Good lord I am so lost with iray please help me O-O
Pleblu
Posts: 32
Has there been any startup video/text guide made yet? I really need one...
I've been using Reality so I'm trying to put things into context using that, but I am guessing I'm so wrong.
I have no idea how to change shaders on an object (like skin).
No idea why my photometric point light isn't working.
How to change an object into a light emitter.
No idea what the new nodes do or how to work them.
Is there an uber environment that came with it? I remember seeing something like that in the ton of forum posts I've been reading.
I feel like I'm utterly blind and missing out on a menu. I may very well just be utterly daft.
On the up side, I like the way you can change the sun by changing the time, plus the engine looks really good. I just need a bit of education with it....
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Here's an article on the Uber Iray shaders and what parts of them do. They are in your Shader Presets/Uber Iray Defaults (Uber Default Iray? One of those two) folder. Clicking on the base preset when you have an object and its surfaces selected converts those to Iray shaders without changing their texture maps.
http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/journal/Iray-Surfaces-And-What-They-Mean-519346747
Genesis 2 Male and Female have Iray materials in their separate Materials/Iray folders.
Your photometric point light probably is set too low. Remember that a number in lumens has to be very high to light a scene - 1000 is actually very low. Add zeroes. This is what to change, not the intensity slider.
The environment settings are under the Render settings. The Environment map is where you put your hdr or tiff file.
I've been waiting for my voice to come back, but I think I need to just go ahead and do that Getting Started With Iray video.
I'm actually not seeing any iray mats in the folders. I did a search for iray and came up with nothing. My studio folders have been completely screwed for the past few days. It's a mess I've been trying to fix.
Your completely right about the lights.
I would be very grateful for a video, but don't hurt your voice over it :(
Thank you very much for answering my questions.
Did you install the Iray specific content?
The shaders are in that package.
If you downloaded 4.8 from DIM, chances are you'll find the IRAY Beta Content there as well if you put IRAY into the search field in DIM. The shaders are in Shader Presets>Iray Uber Defaults. In People, look under the Materials for G2M and G2F for their Iray setup. Under Props, you will find the DAZ Material Ball.
Use Photometric Spotlight and Point lights for Iray.
Check the various threads that are quickly being populated for tips on using Iray.
Try this thread.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/53797/
Design Anvil put a free set of Iray presets and shaders
mac
I did use DIM to download everything. I went in and did the search for iray and there was a public content file I didn't download.
I went in to check to see if that was the issue, and try out the presets Design Anvil put out and CMS won't start and I have no access to my content. With me, when it rains it pours.
I'd like to come back with a report of what happened but I'm going to have to re-install everything for the 6th time and I'm just too tired to do it again right now lol.
CMS just controls Smart Content, you can always access your content from the Content Library pane.
Note as a minor addendum to Sickle Yield's comment about light strength. A 100 watt bulb is between 1500 and 1700 lumens (depending on the bulb). Which is or is not much light depending on how big the room is, etc. As far as photography is concerned, it isn't much light at all. Continuously on lights for video production are, generally, in the 9000 to 15000 lumen range. Photo Strobes, though really short periods of time, are in the several hundred thousand to 3.5 million lumens range.
In the tone mapper (render settings) the default setting for the film speed is 100 ISO, which is great for outdoor daylight photography (The sun is very, very bright. LOL) for studio and interior work, most photographers use film speed with an ISO of 400 or 800, and for low light conditions or without specific studio lighting some times as fast as ISO 1600.
My father is a photographer, and for shooting in a church or a museum, where they usually frown on flashes, my father would shoot with typical studio settings or indoor settings but swap in ISO 1600 film and no flash.
So remember it is not just the light but the (virtual) equipment that should be taken into account. :)
Going to the local library or book store and finding a couple of good books on setting up photographic lighting and scenes is likely to really help your renders in a physically based render engine (like Iray). :)
Note I am not saying you can't just push a button and get good results, do a little trial and error tinkering and get better results :) but like I usually recommend [digital] Lighting and Rendering for biased render engines (Especially since the author is the Pixar Lighting Expert). Doing a little research can definitely help. :)