Lighting Errors

Doc_1189058

Hi guys, it's me again. I swear to god I'm not some bottomless pit of gripes and grievences, but I've simply had a lot of questions since switching from Daz 3 to Daz 4, and V4 to G8. It's like as all the old errors fade away, a brand new set of errors emerge from the ashes. Here's one I've only experienced since switching over to Daz Studio 4. I eliminated any type of surface or shader as the problem, as well as figures being used, etc etc. By process of elimination, I'm pinning this one solely on the lighting I've used for 10 years. Modern DAZ just doesn't seem to like it... sometimes. And it's the "sometimes" I want to zero in on. I need to understand why it happens sometimes, and sometimes not.

Ok, so kindly take a look at the attached picture of err... Quarly Himm. As you can see, she's not happy about her nasty case of Daz-measles, either! This is a typical example of what I am getting in a LOT of my images. I usually photoshop them all out, but oddly enough, since UPGRADING my computer, this is happening more and more.

Firstly, I'm a storyteller, so I'm not a technical buff when it comes to lighting or render engines, I use 3Delight (RSL) and Daz's spotlights and distant lights as-is. The only things I am likely to edit manually on the lighting are the illumination settings, shadows (deep shadow map), intensity, and spread angle. I

I like my setup, and the product it produces, so please don't critique it unless it involves resolving the glitch! I use the same lighting setup for all my images for the sake of style and consistancy;

An intensity-100% spotlight with shadow above the camera, pointing at the camera's focal point.

An intensity-100% spotlight with shadow in the background, coming towards the camera's focal point

Then there are 5 intensity-25% distantlight illumination-only cameras coming from the back, front, left, right and directly from above.

The final camera is a 125% distantlight (no shadows) coming directly from below.

I actually think the latter camera may be the problem, as is is the newest addition to the setup, and was brought in to help reduce wireframes being exposed by my lighting method. Because the first spotlight comes from above the camera, it means the illumination lights can sometimes make the wireframes a little more visable than I'm comfortable with. I'm an old school 3D guy, so I actually like this sort of appearence, but err... sometimes it's too strong even for me. So I brought in the newest light to hit from below, which is where the wireframes were showing most.

If it helps, I did some more experiemts to work out what was triggering these glitches - one thing I noticed is that when the main spotlight is further away (spread angle not changed) then more of these glitches appear in the final render, but the closer the spotlight is, the less likely they are going to happen.

Can anyone get their head around what's going on here? I know it's complicated because I'm literally explaining a lighting system with words, but maybe I've said enough to trigger your own knowledge on the sollution. This issue is driving me absolutely batty. I released an image set yesterday, was kinda sleep deprived, and though I typically fix these errors in bulk, I somehow forgot one of them, and released an image set with these Dazzy measles all over one of the images.

Pretty embarrassing, which is why I came here. I 'ad enough!

Thankful for any help I can get!

- Doc

EDIT: Gosh, I wrote all this wank and I didn't even point out where the glitches are on the picture!! - Most of them in this example are around her hair. Tiny little tartan blips. Hair is most commonly where they appear!

Richard Haseltine

I'm not sure what I am looking at. If you are willing to share the lighting perhaps you could set up a sample scene using the default content so others can experiment.

Doc_1189058

Richard Haseltine said:

I'm not sure what I am looking at. If you are willing to share the lighting perhaps you could set up a sample scene using the default content so others can experiment.

 Hi, Richard. I'm not sure how to share the lighting. - In my image, the errors I'm talking about can be seen on the right (our right) pigtail, there's a few on the right (our right) arm, but the biggest cluster is on her eye. You can see several red glitches in the same spot on her upper eyelid. - These errors appear on my renders like pimples. This is actually a mild example of it happening, but I typically fix them, so I don't have an image with more errors on it.. for now!

Sven Dullah

Please post a better example as, even after your edit, I still don't have a clue what you mean;)

Gordig

I've circled what I believe the OP is asking about:

Doc_1189058

Gordig said:

I've circled what I believe the OP is asking about:

 

Thanks, Gordig. I didn't realize they were hard to spot for other folks!

Sven Dullah

When these glitches appear, have you tried switching to raytraced shadows? (Which, in my opinion, you should use in any event, they look better and render faster)

Doc_1189058

Sven Dullah said:

When these glitches appear, have you tried switching to raytraced shadows? (Which, in my opinion, you should use in any event, they look better and render faster)

Yep, you're right. My previous PC used to struggle with retraced for some reason (I upgraded my machine a few weeks ago.) which is why I never used it, but I definitely like it now that my system is capable of it. Bloody good suggestion - I've ran a few test renders and there've been no problems. (Attatched is a comparison, it's easy to tell them apart!)

I guess retraced makes a more solid shadow, which maybe gives the program less points to get confused about? I don't know, I don't know how it works, nor do I know why these gltiches only began when I started using Daz 4. All I know is that retraced looks better and has no errors. So I'll take it!

Thanks, dude. :)

- Doc

 

 

Sven Dullah

Doc said:

Sven Dullah said:

When these glitches appear, have you tried switching to raytraced shadows? (Which, in my opinion, you should use in any event, they look better and render faster)

Yep, you're right. My previous PC used to struggle with retraced for some reason (I upgraded my machine a few weeks ago.) which is why I never used it, but I definitely like it now that my system is capable of it. Bloody good suggestion - I've ran a few test renders and there've been no problems. (Attatched is a comparison, it's easy to tell them apart!)

I guess retraced makes a more solid shadow, which maybe gives the program less points to get confused about? I don't know, I don't know how it works, nor do I know why these gltiches only began when I started using Daz 4. All I know is that retraced looks better and has no errors. So I'll take it!

Thanks, dude. :)

- Doc

 

 

Glad to help!

I believe mapped shadows not working properly is a result of 3Delight upgrades many years ago, probably around the introduction of DS4...