DAZ Studio Environment Options node improvement?

Calv

In the environment options node I think by far the most realistic environment mode is sun-sky only. I think it'd be nice if it was called sun-moon-sky only, so that no matter what time of day or night is selected, there's always at the very least dim light in an iray render, rather than just complete darkness when the sun is below the horizon. Also as the name sun-sky only suggests, when using this environment mode there can be no other lights in the scene at all and if there are they just do nothing. I think it'd be nice if there was also a sun-sky environment mode, so that any number of other lights can also be included. Better still sun-moon-sky with the option to include any number of other lights as well. I think this environment mode would be the ultimate for iray rendering in DAZ Studio.

Thanks for your time and DAZ Studio is excellent.

 

Richard Haseltine

If you remove the environment map from Dome and Scene then you will get the Sub Sky controls instead.

Calv

Richard Haseltine said:

If you remove the environment map from Dome and Scene then you will get the Sub Sky controls instead.

Thanks Richard. I tested that in a scene for which I was using sun-sky only lighting. I changed it to dome and scene, removed the environment map and then changed the time from 2pm to 2am. Sure enough it seemed to change from a sunlit day to a moonlit night, which is one of the things I wanted. When I then added a single linear point light though, the moonlight disappeared, suggesting you can have sun-sky (and moon) lighting OR other lights, rather than both, but it's still more functional than I thought.

Richard Haseltine

Sceen lights should affect he Sun/Sky, unless they swamp it (or unless you had a headlamp still on, which would be turned off by adding a point light). Note that a linear point light in Iray is just a point light - Iray doesn't do variable fall offs like that.

Calv

Richard Haseltine said:

Sceen lights should affect he Sun/Sky, unless they swamp it (or unless you had a headlamp still on, which would be turned off by adding a point light). Note that a linear point light in Iray is just a point light - Iray doesn't do variable fall offs like that.

Ah, I get it now thanks. When I changed the time from 2pm to 2am, what I thought was moonlight was actually just the auto headlamp, then when I added a linear point light the auto headlamp went off and I was just left with the linear point light (which I understand has the same effect as a point light with iray). This time I made it 8am so the light was quite dim and when I added a point light (having already turned off the auto headlamp) it was added to the existing light rather than replacing it. So basically I can do all that I wanted, except there's no moonlight at night, but that can be simulated by an alternative, like a distant light for example.