Headlights
oconnordavid16
Posts: 164
in New Users
Sorry to be making another post,
Anyone know if there is anyway to add headlights and taillights to cars?
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With Iray? Select the surface, look for "emission" and change it to white. Then you'll have more options appear for strength, etc.
I see emmisson profiel and displacement strenght but not sure whot to do next or how those work so I can get it to shine light out line the headlights are on
Now that you have turned on the Emission parameters, take out that "em" filter text, it's filtering out all the parameters you just switched on. It doesn't help that you're only using a tiny Surfaces pane, this makes it hard to see what you're doing clearly. I've set up a full screen height Surfaces pane, it's much easier to use.
Before you do that, though, check the list of surfaces on the model — many car models have been set up with a separate surface for either the metal reflector bits behind the glass, or the actual light bulb. The final render will look better if you make that emissive instead of the glass.
The default brightness for emissive lights is very low, you will need to dial up the Luminance parameter. You might need to dial it up a lot. Be prepared to do a lot of test renders, this is not something you usually get right first time.
Note that emissive surfaces will only glow in the Viewport, you won't see the effect of the light until you render.
Oh I see what you mean, can sort of see it now and looks much better, will look better once I sort out a road and figure out how to make it night time and not so bright
It looks like you're using the default Environment light with its default settings (brightish sunlight coming from stage left). Go to the Render Settings>Environment tab and turn down the Environment Intensity value — something between 0.1 and 0.01 simulates something like bright to faint moonlight. Note that this will probably effect the render time.
And don't forget you can turn this light to come from any direction; Dome Rotation goes clockwise from 0 to 360 measured in degrees. One small gotcha; not all environment maps have the "sun" spot in the same place, you'll have to do a test render or three when you try a new one, to see which way round it is.
Edit: nearly forgot, HDRI Haven has a few hundred free environment maps in varying sizes. There are a couple of dozen outright night views, and a lot more with low light levels. Be aware, though, that a good environment map that can also be used as a background dome will be slightly enormous — usually several hundred MB. These go into the Environment Map parameter in Render Settings>Environment.
Brilliant thanks for al lthe help
if you want you can also click on the image for the environment map and select none, this will give you access to the sun and sky options when using dome and scene mode, something I only learned recently.
oh nice thanks
Well the heradlights are looking good
Need get a good backdrop now that will suit this and maybe make the image a little darker. One thing though, why is the window of the car like that and not clear like it is in Daz so the people are not clearly seen liek through a window?
Here is the test render (for some reason I cannot attach it as an image to here says Ni file dada could be found in your post
)
https://i.imgur.com/DpSTpsx.jpg
You have the Camera selected, so we can't see what the car materials settings look like in the Surfaces pane. There are several glass Iray materials among the default resources, which one did you use?
Looking very good so far, but there are still a few oddities. There's a lot of light coming from the direction of the camera; did you remember to turn off the Camera Headlight? Also, the tarmac of the road seems to be reflecting the car headlights like a mirror; the surfaces settings need to be adjusted.
camera headlight
didn't even know that was a thing, it was on auto, guess I will need to add a light somewhere for some moonlight
Okay, a bit of progress. There's no Tag (right at the top of the parameters list) for the glass material, so it isn't one of the glass settings that come in the Default Resources. The one I use most often is "Glass - Thin - Clear", try that one.
Incidentally, I get a lot of use out of the Iray Shaders - Glass shader set; lots of very nice glass type and colour effects.
As for the road, it hasn't been converted to Iray, and the auto-convert is well known to make default 3Delight materials too shiny. Convert it with the Iray Uber Base shader, then experiment with turning Glossy Layered Weight down a bit and Glossy Roughness up to at least 0.5.
I can't tell if the road surface has a Bump map applied, you scrolled too far down in your second screenshot. It looks like a skating rink in the previous render, so I'd guess there isn't one. Try using the road texture map converted to greyscale.
I see, have done this and seem to be looking much better now,
here is one with the camera light on https://i.imgur.com/ZQRWZAK.jpg and one without it on https://i.imgur.com/bVZXgiP.jpg
Those two renders are a bit too extreme on either side. Remember you can turn down the Headlight, it doesn't have to be searchlight-bright or totally dark. A low but non-zero setting should fill in the car light's shadows nicely.
oh nice, will try that so tomorrow and try find a good backdrop too thanks
here is another test, might try agin reducing the headlight lamp a little bit more as its a bit bright still https://i.imgur.com/Mu7EUTw.jpg
Getting better every time! Yes, turn the Camera Headlight down a bit more, then you can go hunting for a backdrop you like the look of.
Will do, Thanks so much for all the help
will post the finished version here once its done 
finally found a suitable free stock image for the backdrop
problem is it doesn't seem to fit, how do I sort this?
What do you mean, "doesn't fit"? Is it a different shape than the 16:9 ratio of your render setup? Too big or too small? Or are you not sure how to put the image into your scene as a backdrop? (Environment pane, select Type: Backdrop, click the little arrow box on the Background parameter, and browse to the file location.)
Some premade headlights... https://www.daz3d.com/horror-and-action-lights-for-figures-and-vehicles
Thanks, I have that product added to my wishlist but for the moment im not planning on buying stuff for DAZ
(Environment pane, select Type: Backdrop, click the little arrow box on the Background parameter, and browse to the file location.) Thats wat I've done but it shows up half in the screen as shown in the screenshot, maybe its not the right ratio so
I guess I could just add it to the image after rendering by bringing into gimp
If you're doing it in postwork, remember you must save the render in either .tif or .png format — those are the only two image formats that use an alpha channel.
added the background in psot and here is the result
----> https://i.imgur.com/jZf5q82.jpg ;
Looking good!
There does not appear to be any emission option with this car?
You need to change the surface to Iray to get emission options. In 3Delight I think it is the Ambient option you turn up.
Oh, might be a silly question but how do I change the surface to Iray
Use the Iray Uber Base Shader that comes with Daz Studio.
Ah I see, great Thanks