what to do to alleviate shadow shmootz? (tweaking light / shadows to look better)

Mistara

what would be the first few light adjusts to try to make less shmootzie shadows?

this was the enchanted glade and enchanted glade sunset lightset. (a duf file from a poser folder)

David and Jazzy don't look so good.

normally i would cycle thru a dozen light sets,

but this time was wondering if i could adjust something in the light properties or render properties ?

ds4.6

thanks :)

if this were poser, would suspect an ibl image the culprit.

Mistara

Deep Shadow Map?

do i want shadow maps?

Richard Haseltine

Generally no, ray-tracing is cleaner (especially with large scenes) and isn't liable to throw in odd coloured squares. It is often slower, however, though not by as much as used to be the case.

Khory

shmootzie

You might get better solutions to your problem with a more commonly used/understandable descriptor. The only thing I could find searching the word shmootzie is a fan fiction authors name.

Steven-V

I think the OP means that the shadows are grainy.

Usually, this means you have to turn up the sample rate for the light source, if it is one of the area type lights. Or if it is a DAZ light it might be shadow softness or shadow intensity.

Mistara

thanks.

should i do anything with gain? iz set to 1.0

Steven-V

I'm sorry but I don't know what the Enchanted Glade lightset is made from -- until I know that, I can't help you with the most likely course of action to remedy the grainy shadows. I don't usually touch the gain, so I can't answer that either.

If you can tell me what kind of lights you are using, I can suggest some setting changes. But since things like Uber Area lights have totally different parameters from the DAZ distant lights, for example, I can't make any good suggestions without knowing what you're working with.

Mistara

in this scene i was using the lightset that came with enchanted glade.

but it's not the first time i've had grainy shadows.

i was wondering what the first troubleshooting tricks would be?

would be nice how to fix on the fly so to speak

selias19

Misty Whisky said:

in this scene i was using the lightset that came with enchanted glade.

but it's not the first time i've had grainy shadows.

i was wondering what the first troubleshooting tricks would be?

would be nice how to fix on the fly so to speak

I guess the set includes Uberenvironment2-light mabe with default or low settings. i was shocked the first time I used Uberenvironment at default settings because of the grainy shadow it would produce.

Have a look at the settings in the editor and set the shadow samples to 128 or something like that.
And your over all shading rate in your render settings should be 0.2 or 0.1.

I hope that helps
Sigrid

Steven-V

Misty, I don't have enchanted glad. So what I am trying to explain, but apparently failing, is that I need more from you than that it is the lightset that came with enchanted glade.

Here's what I'd like you to do. Open up DAZ with your scene. Open the scene tab and find the lights. Click on the first light in the scene tab. Take a screenshot of that light. Then on the parameter tab, take a screenshot of the parameters. Then upload those. Maybe, by the name of the light and the way the parameters are set up, we can figure out which kind of light you are using.

The problem is that there are MANY kinds of lights and without knowing what you are using, we can't give you help on how to get rid of the "schmootz.".

Mistara

battle of the shmootz :lol:

well, this what gain does ... (i'm in 4.6)

gain at 0
1.0 is the default
gain at 10

Mistara

this was a test with shadow sample

=1
=64

Mistara

ubersoft light gave an error message, interface versions

testing pixel filter
=1
=32

testing pixel sample
=1
=64

Mistara

shading rate @ .01
@ 256

default = 1

Steven-V

OK this wasn't really what I was asking for. I just wanted a screen shot of your parameters window.

I wish someone who has enchanted glade could come on here and answer more definitively. I just don't know what lighting object that product uses and I can't help you without knowing that. They're all a little different.

WendyLuvsCatz

Misty Whisky said:

in this scene i was using the lightset that came with enchanted glade.

but it's not the first time i've had grainy shadows.

i was wondering what the first troubleshooting tricks would be?

would be nice how to fix on the fly so to speak

well that I believe you can do in Luxrender if you use one of the plugins for it

Khory

I believe you can do in Luxrender if you use one of the plugins for it

Or studio if your using the Aux viewport set for IPR.

WendyLuvsCatz

I had a look at it
is showing some oddness in that iClone 3Dchange 5 says out of memory loading it and both DAZ and carrara is very slow navigating it though it renders OK, Octane render in DAZ studio and Carrara handled it OK too.
I was not gonna try a 3Delight render sorry, avoid those like the plague :lol:
it is a cyclorama so maybe your light is obscured somehow, sky set to not shadows anyway but the unbiased stuff that does not work dunno about Uberenvironment if you are using that instead of included lighting

Herald of Fire

Most of the 'grain' in 3Delight is caused by a low number of lighting samples. For example, UberEnvironment by default uses a rather low number of samples. With a higher degree of samples, the blotches become increasingly smaller until they're unnoticed. The Advanced Ambient LIght also works on samples, and can be increased if you're getting a grainy lighting.

Kerya

I have the Enchanted Glade - I just never used the premade scenes.

Now I loaded them one by one - they are using differently coloured spotlights, usually one of them set to raytraced shadows with a bit of softness (2% up to 5%)
One scene uses additionally a point light for the lamp.

Mistara

HeraldOfFire said:

Most of the 'grain' in 3Delight is caused by a low number of lighting samples. For example, UberEnvironment by default uses a rather low number of samples. With a higher degree of samples, the blotches become increasingly smaller until they're unnoticed. The Advanced Ambient LIght also works on samples, and can be increased if you're getting a grainy lighting.

where do i find those sample settings exactly?

Thanks!!!

Mistara

selias19 said:

Misty Whisky said:

in this scene i was using the lightset that came with enchanted glade.

but it's not the first time i've had grainy shadows.

i was wondering what the first troubleshooting tricks would be?

would be nice how to fix on the fly so to speak

I guess the set includes Uberenvironment2-light mabe with default or low settings. i was shocked the first time I used Uberenvironment at default settings because of the grainy shadow it would produce.

Have a look at the settings in the editor and set the shadow samples to 128 or something like that.
And your over all shading rate in your render settings should be 0.2 or 0.1.

I hope that helps
Sigrid

thanks.

is there a special editor for Uberenvironment?

Mistara

Kerya said:

I have the Enchanted Glade - I just never used the premade scenes.

Now I loaded them one by one - they are using differently coloured spotlights, usually one of them set to raytraced shadows with a bit of softness (2% up to 5%)
One scene uses additionally a point light for the lamp.

if i move the characters close to the center, their shadowing look better.

there must be some kind of fall-off setting somewhere?

i dunno.

i can't give up until Feb is over, :lol: gave a 1 month commitment to making better art in DS

Mistara

Khory said:

I believe you can do in Luxrender if you use one of the plugins for it

Or studio if your using the Aux viewport set for IPR.

IPR?

thanks. i'm still pretty much a DS newb.

Kerya

As those are spotlights (you can look through them like through a camera and see where they are pointing) - you could move your figures where the spotlights point.

You could try with high render settings - Adamr's Render Profiles are good:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/16085/

You could delete the lights and add UberEnvironment lights (don't ask me about those) or Ageofarmour's Advanced Ambient lights (which usually load fine and I just have to adjust the falloff and the intensity) and a Distant light set to raytraced shadows - that should give you good lighting.

Mistara

wendy♥catz said:

I had a look at it
is showing some oddness in that iClone 3Dchange 5 says out of memory loading it and both DAZ and carrara is very slow navigating it though it renders OK, Octane render in DAZ studio and Carrara handled it OK too.
I was not gonna try a 3Delight render sorry, avoid those like the plague :lol:
it is a cyclorama so maybe your light is obscured somehow, sky set to not shadows anyway but the unbiased stuff that does not work dunno about Uberenvironment if you are using that instead of included lighting

i do have the Luxus, needs more patience :lol:

Mistara

steven.viscido said:

Misty, I don't have enchanted glad. So what I am trying to explain, but apparently failing, is that I need more from you than that it is the lightset that came with enchanted glade.

Here's what I'd like you to do. Open up DAZ with your scene. Open the scene tab and find the lights. Click on the first light in the scene tab. Take a screenshot of that light. Then on the parameter tab, take a screenshot of the parameters. Then upload those. Maybe, by the name of the light and the way the parameters are set up, we can figure out which kind of light you are using.

The problem is that there are MANY kinds of lights and without knowing what you are using, we can't give you help on how to get rid of the "schmootz.".

i don't see a parameter/property for light type. doesn't look like it's changeable.

but i do see different icons for the light.

maybe, i should make a table list of all the available DS light types,
then we could add tweak suggestions next to 'em for common render problems?

Kerya

Two screenshots of those lights

Khory

Khory - 05 February 2015 10:33 PM

I believe you can do in Luxrender if you use one of the plugins for it

Or studio if your using the Aux viewport set for IPR.

IPR?

thanks. i’m still pretty much a DS newb.

Go to window/panes and select Aux viewport. When that opens you can hit the three little lines attached to it and it will give you options for that viewport. Select Start IPR render and be sure the view point is looking through the same camera as your main view port. It will auto update as you make changes. Keep in mind though that the auto updating may slow things down so use it judiciously.