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© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Thanks. Hopefully you can figure out what the problem is with the shader and/or the lights.
It shouldn't be 'which is better'...it should be 'which FITS this render better'. You don't use a screwdriver to put in a nail nor a hammer to put in a screw.
..also which fits one's individual workflow better. For me the Advanced lights are a piece of cake to work with compared to UE to get the results I want. This was why when I suddenly couldn't flag skin with SSS in 4.7, the red flag went up..I used to be a lighting tech in theatre and found working with both the basic Daz (and the Advanced lights) to be somewhat second nature to me. UE, not so much. I understand the very basic principles of photography like F-stop, film speed (ISO), and exposure rate, but I don't need to know the more intricate "techie" stuff for what I want or need to do with it.
Same with shaders. I look at the shader mixer and go "oy weh! what a tangled web we have here". RSL? sorry don't "geek"it. I let those who have a better understanding of the nuts & bolts deal with that aspect for were I to try working with it, my worklflow would slow to a glacial crawl and I'd get little to no rendering done.
This is why I don't mind paying PA's like Age of Armour for these tools as my primary goal is to sit down and create pictures, not spend a lot of time poking around in the nuts& bolts of the software.
If you care about lighting your scene correctly, you should use the linear point light as fake bounce lights to get indirect specular (ie. indoor scenes). Below are renders with your some distant lights as rim lighting, but I changed the view so we're viewing the object from the side.
The other render is done with linear point lights, placed so they closely resembles the rim distant light highlghts. Last render is AoA's Adv Ambient with diffuse and specular enabled in place on the rim lights. Since it's an ambient light, the specular literally comes from everywhere.
The behavior is more noticeable with glossy surfaces. I changed the sphere's glossiness to 90% (it's ds default material). If I rotate the camera, that specular 'headlight' will follow. The only way to make it go away is to disable specular.
With all due respect, wowie, we are aware of this behavior and other criticisms you've made and yet for what it does, for what we do, many of us prefer to use these lights in our renders for reasons you obviously don't comprehend. Thank you for all your testing and helping us understand things. But after a point it just feels like piling on.
You might, but others may not. I certainly did not know about the opacity color behavior.
With all due respect, wowie, we are aware of this behavior and other criticisms you've made and yet for what it does, for what we do, many of us prefer to use these lights in our renders for reasons you obviously don't comprehend. Thank you for all your testing and helping us understand things. But after a point it just feels like piling on.
...I agree. again for my purposes and workflow, the Advanced Lights fill the bill perfectly.
I've also been playing Iray (Daz 4.8 beta) the last couple days and surprisingly, been finding it fairly intuitive, even given my "amateur" knowledge of photography and the still somewhat incomplete documentation. In this short amount of time I have been able to get further along with it than I did in several months working with Reality/Lux.
A work in progress. Still just plain AO with some linear point lights as fake bounce lights. Did some post processing to adjust brightness/contrast a bit.
2 minutes 37.7 seconds
^^^ This.
I completely agree with you about the AOA advanced lights. The Advanced Ambient in particular has made my life wildly easier. Gone are the days of 7-point lighting... I can get appreciably similar results with 1-3 lights and an Ambient. AOA's recommended example for bright daylight lighting with just 2 lights (1 distant and 1 ambient) is such a great starting point that I created presets with them and saved it. Now if I have a bright afternoon or late morning shot, I just load those, re-set the angle, maybe tweak the intensity of the main light just a bit, and I'm off to the races. And the ability to selectively light surfaces has made my life so much easier it's not even funny.
But AOA is right -- one has to use the tools one needs to get the result one wants. I use UE2 and Uber Area lights plenty, when the situation calls for them.
i luv advanced ambient. where's the t-shirt? :lol:
one of my top favorite promo of all time https://www.daz3d.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/a/d/advanced_ambient_light_popup5.jpg
post processing is like cheating when you're demoing lights :)
Yup. Probably shouldn't have done that, but it can be helpful to see whether or not you need light intensities adjustment.
Day and night setup. Raw renders and no post process and no post work. Still a work in progress though. The SSS shading rate probably should have been lowered, but I was lazy..
post processing is like cheating when you're demoing lights :)
...agreed.
About the only post I do other than adding my sig is sometimes to use an effects filter to add a bit of "bloom" or a comic book style (since AoA's Graphic Art Cameras are currently borked) add a vignette effect (as that function of AoA's Atmospheric Cameras no longer works) or use some of Ron's brushes. I rarely mess with the brightness/contrast or colour balance itself unless it is to do create a specific style.like a B &W or sepia photo (those functions of AoA's Atmospheric cameras also borked).
hmm are you saying AoA’s Graphic Art Cameras are currently borked?
..haven't tried them in 4.8, but in 4.7 yes. Supposedly there is a workaround using the shader mixer but working with it seems like trying to untangle a spider web to me.
i'm becoming pretty cozy in 4.6.2.118, iz gonna take something more spectacular than iray to make me budge from it. :)
for sepia, maybe, tint the adv ambient color?
...ahh you are still working in 4.6.
The 4.7 update is what borked the Graphic Art and Atmospheric Cameras as well as the light flagging with the Advanced Lights when using SSS.
Simply tinting the light quality doesn't work as there is no greyscale render option (the Colour Camera setting in the Atmospheric cameras could do that but that is one of the functions borked in 4.7). However, PSP does have a bunch of different photo style filters like B & W and Sepia.
Was just more elegant being able to do it in the render pass instead of post..
I'm just beginning to explore more complex lighting. Is the Iray that will come with the new Daz 4.8 making Uber or Advanced Lights unnecessary? Or is Iray simply a render function and has nothing to do with lighting?
I think Iray includes its own lights and shaders as well as rendering options. However, I have not used it.
I don't think it's going to eliminate 3delight and the old stuff... just be another option.
One note about UberArea lights. Although they're not supposed to emit specular, they do if you're using them without any diffuse only ambient light (UE2, AoA's Adv Ambient Light set to diffuse only). That includes the UberSoft lighting kit as well.
Could you clarify that last point on UberSoft? Are you saying UberArea will not produce specular if UberSoft is also used? Just want to make sure that is what you are saying.. because i was wondering about that and thought I had pretty mucn confirmed that for myself already.
Yes. If you use UberArea Light with a diffuse only ambient occlusion light (ie UE2, UberSoft), you'll lose the specular. Kinda limits their usefulness. There is a way to force it, but it's an ugly trick.
You might feel differently if you tried it. Also, it doesn't interfere with 4.6 so there's no reason not to give it a try.
UPDATE
Thank you to everyone who turned this thread into a great discussion! This convinced me to go ahead and buy AOA Lights. All i can say is WOW.
With the lights you really get to have your cake and eat it too...you get high quality lights that render FAST. I mean REALLY fast and you don't sacrifice quality.
I absolutely love the flagging feature. I haven't used SSS on skin textures yet so I haven't come across the problems mentioned in the thread yet. The AoA spotlight is out of this world. I find that it makes for a great sun for outdoor scenes. So far I'm liking that for simulating the sun more so than the advanced distant light (but I doubt I'm using it right yet and still have alot to learn about its functionality)
Overall, extremely satisfied with my purchase -- upset that I didn't make it earlier. Thanks everybody!
Congrats and have fun!
Don't worry about "using them right" - if you like the outcome, you did it right. :)
Easter Surprise
The lighting is just one Advanced Ambient and one Advanced Distant light ...
A little advice if you render AOA in 4.8 (3delight):
It doesn't work.
First is the render using AOA, second is the render using "Headlamp on", the onboard lights.
If this is your first public beta then you need to reinstall plug-ins, shaders and some scripts so that (most) will place the needed support files in the beta application folder. Some things simply won't work in the beta but the AoA Advanced light shaders will, I'm fairly sure.
Ah.... that's what solved the problem. I copied the filed from the 4.7 programm folder, restarted 4.8 and now it renders nicely. :-)
Thank you!