Frustrating lights and cameras!

scienceofspock

Hi everyone, I started messing with lights and cameras recently, and I have to say, the viewport display is HORRIBLE. If I add a camera and turn off headlamp, when I view through that camera, the entire scene is black, which is expected because there are no actual lights in the scene, but even if I add lights, the scene is still black, unless the light is within a few inches of something, and then I can see a BIT of light on the model in that tiny little area, while rendering the scene shows the light propagating throughout the scene as expected. It makes editing the scene through a camera VERY tedious, especially if you have a ton of props or an environment loaded, as to see ANYTHING I have to turn the headlamp on to light the damn viewport, and then remember to turn it off when I finally render. 

Here is a comparison of what I am talking about: Scene includes 1 G8F fig, 1 camera and 1 point light, about 5 feet from the figure. In the viewport, there is ZERO light on the figure, but in the rendered image, there is plenty of light. Why doesn't the viewport reflect this?

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Next is the same scene, but the light is now directly above the figure's head. The render is ALMOST identical, with the exception of a highlight on the figure's head, but the viewport scene still shows MINIMAL light. It's like the light in the viewport isn't spreading like the light in the render.

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Why does it behave like this, and how do you guys get around this flaw? Is there any way to make scene lights ACTUALLY work in the viewport, or perhaps have a global illumination setting (That DOESN'T affect the render), or even a way to keep the headlamp ON in the viewport, and OFF for the render so I'm not trying to edit a completely black scene?

margrave

lol, viewport OpenGL lighting.

First thing I do when starting a scene is hit Ctrl+L to turn it off.

Richard Haseltine

That's Window>Preview Lights.

I think the big issue is that you have the defautl GDRI or Sun/Sky illuminating the scene, which overwhelms any local lights you may add. Use the iray drawstyle if you want a preview of the lighting, anything else is going to be approximate at best.

scienceofspock

Thanks for the tips. I'm not trying to get a preview of the lighting in the viewport, I just want to be able to actually SEE what I'm working on. Ctrl-L did the trick!