, and often doesn't have accurate shadows. So the lights in the actual render may be very different from what you see in the viewport.

SimonJM

Silly question, but Iray or 3Delight?  From the items in scene tab I'd suppose 3Delight, but I recall you mentioning elsewhere you usually use Iray

Cat_Dancing

Hi Leana and Simon. To the rescue again I see. Thank you for your input. Simon, I normaly use iray for all my work, render speed has improved so much lately and 3Delight is so slow, for me it is anyhow.

Leana thanks for the heads up. Any idea what I can do to correct my problem please and how can I get light into my scene, how would you do it?

 

 

Fishtales

The UberEnvironment lighting doesn't work in Iray. The Iray dome does the same thing with a HDRI plugged into the Environment Map.

Cat_Dancing

Hi Fishtales - thanks for commenting. Can you suggest an alternative please, one the does work within iray. Not sure at all how to utilise the iray dome or how I should plug HDRI into the environment map. Please explain, that would help immensely.

Trust you're in good nick?

Fishtales

If you aren't sure about using the HDRI then just delete the UberEnvironment and use Sun and Sky, which is the default, and change the time so that the sun shines from the direction you want. You can also turn the Dome to move the direction too.

fastbike1

A HDRI bought from the store will load into the Render Stettings>Environment>Environment Map when double clicked. A HDRI from the internet will need to be manually loaded in same.

Cat_Dancing

Fishtales - Fastbike. Thanks for your input (My Brain Hurts)  I have taken both your suggestions on board and will have a good go at what you suggest, thank you. This is certainly the way to learn.

Cat_Dancing

fastbike1 said:

A HDRI bought from the store will load into the Render Stettings>Environment>Environment Map when double clicked. A HDRI from the internet will need to be manually loaded in same.

Fastbike - could you please recommend a HDRI for lighting woodland scenes. Thankyou.

 

felis

For free HDRI's you can try to take a look at HDRI Haven

FenixPhoenix

@Cat_Dancing,

I highly recommend any HDRI sets by DimensionTheory. Those are my go-to whenever I need to light a scene.

Fishtales

I see you are using the Cyclorama as a backdrop so the Sun and Sky would be fine as long as the sun isn't behind the backdrop which would block it.

fastbike1

Several of dDimension Theory's, most/many from Orestes Graphics,  Magix 101, Cake and Bob. These are all outdoor / sky HDRIs. I have many from each PA. I have several from HDRI Haven as well, but like to support the PA's.

Cat_Dancing said:

fastbike1 said:

A HDRI bought from the store will load into the Render Stettings>Environment>Environment Map when double clicked. A HDRI from the internet will need to be manually loaded in same.

Fastbike - could you please recommend a HDRI for lighting woodland scenes. Thankyou.

 

 

SpottedKitty

If you want to experiment before buying anything, remember there's a set of HDRI environments in the free content that comes with DAZ|Studio.

DrunkMonkeyProductions

time to throw a massive monkey wrench in this whole discussion.

The image format used for environment lighting doesn't matter all that much.

If you look at the list of compatible images for the "Envrionment" channel, it's pretty big.

What makes HDR and EXR formats better for enviroment lighting is the Luminance channel they possess. IIRC a couple other formats also support luminance channels, but i can't remember which ones off the top of my head.

Beyond that, they're just another compression format.

The kicker is that not all HDR or EXR formats possess a luminance channel, and will act just like any JPG, PNG or TIFF when applied to the environment.

the other problem is when the image isn't a full 360 degree, or at least a 180 degree image, then you get weird results with  blank(black) areas, image stretching, and various and sundry other issues.

As a couple quick examples, i' just grabbed a couple thing i have floating around the HDR library.

The road image is from 3docean's hdr 085 road.

the other i'm not sure about.

While the road hdr image produces the best results, the jpg image, with some tweaking is meh to ok. Both the hdr and JPG are full 360, hence why there's no difference in the image itself, just the illumination.

I didn't do much, just reduced the image intensity from 1 to 0.5 and again to 0.25.

If i spent a bit more time on it, i'd probably be able to get it a bit closer to the hdr results.

This is just some proof of concept stuff

 

Regarding the Uber environment and backdrops, such as cyclorama, delete the headlamp blocker, apply the uber iray material to the backdrop or environment, apply the texture map to the environment channel under the shader's tab, and adjust the settings to get the result you're looking for.

No need to play with envrionment settings, unless you don't like the results in iray with the above. the yo'll probably just want to delete the whole dome or backdrop out anyway.

peace.

 

Cat_Dancing

Thanks Spotted Kitty, I've been trying them all one by one......................You have a nice day.

Drunk Monkey Prods - Thank you for your input, now my brain really hurts. I will definately be investigating your suggestions today.............Have a nice day.

fastbike1

 If you start by limiting to HDRIs from DAZ PAs, you will eliminate most of the issues that @DrunkMonkeyProductions mentions. Start with one from Dimension Theory. Lots of choices.

Cat_Dancing said:

Thanks Spotted Kitty, I've been trying them all one by one......................You have a nice day.

Drunk Monkey Prods - Thank you for your input, now my brain really hurts. I will definately be investigating your suggestions today.............Have a nice day.

 

AbnerK

As people have said, experiment. Add an HDRI map couldn't be easier though. It's just the same as changing any material map, just click on the Environment Map  and choose one. I always, always test render. Just choose a small setting like 700px by whatever, render to a new window. Tweak the Environment Intensity above the Environment Map. This one is one I made, it's pretty bight so I dialed the Environment Map quite a lot. I'd have thought the default one that comes with Daz would be a good bet, the ruins one, I've attached the root to find it. Yours should be in more or less the same place. I can quickly make an overcast one though. You just want diffuse light rather than direct, judging from your scene, but all these things are very subjective. 

Richard Haseltine

DrunkMonkeyProductions said:

time to throw a massive monkey wrench in this whole discussion.

The image format used for environment lighting doesn't matter all that much.

If you look at the list of compatible images for the "Envrionment" channel, it's pretty big.

What makes HDR and EXR formats better for enviroment lighting is the Luminance channel they possess. IIRC a couple other formats also support luminance channels, but i can't remember which ones off the top of my head.

Beyond that, they're just another compression format.

The kicker is that not all HDR or EXR formats possess a luminance channel, and will act just like any JPG, PNG or TIFF when applied to the environment.

the other problem is when the image isn't a full 360 degree, or at least a 180 degree image, then you get weird results with  blank(black) areas, image stretching, and various and sundry other issues.

As a couple quick examples, i' just grabbed a couple thing i have floating around the HDR library.

The road image is from 3docean's hdr 085 road.

the other i'm not sure about.

While the road hdr image produces the best results, the jpg image, with some tweaking is meh to ok. Both the hdr and JPG are full 360, hence why there's no difference in the image itself, just the illumination.

I didn't do much, just reduced the image intensity from 1 to 0.5 and again to 0.25.

If i spent a bit more time on it, i'd probably be able to get it a bit closer to the hdr results.

This is just some proof of concept stuff

 

Regarding the Uber environment and backdrops, such as cyclorama, delete the headlamp blocker, apply the uber iray material to the backdrop or environment, apply the texture map to the environment channel under the shader's tab, and adjust the settings to get the result you're looking for.

No need to play with envrionment settings, unless you don't like the results in iray with the above. the yo'll probably just want to delete the whole dome or backdrop out anyway.

peace.

 

HDR and EXR have a much higher bit depth than most of the other formats. You can use lower bit-depth images, which is why they are loadable (and tiffs at least can have 16 bits per channel) but they will give a less nuanced result than a (good) high-bit depth HDR or EXR image.

fastbike1

 If you start by limiting to HDRIs from DAZ PAs, you will eliminate most of the issues that @DrunkMonkeyProductions mentions. 

Cat_Dancing said:

Thanks Spotted Kitty, I've been trying them all one by one......................You have a nice day.

Drunk Monkey Prods - Thank you for your input, now my brain really hurts. I will definately be investigating your suggestions today.............Have a nice day.