Why does the headlamp not light things?
msep_aec684d3fd
Posts: 32
I know many people using Daz Studio do not like using the headlamp. I use it. Given DS's terrible lighting processing, I don't want to spend long spans of time fussing with lights only to find the lights do not behave like real life lights and don't illuminate what and where they are supposed to. So I use the headlamp.
However, the head lamp does ot light things like a normal light. It's supposed to be like the default light on a video camera or flash on a DSLR--a generic light. When I use a video with a light or a DSLR with a flash, the light illuminates what I am pointing the light or flash at. Not the headlamp. The closer you get to the object, the darker the light gets. I have turned the intensity way up. The objects remain dark.
It's a good thing this is a free program, because I would not pay to use it.
I have included an example. I have not rendered it to completion (hence the noise, etc.) because there is no point in doing so. The room is dark despite the headlamp's being on, being focused directly at what the camera is pointing at, and despite its intensity being set to 20. Garbage.
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Comments
This is your render, with the same light source enhanced via Photoshop and using Oil filter for noise grain.
Daz...does not have a "make art" button.
my example of use of headlamp, and some attachments for the terrible DS light processing you argue...all iRay rendering with a low level GTX1060-6Gb
I appreciate your response and will ignore the sarcasm.
It is not expecting a "make art" button to assume that a light adds light to a scene. I could take a dark photograph taken at night and lighten it until you can see objects. I expect things called "lights" in a program to light things--to function like lights in the real world, to not darken when the light is closer to objects.
The problem is intermittent. It doesn't always do it. Sometimes, the lighting with the headlamp will be fine, which is why I continue to use it. However, the headlamp will then not light things for no reason. In fact, the headlamp was working as one would expect on the exact same scene until midway through the process it stopped behaving normally and I started getting dark renders. I didn't add anything unusual--the scene is just composed of objects in the scene and the camera with a headlamp. Nothing to obstruct the view, no emissives to throw off the lighting (emissives will throw off the headlamp).
Case in point for my earlier statement. Below is a dark photograph (example from the Internet). Next to it is a version lightened in Photoshop. You can see stuff now! I don't want to have to put in the extra step of having to lighten images once created. I am not doing this to "create art." I use the images as part of other projects that don't require "art."
If you are using a camea, rather than Perspective View, it has a group of propertiesrelated to the Headlamp, including how the headlamp is offset from the camera - by default it is 30cm to the left and 20 cm up, which is why the light falls off when you get close to things.
headlamps are dumb, but they should work in a very noticeable way if you have cranked up the intensity.
make sure you are rendering from your camera view, i.e., not like perspective view or something. make sure headlamp is 'on' under parameters and not on 'auto'.
There's a setting in the Render Settings that turns off the headlamp when other lights are in the scene. It appears that the 2 options for the headlamp are: Never and When No Scene Lights. So the headlamp can be set to 1) always off, or 2) on except when there are other lights in the scene. Perhaps this is what's going on with those scenes? Maybe there's a workaround or other setting that will keep the headlamp on regardless of other scene lights? I don't use the headlamp so my knowledge is limited. I hope you find an acceptable answer or solution to the problem, msep_sec684d3fd! :) You may have also discovered a bug in the software which would be helpful to report if true.
Lee
think the two settings in render properties only come into effect if headlamp settings in properties are set to 'auto' anyway. if you set headlamp to 'on' then it should still show up regardless of render settings.
There you go, I stand corrected. :) I remember being a little confused about the headlamp when I first started using DAZ Studio earlier this year. Now I use other lighting techniques for the style of renders I do.
Thank you for the correction and additional info, lilweep!! Truly much appreciated. :)
Lee
I prefer to use mesh lights.
I have always honestly found D|S openGL behaviour with lights weird
most programs you add a light, it gets lighter casting a light from that point whereas in D|S it has a headlamp until you add a light and adding that light makes it black!
Carrara and Poser never did this weird stuff
you can set it to on or auto on the camera and never in the render settings to see while you are working but I admit that doesn't give a very good guide to how it will render.
Generally I dont like the headlamp. Occasionally it has given me the look I wanted; when that happened I used it.
The idea is get an image you are happy with, not do what others think you should or shouldn't do.
Cheat. If it works, and lets face it, it is all cheating because the 3D world is fake.
I generally don't want to use the headlamp myself but it would be nice to actually be able to see your scene in openGL without it, the fact the other lighting has no effect is annoying,
it is supposed to support 8 lights on my card albeit without shadows but adding any light immediately makes the scene a silhouette hence needing the headlamp then remembering to turn it off for render.
Meshlights are not so much an issue, it is having a light in the scene.
as to the OP wanting a video camera effect, I do that a lot in animation by parenting a spotlight to my camera set slightly top left or right of it depending on the brand of camera (or cellphone)
it gives a much better representation of a video camera light than the headlamp
You also have more control that way.
Are you sure the added lights would be illuminating the area you are looking at? Anyway, you don't need to use the headlamp - just turn off Window>Preview Lights
Just my two cents, could it be that the OP is doing something unintentionally that makes the lighting behave this way? Because when I started out and didn't know how to use light sets, I always rendered with the headlamp (didn't even know you could turn that off, either) and it never ever gave me such a dark scene. Flat and greyish yes, but more often too light, certainly not too dark. I'm feeling there's something else going on with that render. Actually, to me it looks like one of those renders within a completely enclosed room that one is trying to light from the outside, with a weak HDRI for example. But there's no light coming through the window that I can see. So it must be something else, also because OP said that sometimes the headlamp works just fine for him and then midway stops working. That doesn't sound like typical headlamp behavior to me at all.
Maybe try with another light set, just to see what happens?
Render Settings>Spectral Rendering>Spectral conversion Intent: Is it set to "natural"? Then there is no Headlamp available.
Same with Render Settings>Environment>Environment Mode: If it is set to "Dome Only", there is no Headlight.
most my issues happen with preset scenes with products so I suspect it is something the creator has done to override my usual settings, possibly some of the ones Masterstroke just mestioned as well as others.
If I add a light to a scene without having preload I can usually get it to show lit through the camera so also possibly the preview lights Richard mentioned gets disabled by the PA presets.
Some PA preloads do truly awful things like change your background and hide the grid and carry over to new scenes
I can fix most but some really take some drilling down through parameters and settings to fix.
I accidentally created a horrible one myself that locks the start and end frame of animation from frame 100 to 200 that is impossible to undo without resaving everything as a scene subset.
Attacking it's duf with notepad++ won't even fix it, I call it my render preset from hell but kept it as I want to solve it.
Ctrl L will work for seeing stuff if you have it turned off; I use it a lot.
The described problem is a bug. Save the position of the camera and click on the little plus icon in the preview window which move the camera in the direction of an selected object. This works like a reset for the headlamp and the behaviour will be normal. Than use the preset to return to the original position.
There are also other methods of "resetting the camera incl.headlamp, but this works.fine.
The headlamp was never intended to be used in renders.
I do a lot of dark scenes. I only use the headlamp to navigate in my scenes. I turn it off when I do the final render.
Scenes lit with the headlamp look too flat IMHO.
The headlamp on the camera, like the other lights, are a futile attempt at creating "basic lighting". The values are NOT matched, between GL and IRAY, in any sense of the word. I also suspect that the "failures", are due to this "hack"... (Attempting to use incompatible items as sources.)
The default lights don't have the same settings as "emissive lighting", which is kind-of critical to IRAY, as emissive lighting is the only lighting that IRAY actually uses, internally. Default lights don't seem to have a "visible source", while true emissive lighting DOES always have a visible source. (Thus, the point where the "hack" comes into play... Turning a real light into a fake light. In addition to the light sources not having the same settings available and the lights not being "matched" to resemble what the GL versions display. Thus the horribly mismatched results from preview in GL vs an actual render in IRAY.)
I would suggest cranking-up the intensity, quite a bit. There IS lighting, it just isn't going to reflect what you see in GL preview. However, when you crank it up for rendering, in the preview mode, it will be smothered in light. (Honestly best not to use it at all. Attach another default lamp to the camera, or setup a real emissive surface as a light, attached to the camera. When you move the camera, the light should move with it, if it is grouped together. If not, you can put the camera and light in a group, for more standard control. Much easier to adjust the light that way too.)
Remember, IRAY uses "photon lighting", which an emissive light from a singular point source, or from a "surface source". IRAY doesn't truly have a "directional linear light source" or "ambient light" or "spotlight". Those are fake sources that have to be simulated, just as they are simulated in GL, but in a different way. Why does it not have those sources... Because they are fake tricks that old rendering programs have to use. Reality based rendering engines don't use fake lights, they use real light sources, found in reality. Thus, being "physically based rendering". No light, in reality, is linear, except a laser, sort-of. The only "ambience" light, comes from actual atmosphere refraction and surface reflections, in reality. Spot-lights are just a cheap "image-map" or "formula creating an image-map" of a linear light, to simulate "feathered edges decay". Iray uses photon angles and diffusion as the "edges decay". That is why those three light sources don't exist in IRAY, natively. The camera light is virtually just a "point light", by default, I believe.
I asked them to adjust the lighting, many times, so they are matching between GL and IRAY. I asked them to also include the missing settings, respective to IRAY related rendering. But they never did fix them. Once it was set in stone, fixing them would essentially break any saved scenes. (But that could have been resolved easily by just making new versions that had the new settings and treating any old saves as the old lights, or as the new lights with the old default values. While new scenes would only use the updated lights, with the updated, balanced, values.)
This is why it is best to use iray preview, where possible, when setting-up lighting, before a final render... and NEVER use the default light sources that are provided. Choosing, instead, to use real IRAY lighting sources. (Spheres for standard bulbs, cylinders for tube-lighting, the sun settings for the sun, sheet-lighting or lighting umbrellas for studio lights, actual "cans" built for can lighting.) Reality is being simulated... Try using it, instead of fantasy hacks for simulated, simulated lighting.
What are you trying to say here?
Ny default the lights are point sources, so they are very unlikely to be visible. Giving them a non-point shpae will make them visisble. They do have a visible emitter option. I have no idea what you mean by fakem, or why you would expect a non-ray traced OpenGL render to bear any real resemblance to Iray
Intensity should not be used with phtometric lights.
What are you trying to say? Linear in what sense - no one is claiming Iray has the equivalent of 3Delight's variable (or absent) fall off. As far as I am aware the primitive lights in DS are encapsulations of lights built into Iray.
Again, how could two radically different engines match?
I cana ctually agree with the first, OpenGl is not suitable for previewing lighting. The rest, to me, makes no sense.