Skydome issues

tdc

Every time I use a skydome, my renders come out completely black. If I move the EXPOSURE VALUE down... it just turns black and white. There are so many settings I thought just to ask here. I hope it's like one simple slider or setting. For example, exposed default is 13. When I adjust this down it only makes for an extreme over exposure. Can someone point me to some tutorials or instruct me to what I may be overlooking?

When I remove the skydome, it renders beautifully.

Fishtales

This discussion might be useful.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/66483/iray-environment-map-and-environment-intensity-sliders-what-s-the-difference/p1

SpottedKitty

tdcsurfer said:

Every time I use a skydome, my renders come out completely black.

What lights do you have in the scene? If it's only the default Environment light, then that won't be able to shine through the skydome from outside. Distant lights work (or, in this case, don't) in exactly the same way. Only spot and point lights, and mesh lights, that are inside the skydome will illuminate anything.

tdcsurfer said:

When I remove the skydome, it renders beautifully.

Yes, that's another very strong indication of a "concrete sky" situation.

One fix that sometimes works is to take the texture applied to the skydome, and apply it to the Environment light instead. Note, though, that the skydome texture must be laid out the same way as the Environment light texture and should preferably be in HDRI format, otherwise your render will look weird. (Not many skydome textures are set up like this.)