Learning UberEnvironment 2 Return To Topic

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  • Anymatter said:

    hi,

    so basically, if i want an outdoor scene...

    i just set the uberenvironment2 to occlusion w/ soft shadows, and i add 3 distant lights surrounding the scene. The lights' color and brightness  are correspond to the environment  map. only the brighter light casts ray shadows . the other 2 are just for illumination and specularity purposes... so does  this actually make sense? or at least, qualified as realistic render settings?

    Well, if it works for your style, it works. Over all it sounds good, and I've seen similar setups in some Scenes for lighting (some with more then two non-sun distant lights for the blue sky)

    I will add a note of caution, some skin shaders do not react well to Any light that is not on "Ray Trace Shadows". There has been some issues with 'Mapped shadows' in the past, thus my suggestion to go with Ray Trace instead.

  • AnymatterAnymatter Posts: 95
    edited November 2015

    That seems like a lot of light to me.  1 distant light ought to be enough for general purposes, and always use shadows on any light (unless its specular only, I guess; but I dislike that practice).

    thx. anyway the settings i've made is for animation, a plain scene with a figure moving under 2 p.m sun in approx.  the camera moves at every angle so its more than a portrait or still pictures. since the back parts appeared to be darker,i added the extra 2 lights. also please note that im using 3delight,not iray.

    if the lights i've used seems excessive, whats the pro way to deal with the darker parts? will u recommend headlamp on camera instead,or other possible suggestion...

     

    Post edited by Anymatter on
  • AnymatterAnymatter Posts: 95
    edited November 2015
    Anymatter said:

    hi,

    Well, if it works for your style, it works. Over all it sounds good, and I've seen similar setups in some Scenes for lighting (some with more then two non-sun distant lights for the blue sky)

    I will add a note of caution, some skin shaders do not react well to Any light that is not on "Ray Trace Shadows". There has been some issues with 'Mapped shadows' in the past, thus my suggestion to go with Ray Trace instead.

    thx.infact  i've tested different settings and produced countless renders so i really cant tell if it works for me anymore. the results getting dullier, just like eating your favorite dessert daily if u get my point. so i think i might attach some pics for u guys to evaluate the outcome in my next post. later

    Post edited by Anymatter on
  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437

    Never use a headlamp for any sort of final render.

     

    having never done an animation myself, I can't say how I would handle that.

  • ZarconDeeGrissomZarconDeeGrissom Posts: 5,412
    edited November 2015

    I'll second that.

    Never use a headlamp for any sort of final render.

     

    having never done an animation myself, I can't say how I would handle that.

    I recall some renders along time ago, when the 'Headlamp' made it look like it turned off all the other lights. As for dark areas, there is some limitations with 3delight in studio that UE2 is meant to mend. Tho it may be necessary to look at the lights, and the render settings (Some OpenGL modes have a limit on the number of lights it can handle, it's a thought). Otherwise, it may be necessary to set up lights to illuminant the darker areas of your 'scene', as 3delight doesn't do some things by it's self automatically.

    vs an actual photograph using a mechanics mirror.

    And no, I don't have any experience with animation other then an experimentation with posing 'Dynamic Clothing' for a still render. I noticed what appeared to be some limitations with the free animation thing in Studio (like feet going into floors, etc) that I'm not sure how to address. There may be threads around on the topic of animation, that would be of more help then I ever could give on the topic.

    Post edited by ZarconDeeGrissom on
  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933
    edited November 2015
    Anymatter said:

    since the back parts appeared to be darker,i added the extra 2 lights. also please note that im using 3delight,not iray.

    if the lights i've used seems excessive, whats the pro way to deal with the darker parts? will u recommend headlamp on camera instead,or other possible suggestion...

     

    Don't worry, we do realise you are using 3Delight, otherwise you won't be using UE2.

    The 'pro' way would be to use another HDR map in UE2 or increase its light intensity in the parameters tab.

    You can find free HDR stuff here: direct.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/57531/list-of-sites-with-free-hdri/p1 // but obviously check the terms if you're doing commercial work //

    Given that you're using UE2 with 'soft shadows' and a distant light for the sun, even the 'low range' maps from that link will work for you.

    PS Even specular-only lights should cast shadows, unless you're going for some very specific cheat.

    Post edited by Mustakettu85 on
  • tbh i dont wish to spend much time on high quality/realistic output, i simply prefer the render details just like in evilded777 profile pic,  but only with  3delight engine.

    Zarcon thx for the xplanation. btw the headlamp acts like a distant light parented to camera, except with  very few lighting properties to control. it doesnt turn off other lights, but will add automatically when all lights removed from scene ,depend on render settings. yup, i'm aware of that feet into floor thingy. found a tedious method just to handle such issue, daz didnt seem to improve it since 3rd version when inverse kinematic was introduced

    big thx Mustakettu thats what im currently searching! i didnt cast shadow on specular-only lights. the lights are there due to the environment map(darker part) fail to illuminate certain amount of light. so these lights supposedly came from environment map itself and not from separate source such as spotlight. so logically, these lights do not cast shadows, the soft shadows from UE2 will do the trick instead?!

  • The thing is that you don't have to use those extra lights at all =) UE2 has an intensity scale parameter if I'm not mistaken, so you can set it as high as you need to illuminate the surroundings. Very high, if needed; the numbers don't matter.

    UE2 soft shadows would still be there even if you do use the no-shadow lights, but those lights w/o shadows can cause 'light leaks' - which will be especially frustrating in an animation. UE2 by itself should not cause this.

    Another thing to try would be decreasing the 'max trace distance' of UE2. I don't remember what the default is now, but if it's in the hundreds, it means the distance for those soft shadows is several meters. It can darken the scene too much.

  • The thing is that you don't have to use those extra lights at all =) UE2 has an intensity scale parameter if I'm not mistaken, so you can set it as high as you need to illuminate the surroundings. Very high, if needed; the numbers don't matter.

    ok, but the problem is that, intensity scale changes the illumination globally, means u get the darker parts brighter while leaving the rest even brighter than it should be... so ,does adding extra non-shadow lights actually make sense in this case?

  • AnymatterAnymatter Posts: 95
    edited November 2015

    meanwhile i've several questions just to test if i really get the point of using UE2

    1) why there is a specular-only light settings? based on my xperience, UE2 doesnt cast specularity at all. So this light serve no other purposes than to speculate objects in UE2?

    2) if u are to create a simple scene with a figure standing under approximately 10 a.m sun with no other light source, which options do u prefer?

    - UE2 with directional shadow only( caused by the sun in the map)

    -UE2 with directional shadow( caused by the sun in the map) + distant light with raytrace shadows( parallel to directional shadow from UE2)

    -UE2 with soft shadow+ distant light with raytrace shadows( a replacement for the directional shadow caused by the  sun in map,since soft shadow is applied)

    based on my understanding, i prefer 3rd settings....

    Post edited by Anymatter on
  • ZarconDeeGrissomZarconDeeGrissom Posts: 5,412
    edited November 2015

    Thank you Kettu, I've been under some stress the past week (not the best state of mind for complex stuff like UE2 and omUberSurface).

    As for a random thought and the 10am thing. I missed the 10am pic today, tho I will guess 11am is good enough for the concept that light is not from directly above. Time of day is kind of subjective for some places, especially in my neck of the woods (New England) this time of year, as it's getting dark earlier in the evening and staying dark later in the morning.

    There is that 'Contrast' dial in the UE2 settings? I never fussed with it my self. It may be possible to use that to decrease the dark-to-bright aspect of the UE2 map used, Possibly.

    I don't know what those dials actually do, It's a thought?

    Also, That lower front Uber-Area-light (soft box) is only there to fake light bouncing off the floor. A good example of filling in light for how Daz Studio 3delight dose not like that 'Reflective Pillar Test', lol. Some UE2 maps have a dark ground, and thus the light needs to be augmented with additional lights somehow.

    1114am_medium.jpg
    640 x 480 - 40K
    UE2MapSettings_002_Lbl1crop1.png
    1178 x 737 - 146K
    Post edited by ZarconDeeGrissom on
  • Anymatter said:

    ok, but the problem is that, intensity scale changes the illumination globally, means u get the darker parts brighter while leaving the rest even brighter than it should be... so ,does adding extra non-shadow lights actually make sense in this case?

    To overcome that, you can decrease the contrast of your map in UE2 parameters like Zarcon says, or you can use a different map whatsoever.

    Non-shadow lights were widely used ages ago in CG when computers were too slow to render with AO/GI in large volumes, but you need to be very, very careful about them - because non-shadow lights will mean that, for instance, you may get your interiors brightly lit by those "sky" lights (they don't cast shadows = walls don't block them!), which may look wrong. Since we can't see your scene, it's hard to say what issues exactly you may run in.

    It's not a very "contemporary" technique, that's for sure.

    Anymatter said:

    meanwhile i've several questions just to test if i really get the point of using UE2

    1) why there is a specular-only light settings? based on my xperience, UE2 doesnt cast specularity at all. So this light serve no other purposes than to speculate objects in UE2?

    2) if u are to create a simple scene with a figure standing under approximately 10 a.m sun with no other light source, which options do u prefer?

    - UE2 with directional shadow only( caused by the sun in the map)

    -UE2 with directional shadow( caused by the sun in the map) + distant light with raytrace shadows( parallel to directional shadow from UE2)

    -UE2 with soft shadow+ distant light with raytrace shadows( a replacement for the directional shadow caused by the  sun in map,since soft shadow is applied)

    based on my understanding, i prefer 3rd settings....

    1) Yes, a specular-only directional light is a "cheat" used for the reason that environment lights like UE2 do not cast specular. A spec-only still needs shadows, though, or everything will shine in its path, even the shadowed areas. You can use higher softness values for spec-only light shadows (and low shadow sampling values, if you use a light shader that allows that).

    2) The third option is indeed the best with UE2. Directional shadows in UE2 are flawed for two reasons: a) the internal code of UE2 was written many years ago and so cannot make use of new shadeops that allow for quality HDR sampling to get those shadows; b) the coordinate systems are rotated between 3Delight and DS (and UE2 may be trying to compensate for that internally, but kinda fails), so you can't match the sun direction reliably and easily.

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,437

    Pretty sure that profile pic of mine is 3Delight... I'm no longer "proud" of it.  As I recall, it does look better in higher resolution.

  • AnymatterAnymatter Posts: 95
    edited November 2015

    thx guys! the contrast parameter did help a bit, but sometimes im forced to reduce it to 0%, producing uniform but dim ambient lighting( same effect as without environment map applied in UE2). so i have to add traitional 3 point lighting for primary illumination, specular and shadow casting, together with occlusion effect and soft shadow from UE2.

    took days for me to see the difference between with and without casting shadow in specular-only light. my main thought was that a specular-only light(cast shadow enabled) will simply cast shadow on object as usual(i personally think its not suitable for fake distant light which is used to multiply the intensity of the darker part of  env map only), so i disabled it. well,all it does is cast shadow within the specular area on object surface only, the main reason why i hv to enable it.   MustaKettu,im not sure if i really got your point but big thanks for that!laugh

    Post edited by Anymatter on
  • AnymatterAnymatter Posts: 95
    edited November 2015

    i  can hardly decide if certain angle/views appeared to be brighter/darker so i left some pics for any comment/critics

    ignore the splotchy effect( UE2 low quality settings). also the low res backdrop is just to visualize the env map,so that u can roughly tell how accurate are my light settings.

    Post edited by Anymatter on
  • I think that it looks okay for the Park HDR. There's sun on the one side of it and fairly tall trees on the other.

  • ok got it! i've learned a lot from u guys , should be applicable to other prog like poser too.Big thx for your patience and replies!

     

  • You're welcome Anymatter =)

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