Digital Art Zone

I use the UberArea lights for MOST of my lighting and I have been for a few months now.

Over the past couple of days, something strange has been happening.  When I rotate a light to point at something… it’s not pointing at it.  The light seems to be coming out parallel to the ground OR perpendicular to the ground—depending on how the surface is pointed.  But when I try to point it at a different angle, it just doesn’t seem to work.

Actually, after trying a couple of angles, it seems to only want to direct light DOWN.

That’s kind of a problem.

Is there an update or a fix for this?

And I’m getting this error in my log file:

3Delight message #44 (Severity 2): P1059: invalid light handle ‘’ passed to RiIlluminate
3Delight message #43 (Severity 0): R2093: object ‘<unnamed>’ (displacement ‘dzdisplace’, surface ‘dzdefaultshadow’) used only 0% of its displacement bound
W

Do you happen to have a light in your scene with a blank name (”“)?  Please note that UberAreaLight is not a true light but a surface shader that makes a surface emit light.  Make sure the surface has the correct shader assignment.  You might try creating start from a new scene to see if you still get the problem.

om

The possibility I was thinking of was a change in co-ordinate systems…but I’m not sure how that would happen in DS.

omnifreaker - 05 December 2012 10:57 PM

Do you happen to have a light in your scene with a blank name (”“)?  Please note that UberAreaLight is not a true light but a surface shader that makes a surface emit light.  Make sure the surface has the correct shader assignment.  You might try creating start from a new scene to see if you still get the problem.

om

I exited and reloaded and same problem.  I even exited and created a totally new scene just for testing.

Could this line in my log be the problem:

C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\plugins\dzgoz.dll failed to load. Cannot load library C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\plugins\dzgoz.dll: The specified procedure could not be found.

I’ve attached 3 example pictures.

In the first, the AreaLight plane has been rotated in the X to 120.5 and in the Y to 77.9.  This should be angled UP at the wall but instead, there’s no light above the plane.

In the second example, the X has been rotated to 176.05 and the Y to 77.9.  This should be almost straight up… but the light appears to be shooting straight down.

In the third example, the X has been re-set to 0.  This should be sending light straight down and… it appears to be, although there’s an odd line and it looks remarkably like the second example.

This isn’t the behavior I’ve come to expect out of the AreaLights (which I love with all my being and use in almost every picture I do.)

Hmm, I believe one of the first releases of DS4.5 had a bug in that the area lights only pointed down. Which version are you using?

I just tested this in DS4.5.1.6 and it works like it should.

That is funny. When I apply an UberAreaLight to a plane the light emits exactly to the opposite direction as in Szarks screenshot. Means, on my system light goes in the same direction as the green translation arrow.

XoechZ - 06 December 2012 08:22 AM

That is funny. When I apply an UberAreaLight to a plane the light emits exactly to the opposite direction as in Szarks screenshot. Means, on my system light goes in the same direction as the green translation arrow.

Yes so it does. Weird. My examples above used the Area Plane preset but still no black line like the Op is getting.

I hope DAZ or OmniFreaker or whoever will fix this issue. I really like the AreaLight but in this state it is a bit too much trial and error when setting it up.

ReDave - 06 December 2012 05:50 AM

Hmm, I believe one of the first releases of DS4.5 had a bug in that the area lights only pointed down. Which version are you using?

This is true—make sure you are using the latest DS4/DS4.5.  I am on mac os 10.7/DS4.5.1.6 and all is working as expected.

om

Well.  Darn.

I’m on Windows 64-bit but I’ve only got 4.5.0.114,

Hopefully, that’s the problem.

Yay!

That was it.  I just re-set my Daz download, redownloaded, and re-installed and the lights are working right again!

Thanks for reporting back thepencilneck. Can you do us a favour and add (Solved) to the title of this thread please.

Thank you thepencilneck