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Click with right mouse button on the Render Setings tab and activate "Show hidden properties". You will than have dome widith, hight and depth sliders. Plus bunch of other hidden stuff.Switching to a Finite Dome makes those dome settings visible.
Thanks a lot for your amazing video! :)
I know some about this. These definitions and tips may not be technically exact but they are practical:
- ISO is the reactiveness of the film. The higher, more light enters in the photography. It usually also produces noise. But not always, for example, in absence of light, a higher ISO can really decrease the noise if you get the exact proportion of ISO
- Aperture: it's like the pupil of the eye. The more higher f number, it is more closed. Think in a pupil that is very small, it leaves less light enter into the eye, but it focuses better. The lower f number, the aperture is higher, the pupil is bigger. The background may look blurry, the subject focused, but the light on the scene is higher too.
To get more light: increase ISO, decrease the f number (= more aperture).
Jordi
Thank you, and of course I don't take offense; I'm just as confused about Iray lighting as the rest of us. :) Your logic describes the exact problem I've had with trying to figure out this lighting from the beginning: why are people having to crank up luminance to a billion when this is supposed to be a realistic system?
I suppose what I'm hoping for are some basic standards in presets that will give a decent starting point for any user. For example, on this page about Exposure values, a lot of exposure values for lighting conditions are listed. If we were to all agree that 12-13 is right for outdoor scenes, 6-9 should work for illuminated nighttime scenes, and 5-8 are best for interior lighting, we could then start sharing and selling light presets based on those values.
Has anyone tried lighting a scene with a combination of realistic light illumination values and exposure adjustment and then tried rendering the same scene with the EV set at the default of 13 and cranking up the lights to compensate? I wonder if there would be a difference in grain, bounced light, or anything else to make one method more preferable to the other.
Thanks a lot for your amazing video! :)
I know some about this. These definitions and tips may not be technically exact but they are practical:
- ISO is the reactiveness of the film. The higher, more light enters in the photography. It usually also produces noise. But not always, for example, in absence of light, a higher ISO can really decrease the noise if you get the exact proportion of ISO
- Aperture: it's like the pupil of the eye. The more higher f number, it is more closed. Think in a pupil that is very small, it leaves less light enter into the eye, but it focuses better. The lower f number, the aperture is higher, the pupil is bigger. The background may look blurry, the subject focused, but the light on the scene is higher too.
To get more light: increase ISO, decrease the f number (= more aperture).
Jordi
Just a couple of observations/notes to go with this.
Any film with an ISO rating under 400 used indoors required a flash or a set of floodlights. ISO 400 was pretty much a minimum film speed for indoor available light photography but usually require such a large lens opening (small f-stop, like 1.2 or 2) that depth of field vanished. I did a lot of indoor slides at ISO 1600 with a camera-mount flash unit - but then you have to be careful not to over-light the subject.
To continue Jordi's explanation....
F-stop and shutter speed are closely linked on a camera. The f-stop is in the camera lens (so each lens will have its own range of f-stops) and the shutter speed is in the camera itself.
Here's a list of a normal SLR's f-stops
f2 - widest - lets in most light
f2.8
f4
f5.6
f8
f11
f16
f22
f32 - narrowest - lets in least light
f64 - only found on specialist lenses
(Each number is half the previous one in terms of how much light it lets in. f11 lets in half the light of f8)
Camera shutter speeds
1sec - slowest - lets in most light
1/2
1/4
1/8
1/15
1/30
1/60
1/125
1/250
1/500
1/1000
1/2000 - fastest - lets in least light
(Each number is half the previous one in terms of how much light it lets in. 1/250 lets in half as much light as 1/125)
The third variable is the flim speed (ISO). A normal color film for general use is 100 ISO. A 'fast' film for lower-light photography is 400 ISO. A fine-grain film for detailed work would be 25 ISO.
ISO values
25
50
100
200
400
800 - specialist value - usually 'pushed' by the lab during development
(Each ISO value gives twice as much light as the previous one)
In photography, once you've put a film in the camera, you only have to worry about aperture (f-stop) and shutter speed. For an average daylight shot you'd be using something like f11 at 1/250 (or thereabouts). If you wanted to shoot someone jumping in the air, you'd use a faster shutter speed, say 1/1000 at f5.6. Note that these 2 combinations let in the exact same amount of light.
f11 @1/250 = f5.6 @ 1/1000
Exposure value (Ev)
This is a combination of all three factors - f-stop, shutter speed and ISO. It's just a convenient way of getting a general starting value.
As far as Iray goes, I haven't had the time to check how closely these values correspond to real life, so I'm not even going to guess at it. I don't think there's much benefit in adhering strictly to conventional photographic values. In real life, there's no such thing as an f-stop of 7.5, but there's no reason why you couldn't use it in Iray. The real life numbers are only good as a guide. Knowing that f8 is twice as bright as f11 is at least a start.
mac
I think that people are forgetting that Iray is an unbiased renderer.....therefore, it simulates light as accurately as possible. Therefore, the 'camera' analogy used in most rendering is also used. So some basic knowledge of photography and photometry is needed to properly light, frame, and 'photograph' the 3D scene.
Blowing out the values on lights and emissive surfaces has lots of side effects. When you enable bloom, if you've done this, you'll get huge amounts of bloom (in size, if not in intensity). It also causes inappropriate light color spread on surfaces that are illuminated. Yes, it's still unbiased, and yes, you'd have to use INTENSELY powerful lights to compensate for the poor choices of film, shutter speed, and Fstop. The default settings for those are really poorly chosen, so it is understandable why unrealistically powerful lighting is being used.
Also remember that unlike a biased render, an unenclosed area WILL lose light! If the light goes off to infinity it never bounces back into a surface. If the light can bounce 'out' of the scene, some will, and this will reduce the total light that can reach the camera. Also, unlike with most lighting in biased renderers, the light in Iray WILL fall off with the square of the distance. Might want to look up the difference between illuminance and radiance.....it is a critical concept in this regard.
Use appropriate lighting values. Typical 60w incandescent bulb is about 700 lumens at around 2900K. Fluorescent tube of 40w is about 2400 lumens, at around 5000K. If your scene is too dim, adjust the tone mapping (camera/environment) settings! If you still can't get it quite right, it's okay to tweak those light intensities, but try not to get in the habit......And obviously, certain 'unreal' effects may require you to do all kinds of crazy things to get it to look right. For those, try to get the scene correctly lit and photographing properly, THEN add the effect and any wild settings to IT, not the rest of the scene.
Flash photography involves much greater amounts of light, but for very brief periods (much like the shutter speed!) to overlight the subject, and the choice of film speed has to be adjusted to compensate, or the shutter speed changed.
There is a whole science/art to properly lighting/photographing a scene. It isn't THAT complex, but you do have to learn a little about it to make good choices when it comes to scene composition. A few hours can teach you a lot about how Fstop, Shutter speed, and ISO/ASA film speed effect each other and the final photo. It's worth a few hours to learn it.
But, with all that said, if it gets the image looking 'right' to you, then it's sufficient. :)
That is exactly the sort of information I'd like to see more of. Real values to use and subsequently adjust tone mapping settings to suit.
That is exactly the sort of information I'd like to see more of. Real values to use and subsequently adjust tone mapping settings to suit.
There are a ton of charts and tables online. You can Google for those as well as temperatures for the lights....The lower the value, the "warmer" the light.
Kat
There's lots of information at the various light manufacturers websites. But there is considerable variation in values and measurement methods.
On a side note, I wonder how many people are now tempted to get one of these:
nVidia Visual Computing Appliance (VCA)
No idea of the cost, but I'm betting close to or over six digits in the price.....but it'd make Iray scream with pleasure.....
:cheese:
I think I'm finally getting to grips with the emission settings. Thanks to all those who responded with useful tips. Redid an earlier scene with some changes and it was incredibly dramatic (like a million flashbulbs all being fired off in your eyes at once!) soo... after toning it down significantly and getting it to an acceptable level, here's the result.
Came out quite nicely I think. Aside from some minor modifications to the glass, and obviously the emitters, every surface is using the Daz Iray presets or was auto-converted.
Yes but the depth, width and height has to be unhidden. Once unhidden, when I dial them up, I see no change to the sphere. I get a serious fisheyed look when I reduce the hdri size (to match figure scale), so I was hoping adjusting the depth would counter that, but it does nothing from what I can see.
Just went and grabbed a couple of boxes of lightbulbs from the closet...
GE Softwhite incandescent 75w 1170 lumens no temp given, but assume typical of 2700K to 3000K
Great Value Compact Fluorescent 19W 1300 Lumens 2700K
Great Value Compact Fluorescent 23W 1600 Lumens 2700k
Most bulbs will list that info, somewhere on the package. So, take a notebook and write down the info next trip to the store.
For unusual bulbs/specialty bulbs most websites that sell them have the info.
Then there's all the charts that Kat_Briggs mentioned.
A way to change the scene without much fuss...change the color temp of the lights. Going from 2700 K to 3500K (or 5000K...that would be from 'soft white' to 'cool white' or 'daylight') makes a very noticeable difference.
Could you post a link to one, because I couldn't find any settings as clear as what hphoenix posted. I'm still trying to find out decent settings for candle light.
Numbers like those are great for new users who may be completely new to realistic rendering.
edit: cross posted
Should 1 lumen and about 1900k for a candle...
Here's one page with info/charts
http://repairfaq.cis.upenn.edu/sam/icets/basicp.htm
And a nice color temperature chart
http://photographyguide99.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-color-temperature-of-light.html
$50K in that keynote address on YouTube. More than the car that is being modeled in the demo. The fantasy of buying one did cross my mind briefly. I lay down until I felt better.
I have a similar issue. When I use Dome and Scene environment mode, my scene renders dark. I do have a photometric spotlight though. If I delete the spotlight and render the scene, the scene looks decent. I'm trying to use a null to light the outside of Dream home's living room while the spotlight lights the inside of the living room. Is there a way to increase the brightness of the sun/null object? Increasing the disc intensity or glow strength to 10 doesn't seem to do much. the Render using sun-sky mode looks worse. I must be missing something. Sorry, no screenshots. Maybe I can post some after dinner.
Very nice!!
Kat
...interesting, I am getting much shorter render times in pure CPU mode with Iray than with Lux. After 1 hour of rendering I have little if any noise in Iray compared to what I see with Lux after 9 - 10 hours (using the same test scene at the same resolution).
My system is somewhat similar, i7 930 @ 2.8 GHz, 12 GB memory (tri Channel mode), Nvidia Fermi GPU with 1GB GDDR5 (dedicated). Currently using several meshlights as well as the Iray Sun/Sky setting with slight amount of haze (2.00).
...the physical functions of a DSLR and an old film SLR are the same (I have some experience with the latter). Been experimenting with different ISO (film speed) F-Stop and exposure settings and am able to get from what looked like an old "Kodachrome 64" print (with the richer colours) to results similar when using high speed Ektacrhome 400.
,..50,000$ last I remember.
Hmmm....Megabucks Lotto draw tomorrow.
Lumens, and Watts for large objects don't really make sense. as the power is spread over the entire object.
Also remember the large numbers (cd/m^2 for example) are likely because the object is either far away or the tone mapper is set for outdoor daylight settings, when the scene is not outdoors during daylight. :) OK so one Candela equals one candle power which makes the info I found on many sites the same as the Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candela. Below is an extract from that Wiki page, giving us an idea on how to equate things.
A quick plug, rather than crossposting a whole new post - I just made a big set of Iray shaders out of Nobiax's infamous free texture packs (with express permission to redistribute them).
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/53881/
Here's the link to the Freebies post. Download, pick them apart, learn how to make your own, and help make these better for the whole community! :)
Is there a way to set the camera Iray uses?. That is, outside of what is being used for the primary viewport.
I can't see any setting in the Iray render settings panel that reference what camera it is using.
(I'm guessing it's fixed to whatever is the viewport default.)
Thanks!
It's going to render through the camera you're looking through when you hit render.
Greetings,
I always wondered about this; if I'm using a side-by-side video, or a 4-viewport view, how do I know which one is going to render if I hit Cmd-R, or click the render button?-- Morgan
-- Morgan
You still have to have your mouse active in one, and I'm pretty sure that's the one DS is going to choose. If your mouse is over in Scene Tab or somewhere it'll probably go with the last one you directly manipulated. I'm willing to be corrected if I'm wrong, though, we're getting on in the day and Mr. Brain is not working as optimally.
One of the viewports in a split view will always be active and that's the one that will be used. It would be nice to have visual feedback but clicking in the one you want is a good safety procedure.
I know this is OT for this thread, but speaking of the mouse over the viewport how do I get rid of the flashing with the pointer tool. We had the option before but I can't find it in 4.8. Not in tools or prefs..where is it?
Does anyone have any tips for minimizing fireflies? I just did a bunch of tests and here's what I learned:
- Rendered a fairly dark interior room, 5 EV with three light bulb-like emitters, 700 L, 2900K -
Render 1: Stopped manually at 87% after 7.5 minutes, 1100 intinerations. Noticeable fireflies.
Render 2: Finished at 100% after 28.5 minutes, 4423 itinerations. VERY slight decrease in fireflies.
Render 3: Finished at 100% after 15 minutes, 2320 itinerations. Nominal Luminance (under Firefly Filter Enable) set to 5, Noise Filter set to On with default settings. Slightly less bright fireflies, but the exact same amount as Render 2.
I was going to try raising Quality, but do you have any recommendations? Do you think raising it to 2 would have any noticeable effect? Any advice is appreciated.