Digital Art Zone

Hi first say thank you much great light sets ^^

then,, it may be so silly quesiton, but if your rig lights can not use “point at”?

because when I set “point at” your key light rig, it turned opositte side I think,,,,

so if I set something mistake?  and   how adjust ment of light direction of each?
I can see line of light, but there seems not visible how spread the key light (maybe spot light?)

tweak each pose parameter of light, it seems a little difficult to see what direction the light turned,

how to set direction is better way?
(I first turn off every lights and turn on one light, then adjust rotation manually?
is good way?)

kitakoredaz - 20 September 2012 01:31 AM

because when I set “point at” your key light rig, it turned opositte side I think,,,,

That is something, that bugs me for ages, “point at” does not follow the direction of the normals but against the normal. I am not sure that DAZ devs will change that some day.

kitakoredaz - 20 September 2012 01:31 AM

so if I set something mistake?  and   how adjust ment of light direction of each?
I can see line of light, but there seems not visible how spread the key light (maybe spot light?)

tweak each pose parameter of light, it seems a little difficult to see what direction the light turned,

With a light rig, you can move the perspective camera right behind the light you want to adjust. This way you can aim it quite good. As for the covered area for the different lights, you have to test it with each light.

kitakoredaz - 20 September 2012 01:31 AM

how to set direction is better way?
(I first turn off every lights and turn on one light, then adjust rotation manually?
is good way?)

When you use the indivudual lights, IG explained how to do it:

I knew I forgot to talk about something. There is a different (and slightly simpler) way to be able to move, position and ‘look through’ your individual mesh lights. Each of the individual lights was designed to load up in the exact same position as the DS spot light defaults to. All you need to do is load up a plain old DS spotlight (make sure to turn the intensity down to zero). Load up the individual mesh light and parent the mesh to the spotlight. Now you can switch your view point to the spot light and use the camera controls to move both the spotlight and the mesh light about with the mesh keeping the same facing as the spotlight. You can also set the spot light to ‘point at’ the Area Light Pointer amd move the pointer around to exactly where you want your light to be centered on.

thanks much Akhbour,,,

I need more time to be used to rig light set,,

I can translate rotation each right what I want,, but there is not visible gide,
one line only, then I seems not see Spread Angle which I can adjust about daz default spot light,,
and I can not grab crealy when I adjust intensy of each light,,

so I embarassed little bit,,

it seems mild how I supposed to,,so if I mistake the direction of light,, I think,,

then your advices of parented default right sets,, seems so smart way:lol:
I must try it,,just point at figure faces, first I want,,^^;

I want to ask one more last question,, soryy guys,,
I studiied about 3Dlight quality setting before,,some kee nobs, in forum topics,,

then,, if I use mesh light, and adjust quality of light set, (pixel sumpler,,it seems so easy,,)

after that,,I need 3Dlight setting adjustment too?  ^^;

The problem you, and we all face with the area lights is that it is not a “real” light but a surface that emits light, so that we don’t have any visual clues like the spread angle of the spotlight or the spheres of the pointlights. It may help to imagine the arealight like a tv-set whose screen lights a dark room.

The best is to do some low quality renders to get a feeling. Use the studio prop, place a cylinder primitive (to have something that throws a shadow) and load one of the individual light props. Move it closer or farther away from the cylinder, change the intensity settings and do some renders to see the results and get a feeling for it.

As for the rendersettings, do as usual, high shadingrate settings for test renders, low for the final render.

I hope that helps.

Here is a quick example with the beautydish, parented to a zero intensity spotlight:

Au,,,I remembered,, so,, it is like urberenvironment light,, that I can not check it without render:red:

ya,, thank you much,, I check about each distance , with simple primitive.

Akhbour - 19 September 2012 10:49 PM

The beauty and the beast!

Beauty dish as Keylight, softbox as fill light and a spotlight as backlight.

Nice image Peter. Really nice soft lighting going on there.

The last image in my render thread uses 4 area lights and UberEnviro for Ambient Light Only before they got messed up in the latest build of DS4.5.

Thanks Pete! ^_^

Akhbour - 20 September 2012 10:02 AM

Here is a quick example with the beautydish, parented to a zero intensity spotlight:

Thanks for trying to help answer peoples questions Akhbour!

kitakoredaz - 20 September 2012 10:07 AM

Au,,,I remembered,, so,, it is like urberenvironment light,, that I can not check it without render:red:

ya,, thank you much,, I check about each distance , with simple primitive.

Unfortunately, because an area light can be any size or shape it doesn’t have all the available user tools that you get with using regular DS spotlights. So yes, the lights do require getting used to how they work but once you get used to them I’m confidant you’ll quality of the light they provide is worth the time it takes to get used to them.

The only real quality setting the lights have is the Shadow Samples setting. Higher numbers = better shadow gradients but longer render times.

Spread Angle: for most of the lights in this set this isn’t a feature that is available. The exception is the spotlights. These have much more tightly defined cones of light. In the light rigs it’s easy to adjust the width of the cone by simply move the spotlight nearer (smaller) or further away (larger) using the zoom control. The individual Spotlights actually have a control dial built into them that allows you to modify the beams width with out changing the lights position very much. What it actually does is shorten or lengthen the size of the tube that forms the spotlight. The shorter the tube, the wider the beam width. That is way the small Spotlight is actually physically bigger that the large Spotlight. In this case small and large are referring to the size of the spotlight’s beam, not the physical size of the light.

There is an old trick someone tried with the original Photo Sudio that helped them get used to how they worked, where they where pointed etc. It’s kind of a variation on parenting the individual to a standard spotlight. Only this time you parent the standard spotlight to the mesh light. Be sure to parent it to the 2nd bone, not the 1st one (parent to the ‘Key’ bone not the “Key Light’ bone etc). Now you need to zero all the transforms on the standard spotlight. Then set Y Trans to 150, Z Trans to 250 (-250 for the Back light) This should lineup the new spotlight with the target mesh light. Now you can see the light pointer and even change the view point to look through the spotlight. Make sure you turn the intensity of the spotlight down to zero and make sure you use the light rigs movement controls, otherwise you’ll end up moving the standard spotlight and not the actual mesh light.

InaneGlory - 20 September 2012 12:18 PM

Thanks for trying to help answer peoples questions Akhbour!

I hope you don’t mind, since I was playing also a bit with the individual light props ...

And a new one, two lights only, one blueish large spotlight as backlight shining down from up and behind with an intensity of 200% and an orangish Beautydish on the ground to the left of the camera with an intensity of 40% and the actual light prop scaled down to 40% of its original size:

Akhbour - 20 September 2012 02:06 PM

And a new one, two lights only, one blueish large spotlight as backlight shining down from up and behind with an intensity of 200% and an orangish Beautydish on the ground to the left of the camera with an intensity of 40% and the actual light prop scaled down to 40% of its original size:

Very cool!

Akhbour ,InaneGlory

thanks much about all guide!!:)

I never use other light untill I used to this light sets.
( I am content with product and happy about studio sets and many beatiful wall papers already ^^;)

OK…I see a lot of references to area lights and how they work with the new DS 4.5 beta. My really n00b question: Does this also pertain to Set 3? I don’t want to update my present version of DS (the release version) because I lose too many plug-ins. But I want to be able to use my Studio to the max….so I need to see if it is important enough to lose some plug-ins.