Help ... 3Delight Rendering is Messed Up On My Machine

3141592654

A few weeks ago, my machine started producing weird lighting when I used 3Delight. I have been ignoring it as I have been doing Iray recently, but I need 3Delight again. I am using DS 4.11.

The problem seems to be connected to shaders that have 'ambient occlusion' included. Attached are images of my viewport, suface settings, and the rendered image to show the effects. [ left: normal clothes -- Middle: shader without ambient occlusion -- Right: shader with ambient occlusion ] It ssems almost like a negative image or emission turned on ... but not quite either of those.

I have tried quite a few things, but am stuck. The only thing I remember I might have changed around that time is switching from DS15 BETA to DS20 BETA. Is that a possibility? I re-installed 4.11 already ... but I know some settings stay lurking beneath the surface.

Thanks in advance,

Pi Man

Sven Dullah

Never seen that shader but would assume you need to set occlusion color to an almost pitch black? There are two colors, my guess is you can "grade" tha shadows by using slightly different luminance values, light should be the "outer" color?

Also using a trace distance of 1000 sounds kinda overkill for simple AO, try something like 150 or less, will speed up rendering, because requiring less samples, and possibly look better.

3141592654

Sven Dullah said:

Never seen that shader but would assume you need to set occlusion color to an almost pitch black? There are two colors, my guess is you can "grade" tha shadows by using slightly different luminance values, light should be the "outer" color?

Also using a trace distance of 1000 sounds kinda overkill for simple AO, try something like 150 or less, will speed up rendering, because requiring less samples, and possibly look better.

Thank you for the ideas, but I have tried all those and many more - changing the ambient opacity will change the appearance, but nothing gets close to normal. And it is not just these example shaders, it seems to be any shader in my collection that has ambient occlusion.

If I zero out everything on ambient opacity, the effects are somewhat minimized to the outermost edges, but they are still there.

It is bizarre since they worked until a few weeks ago. 

Sven Dullah

3141592654 said:

Sven Dullah said:

Never seen that shader but would assume you need to set occlusion color to an almost pitch black? There are two colors, my guess is you can "grade" tha shadows by using slightly different luminance values, light should be the "outer" color?

Also using a trace distance of 1000 sounds kinda overkill for simple AO, try something like 150 or less, will speed up rendering, because requiring less samples, and possibly look better.

Thank you for the ideas, but I have tried all those and many more - changing the ambient opacity will change the appearance, but nothing gets close to normal. And it is not just these example shaders, it seems to be any shader in my collection that has ambient occlusion.

If I zero out everything on ambient opacity, the effects are somewhat minimized to the outermost edges, but they are still there.

It is bizarre since they worked until a few weeks ago. 

Hmm, without knowing the shader it's a guesswork but I dare insist that occlusion color should be set to a dark shade, btw it should have nothing to do with ambience or opacity? Think of it as shadow color? Then again maybe this shader's properties are using weird names?

Are you using the default 3DL renderer or some sort of scripted rendering? Did you change any render settings by accident? Did you change the light setup? 

On a related sidenote: I'm seeing more and more reports of weird things going on with DS4.20/3Delight. Check this out to see if it might be related to your issues (shot in the dark).

If the shader you use won't cooperate and you need to get the job done, just use a regular 3DL shader like dz default or OmUber. Add occlusion by using a GI light like UberEnvironment or AoA ambient light, or even IBL-Master uses ambient occlusion. Or set it up yourself in ShadowMixer?

Any additional info would not hurt, of course. Like did you recently update DS or some starter essentials or the likes? 

3141592654

Okay .. I found a work-a-round. When I apply 'tiling' from various shaders, it changes my surface settings (some more than others). Usually it removes the ambient occlusion and it acts like it should again. They also tend to add gloss, etc. but these can at least be dealt with.

This does not find nor solve the original problem ... but at least I can use 3delight again.