Adding lights to Sun-Sky only
Doc Acme
Posts: 1,153
in The Commons
Is there a way to add light such as a selective fill or a prop (a flashlight say) when using the Sun-Sky Only Mode & get them to work?
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Mesh lights will work. (They're "just" objects with emission to Daz Studio.) Ghost Lights, (store bought or homemade,) work great for fill lights.
If you need the specularity, a ghost light made visible will do that, too. Just keep them out of the camera frame, of course. If they'll be reflected, you can use a mask in the Cutout Opacity to give the light a shape other than rectangular.
Great. That'll do nicely.
Thanx L'Adair.
Try setting the Environment Mode to Dome and Scene, and then removing any Environment Map. This should enable you to use Sun/Sky with other lights (other than mesh lights which always can be used).
HTH.
- Greg
Basically, it's the render preset from UntraScenery. It's Sun-Sky only so no enviro map that I see listed anyway. I'll give your suggestion a test though I'm not sure how that would work as those modes are either/or aren't they?.
Anyway, I got a simple mesh light to work. Had to remember to leave a .0001 opacity to it so it still emmited.
Sorry I wasn't clear - you leave the Environment Mode as Dome and Scene. When no Environment Map is set, it defaults to Sun/Sky even though the mode is still set to Dome and Scene. It's a bit of an odd mechanic.
- Greg
I never knew that. Thanks, Greg!
Yeah, I leave the environment mode set as "Dome and Scene" and then just remove the environment map. From there you can use whatever Sun-Sky settings you want...even hook up a sun direction node/dial.
P.S. Am I the only one who thinks mesh lights are the devil, haha. I much prefer spotlights with geometry.
Odd. In my exterior scene, I thought that's what I essentially was doing but it wasn't working. Maybe there's an intensity factor mis-match or such.
In a new scene & hitting the Iray Defaults, yup, it's working & that's what I was expecting from earlier experience. Strange & curious creatures this software stuff. Finickier than cats at times.
For fill lights, meshes are fine if not overly controllable but worked fine for what I needed. I'm rendering a bit more in Daz these days depending on the scene, but most of what I do is take Daz assets into Lightwave, mostly for lighting reasons. I try to use ies profiles where applicable & volumetrics has a very negligible render hit these days.
Greg, you have no idea how you just saved my life... well, what feels like a lifetime of work, really! I'm forever greatful to you for this Pro Tip!
If you do this, there's something you have to remember: each time you load your scene anew, DS will automatically place the default HDRI ("ruins"). You have to go to Render Setting every time and remove the HDRI, and it will switch back to Sun/Sky (with all the adjustments you had previously made.)
All this is strange and broken, and it has been like this forever. Why can't there just be a "scene and sun/sky" option that works properly?