Let's Learn Advanced Ambient and Spot Lights

13»

Comments

  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,860
    edited December 1969

    Just to add to all of this, in the scene I am working on I had an issue where the parts of the models body that were in contact with they floor (primative plane) would appear higlighted no matter what I and what settings I changed in the light. Turns out the simplest solution was to place another primative plane 1 unit below the first one and the problem was solved.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,441
    edited December 1969

    I played with it for a scene and found an interesting catch when using mirrors and Advanced Ambient Light. This is a render and no postwork done.

    weird_effect.jpg
    1200 x 960 - 122K
  • Age of ArmourAge of Armour Posts: 437
    edited December 2013

    Mattymanx said:
    Just to add to all of this, in the scene I am working on I had an issue where the parts of the models body that were in contact with they floor (primative plane) would appear higlighted no matter what I and what settings I changed in the light. Turns out the simplest solution was to place another primative plane 1 unit below the first one and the problem was solved.

    That should be the due to the shadow bias. You can lower the bias but adding the extra plane below the floor, as you did, is probably the easiest and fastest rendering option.

    I played with it for a scene and found an interesting catch when using mirrors and Advanced Ambient Light. This is a render and no postwork done.

    Whoa! That is weird haha!

    It looks like culling to me. The renderer automatically cuts away (or culls) any geometry that is out of the view of the camera so that there isn't any memory wasted on things that can't be seen. However, the renderer usually overrides that when raytraced reflections are used.

    Off the top of my head I can't think of anything in the light that would cause that to happen. Do you get a similar result if you use a default DS light or UberEnvironment?

    Post edited by Age of Armour on
  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,441
    edited December 1969

    Mattymanx said:
    Just to add to all of this, in the scene I am working on I had an issue where the parts of the models body that were in contact with they floor (primative plane) would appear higlighted no matter what I and what settings I changed in the light. Turns out the simplest solution was to place another primative plane 1 unit below the first one and the problem was solved.

    That should be the due to the shadow bias. You can lower the bias but adding the extra plane below the floor, as you did, is probably the easiest and fastest rendering option.

    I played with it for a scene and found an interesting catch when using mirrors and Advanced Ambient Light. This is a render and no postwork done.

    Whoa! That is weird haha!

    It looks like culling to me. The renderer automatically cuts away (or culls) any geometry that is out of the view of the camera so that there isn't any memory wasted on things that can't be seen. However, the renderer usually overrides that when raytraced reflections are used.

    Off the top of my head I can't think of anything in the light that would cause that to happen. Do you get a similar result if you use a default DS light or UberEnvironment?

    What causes it is then I use the hitmode = Garibaldi hair (which I use for that bad hair day mess, also as you see the reflection is very different from the hair as I have a hitmode with a different light color on the hair) ;-) I tried to replicate it without that but with no luck.

  • Age of ArmourAge of Armour Posts: 437
    edited December 1969

    Totte said:

    What causes it is then I use the hitmode = Garibaldi hair (which I use for that bad hair day mess, also as you see the reflection is very different from the hair as I have a hitmode with a different light color on the hair) ;-) I tried to replicate it without that but with no luck.

    Interesting. I'm trying to think of the fastest way to render and work around that... to get the arm to reappear you could maybe add a regular DS light near the arm and just set the strength to something super low and turn off shadows. That should prevent the arm from being culled (I think). Not sure what a fast solution would be for the hair.

    Thanks for pointing it out though. I'll be thinking about it for sure.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,441
    edited December 1969

    Totte said:

    What causes it is then I use the hitmode = Garibaldi hair (which I use for that bad hair day mess, also as you see the reflection is very different from the hair as I have a hitmode with a different light color on the hair) ;-) I tried to replicate it without that but with no luck.

    Interesting. I'm trying to think of the fastest way to render and work around that... to get the arm to reappear you could maybe add a regular DS light near the arm and just set the strength to something super low and turn off shadows. That should prevent the arm from being culled (I think). Not sure what a fast solution would be for the hair.

    Thanks for pointing it out though. I'll be thinking about it for sure.

    As you see there is a point light from the mirror on the woman to light her up (and cast shadows from her and the door into the wall. I Just couldn't fix it unless I removed hitmode Garibaldi.

  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited January 2014

    This is such a brilliant tutorial, and there is so much great detail too. All too often, the artist will say 'put your light here' and they may show you a diagram of where the light is in the scene, but, they don't tell you the translation settings to enter to get your light to go where they tell you it should. Thank you so much for including those settings, that could make a lot of difference! Also, switching to the light camera to position it could get a bit disorientating.

    I did a render featuring Guillaume Hair, with the hitmode set to primitive and alt samples and the render took just over 5 hours to complete! Did you load the skullcap as well? I did and I'm sure I had that so the light would flag it.

    Anyway, I'll be following this thread with great interest

    CHEERS!

    Post edited by Rogerbee on
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited January 2014

    This is interesting,

    My usual setup, as used in the first render, is the Day 07 preset from the Lantios Portrait lights, but with the UE replaced by an AAL at 80% intensity. In the second render, I replaced the specular light with an ASL set to specular with the same intensity as the one it replaced which was 100%. The specular effect is slightly diminished, why would that be? On the other hand, it does look a bit more natural.

    CHEERS!

    Bjorn_CQ_AAL_02.jpg
    576 x 745 - 232K
    Bjorn_CQ_AAL_01.jpg
    576 x 745 - 237K
    Post edited by Rogerbee on
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    I downloaded a setup from ShareCG that used traditional Daz lights and a UE, made a note of the light locations and the type of lights and then swapped out all the lights for AAL and ASL. I toyed with the intensities and I think I'm happy with the results.

    That said, I would welcome any tips as to how it could look better

    CHEERS!

    PS (The render times don't half come down when you have all AoA lights in the scene.)

    V6_AAL_ASL_03.jpg
    576 x 745 - 210K
    V6_AAL_ASL_02.jpg
    576 x 745 - 239K
  • Age of ArmourAge of Armour Posts: 437
    edited December 1969

    Rogerbee said:

    I did a render featuring Guillaume Hair, with the hitmode set to primitive and alt samples and the render took just over 5 hours to complete! Did you load the skullcap as well? I did and I'm sure I had that so the light would flag it.

    Anyway, I'll be following this thread with great interest

    CHEERS!

    Hi RogerBee,

    Were the surfaces of the hair itself set to be flagged... IE. 99% diffuse strength or something. If so would expect it to render faster than 5 hours though I suppose it does depend on a lot of different factors like computer processor and render settings. It is something to double check though because it is rare for any of my renders to take more than an hour anymore.

  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    Hi RogerBee,

    Were the surfaces of the hair itself set to be flagged... IE. 99% diffuse strength or something. If so would expect it to render faster than 5 hours though I suppose it does depend on a lot of different factors like computer processor and render settings. It is something to double check though because it is rare for any of my renders to take more than an hour anymore.

    I just double checked and all parts of the hair were definitely flagged with a diffuse of 99%, the AAL wasn't the only light in the scene, there was a standard specular light and a light emitter there. I have noticed that renders are a lot faster when the lights are all yours.

    The only thing I could possibly think of that might have held it up was the possibility of Windows deciding to download updates at that precise moment.

    I've put my render settings below

    CHEERS!

    My_Render_Settings.JPG
    576 x 745 - 119K
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    Oh, there was one thing, I converted my hair from an .hr2 to DUF comforming hair, would that have made any difference!?

    CHEERS!

  • Age of ArmourAge of Armour Posts: 437
    edited December 1969

    Rogerbee said:

    Oh, there was one thing, I converted my hair from an .hr2 to DUF comforming hair, would that have made any difference!?

    CHEERS!

    Converting it to DUFF shouldn't make any difference in rendering speed.

    You mentioned having an emitter... Is that a mesh light? If so then that probably accounts for most of the rendering time.

    Not related to lights but, if you may want to try using lower pixel samples if you are not using depth of field or motion blur. I find that pixel samples of 4 generally look just fine in renders with no DOF. Changing the pixel samples from 16 to 4 could make your render go from 5 hours to 1.25 hours.

    It has been a while since I messed with mesh lights so not sure if pixel samples plays a roll when they are used. And of course, if you are using DOF then 4 pixel samples will probably be too low.

  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    I'll give the pixel samples a go and I've never used DOF. The emitter could well have been a mesh light, I'll try taking that out and using lights that are all yours.

    CHEERS!

  • Age of ArmourAge of Armour Posts: 437
    edited January 2014

    If the "emitter" is a mesh light (AKA Shape light, Area Light) then removing it might radically change the look of the lighting. Mesh lights do cast a very pleasing light and are very useful... They just render very slowly. I suppose you can try turning it off and see. I just didn't want to give the impression that mesh lights were wrong or bad or anything.

    About the pixel samples in the render settings/ They are a lot like shadow samples in that shadow samples really help a lot on soft shadows but aren't very noticeable on sharp shadows, or in a camera soft focus and sharp focus.

    With both shadow and pixel samples in sharp focus or sharp shadows, the differences between 1 sample and 2 samples is pretty big. At 1 things look aliased and you can definitely see "stair stepping." At 2 samples it looks much much better than 1 but 4 samples only look a little bit better than 2. Each extra sample increase is less noticeable than the previous setting but increases the render time.

    Again, only pointing this out so I don't make it sound like there is absolutely no benefit to using 16 pixel samples. There is an improvement but I have found that the differences between 4 and 8 samples on a sharp focus or sharp shadow is hardly noticeable if visible at all. Your mileage may vary though.

    Oh and I should also say that with lights, my statement about sharp shadows not generally needing more than 4 samples is based on general DS directional lights. The advanced spotlight has Shading Rate and Max Error settings which effect how precisely shadow samples are taken and calculated. These two settings greatly improve shadow rendering speed but often require higher shadow sample settings even on sharp shadows which is why the advanced spotlight loads with a default of 8 samples instead of 4 which might typically be enough for sharp shadows on a standard DS light.

    Hehe, that is probably way too much info. I've just been working on a few tutorials on the subject so it is fresh in my mind and wanted to give more explanation so it don't sound like I am giving contradictory info later on in the tutorials.

    Post edited by Age of Armour on
  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943
    edited December 1969

    ...
    Hehe, that is probably way too much info. I've just been working on a few tutorials on the subject so it is fresh in my mind and wanted to give more explanation so it don't sound like I am giving contradictory info later on in the tutorials.

    There is never too much info! Thank you for taking the time!

  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    I took out the emitter and lowered the pixel samples to 5 and it rendered so much quicker. Still, I've made a better light set since then and will use that in future renders.

    One thing that does make a humongous difference to renders is Gamma Correction. The standard for most monitors is 2.2. There is a gamma correction setting in the DS render settings and I set it to 2.2 which reads as 2.20 in the settings pane.

    I made this adjustment and altered the intensities of the light set I made yesterday with multiple ASL's set to different functions and one AAL.

    The difference is like night and day!

    CHEERS!

    V6_Anna_Gamma_01.jpg
    576 x 745 - 243K
  • BackDoor3DBackDoor3D Posts: 160
    edited December 1969

    I've been playing around with the AoA Adv Ambient and Spot lights.......This is my first attempt at using them and the image is still very much a WIP.

    But, here goes......

    I was trying to get the feel from when I used go to school concerts at the end of each year (many, many years ago).

    I will post the settings shortly.....comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated.

    School-Concert---Rock-Stage-4.jpg
    1800 x 1012 - 560K
  • RogerbeeRogerbee Posts: 4,460
    edited December 1969

    Looks great,

    Even though my new system will pack a punch, I think these will still be my go to lights.

    CHEERS!

  • cismiccismic Posts: 629

    I realize this is totally after the fact and 4 years I might add. However, I've noticed that these lights don't render well with iray. Even after following what I coudl find on youtube and the forums. Is that the case with these lights? Only meant for 3d delight?

     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,441
    edited March 2017
    cismic said:

    I realize this is totally after the fact and 4 years I might add. However, I've noticed that these lights don't render well with iray. Even after following what I coudl find on youtube and the forums. Is that the case with these lights? Only meant for 3d delight?

     

    Yes - 3DL lights are 3DL shaders and will not work in Iray,

    Post edited by Totte on
Sign In or Register to comment.