Light questions

Kev914

If I add a light to my scene, the preview window gets quite dark. And it seems to stay rather dark no matter how many lights I add. But if you render the scene, it will be light...maybe even too bright? Why is this? And if you notice something you need to correct when you start to render, how do you get the lights back on so you can see to make your corrections? Only way I found was to delete all the lights I added.

I used a free light set from Valzheimer, I think that's her name...she's the one who created the Wear Them All product. When I add her light set up, my preview window does not go dark like it does when I add my own lights. I saw when I added her light set up to my scene, that I had an object called Headlamp blocker. If I click on the eye beside this object, the scene does do dark. So is this headlamp blocker a feature in Daz Studio or is it something that Valzheimer created.

Thanks.

mjc1016

What lights are you adding?

Which render are you using?

Kev914

When I added my own lights, I tried 2 point lights.

When I used the Valzheimer icons, 2 point lights were also added. I was using the iray renderer. (I deleted my own lights when I added the set.

I tried using the 3D (can't remember what it was called), but the image was black. Or maybe it just starts out black and eventally becomes something and I just didn't wait long enough.

Richard Haseltine

With no actual lights in the scene you get the headlamp shining from just beside the camera, so everything is fairly evenly lit. Adding a real light, by default, switches the headlamp off andf gives only the preview of the real light. For posing you can turn that off, Preview Lights in the Window menu or cmd(Mac)/ctrl(Win)-L. Point lights have realistic inverse square law so they dim quite quickly, especially if the Render Settings gamma is set to 1.

Kev914

Thanks, Richard.

So if I am understanding correctly, I can turn off the preview lights from the windows menu?

Thanks.

Szark

just use Ctrl + L for Windows or for Mac cmd + L to toggle the headlamp (preview light) on and off and yes if you want the long way for the Window menu. :)

Tobor

This topic tends to get confused. Let's remember that the camera headlamp and the Preview Lights feature -- while somewhat connected -- are not the same thing. Preview Lights does as its name implies: it lets you preview the real lights in the scene, headlamp included. There are valid reasons to keep Preview Lights on, for example, to help in balancing several spotlights.

As Richard points out, the default behavior of the camera headlamp is that it will be automatically turned off if there is at least one real light (distant, spot, point) in the scene. Turning Preview Lights on or off has no effect on a rendered scene, and it does not control operatoin of the headlamp for rendering.

 

Kev914

Thanks. I just wanted to know how to turn the lights back on in the preview window if I need to make adjusts that I notice when I start to render. As soon as I add one light of any kind, the scene in preview goes dark. It is almost like you are sitting in a dark room with a flash light. But if you render the scene, it is a LOT lighter than it looks in preview. But it makes it hard to see what you are doing in preview. If you delete all the lights, I think the scene gets bright again. But I guess that's what the preview lights does...turns the headlamp back on.

Richard Haseltine

Preview lights on = attempt to show the way the lights will look in the render, usually limited to the first seven lights (you can change the priority of lights so you get to control which seven that is). If you want a more accurate preview of the lighting use the AuxViewport with IPR (for 3Delight) or nVidiea Iray drawstyle (for Iray - if your hardware is up to it you can use the Iray mode in the main viewport).

Preview lights off  = use the headlamp