Digital Art Zone

Can somebody tell me why sometimes stuff like this happens?

I’ll be working on a scene with just two distance lights, a fill and a key light. Everything looks great but when I go to render the scene my key light is missing unless I OpenGL render it.

Hi…

Is that a skydome that your using?

If so and you have shadows turned on on your Distant Lights, then the dome is casting a shadow on your scene.

You can select the skydome in the scene tab and in the parameters turn off cast shadows for the dome.

Hope this helps…

No, I’m just throwing a sky image onto the background plane. Make a quick and easy cheat for rendering a sky (of course it’s the same sky from every angle, but hey it’s fast and easy).

I had this as well, and it turned out I had placed my character inside a closed box.
Try zooming out and see if there is some kind of enclosere surrounding your char.

Hi…

Ok, so there’s no dome, just a background image…

Do you have a ground plane or object and is your ‘Key’ distant light pointing up from below the ground?

I ask because there is something in your scene that is casting a large shadow across everything from the direction of your ‘Key’ light.

Maybe a screen shot of your entire scene would help identify the problem.

nicci…

Yep I have a ground plane but both the Key Light and the Fill light are well above everything in the image. There is nothing between the light and the objects.  The Key and fill are both Distant Lights.

They’re about the equivalent of 20 feet in the air and there are no objects higher than 2 feet between them and the characters.

ghastlycomic - 01 October 2012 01:56 AM

Yep I have a ground plane but both the Key Light and the Fill light are well above everything in the image. There is nothing between the light and the objects.  The Key and fill are both Distant Lights.

They’re about the equivalent of 20 feet in the air and there are no objects higher than 2 feet between them and the characters.

It doesn’t really matter where the distant lights are positioned but are they rotated along the x-axis to point up. If so, then it’s most likely the ground plane that’s blocking the light if you have the light set to cast shadows.

Switch your viewport view to look through the distant light, if you can’t see your figure because it’s blocked by the ground plane, then the light will also be blocked.

nicci…

Woohoo!!! Did the trick. Thanks!

Been having so much fun these past two days experimenting with building fast scenery.

Glad I could help…

Very nice dramatic feel… great job

nicci…

I’ve been experimenting with a combination of Bryce and Daz to be able to create visually interesting outdoor sets that also render quickly and don’t use too many polys.  I’ve been having a real hoot doing it. It’s fun to try and find ways to cheat to use as few elements as possible to create a complete 360 degree environment. These two tools compliment each other so well.