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WIP THREAD FOR NEW USERS CONTEST, December 2012

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  • Miss BMiss B Posts: 3,071
    edited December 1969

    I've had the same problem. I put a spotlight pointing down inside a lampshade hoping it would light up the table the lamp is on, but noooooo, it went through the table top and lit up the floor and table legs instead.

    I, too, would love to know how to get this accomplished. I'm using DS 3 Advanced and DS 4.0 Pro, in case it's done differently with the available lights in each.

  • bluemoon_524a0e29babluemoon_524a0e29ba Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    HeraldOfFire said:
    Okay, I give in. I'm sure there must be a way to do this, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. I have a spotlight trained on Sam's midsection for one of the main lights. As is evident in the image above, however, there's an obvious 'hot spot' on the floor to the right where the light hits it. There's another one on the opposite side, though less obvious due to the weaker light.

    Now I'd love very much to minimize this effect or neutralize it entirely for a more natural effect. Any ideas? Spotlights don't seem to have any falloff settings. My current way of thinking is to shove point lights into tubes to direct the light and use that falloff effect instead. An easier method would be preferred though.

    One way to get the effect you want is by doing two renders and then compositing them in an image editor.

    1. Render the full scene with the problem spotlight turned off.

    2. Hide everything in the scene except for Sam the two girls and the chair, turn the spotlight on and render again saving the render as a .png.

    3. In an image editor use layers to the first render on the bottom layer and the second render on the top layer.

    I hope this helps you.

  • kittenwyldekittenwylde Posts: 151
    edited December 1969

    Okay, been working on my image, finally. Everything was going along just peachy until I noticed I'm having a problem getting the hair to look like hair. It looks more like somebody dropped a wig made out of paper strips on the poor dude's head. I've had this problem in the past, and have never been very good at getting rid of it. Using Pure Hair Casual, which looks just awesome in the promo pics. But it's driving me bonkers. Any ideas what I need to do to fix it? Here's a nice example. And yes, I know there's a lot of things screwy with the image itself, but feel free to point out anything not lighting-related (which is painfully obviously not done yet) in case I'm missing anything. Oh, and I know his shirt is becoming at one with the rock. ;-)

    deccontest2.jpg
    600 x 800 - 373K
  • ZamuelNowZamuelNow Posts: 753
    edited December 1969

    HeraldOfFire said:
    Okay, I give in. I'm sure there must be a way to do this, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. I have a spotlight trained on Sam's midsection for one of the main lights. As is evident in the image above, however, there's an obvious 'hot spot' on the floor to the right where the light hits it. There's another one on the opposite side, though less obvious due to the weaker light.

    Now I'd love very much to minimize this effect or neutralize it entirely for a more natural effect. Any ideas? Spotlights don't seem to have any falloff settings. My current way of thinking is to shove point lights into tubes to direct the light and use that falloff effect instead. An easier method would be preferred though.

    Hmm...have you tried adjusting the ray length? I'm not able to experiment with it myself right now but that would seem to make sense to force the falloff.

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 2012

    ZamuelNow said:
    HeraldOfFire said:
    Okay, I give in. I'm sure there must be a way to do this, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. I have a spotlight trained on Sam's midsection for one of the main lights. As is evident in the image above, however, there's an obvious 'hot spot' on the floor to the right where the light hits it. There's another one on the opposite side, though less obvious due to the weaker light.

    Now I'd love very much to minimize this effect or neutralize it entirely for a more natural effect. Any ideas? Spotlights don't seem to have any falloff settings. My current way of thinking is to shove point lights into tubes to direct the light and use that falloff effect instead. An easier method would be preferred though.

    Hmm...have you tried adjusting the ray length? I'm not able to experiment with it myself right now but that would seem to make sense to force the falloff.

    That was my first thought, but Ray Length is only for visual purposes in the editor, it has no actual effect on the light itself. I did another version with raytracing and soft shadows, but it left Sam looking rather more faded than I wanted.

    I'm doing a composite instead as it seems to be the least painful option to fix this little issue.I've had the same problem. I put a spotlight pointing down inside a lampshade hoping it would light up the table the lamp is on, but noooooo, it went through the table top and lit up the floor and table legs instead.

    I, too, would love to know how to get this accomplished. I'm using DS 3 Advanced and DS 4.0 Pro, in case it's done differently with the available lights in each.Actually, if you use raytracing, then the table will stop the light from progressing. you can apply some softness to the shadows to help it integrate into the scene better.

    Post edited by Herald of Fire on
  • ZamuelNowZamuelNow Posts: 753
    edited December 1969

    HeraldOfFire said:
    That was my first thought, but Ray Length is only for visual purposes in the editor, it has no actual effect on the light itself.

    That's...odd. Almost sounds like a glitch to be honest.

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    ZamuelNow said:
    HeraldOfFire said:
    That was my first thought, but Ray Length is only for visual purposes in the editor, it has no actual effect on the light itself.

    That's...odd. Almost sounds like a glitch to be honest.It's so you can visualize where the rays will strike. Increasing the Ray Length extends the length of the cone in Daz so you can check whether certain areas will be lit or not. That's why it's found under the "Display" section rather than the "Light" section. Personally, I find it easier to switch to 'light cam' to see what's affected, but each to their own.

    Using a composite turned out rather nicely though. Here's the tidier version, which I feel is about ready for submitting.

    Xmas_Final.jpg
    800 x 800 - 385K
  • GrazeGraze Posts: 418
    edited December 1969

    bluemoon said:
    HeraldOfFire said:
    Okay, I give in. I'm sure there must be a way to do this, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. I have a spotlight trained on Sam's midsection for one of the main lights. As is evident in the image above, however, there's an obvious 'hot spot' on the floor to the right where the light hits it. There's another one on the opposite side, though less obvious due to the weaker light.

    Now I'd love very much to minimize this effect or neutralize it entirely for a more natural effect. Any ideas? Spotlights don't seem to have any falloff settings. My current way of thinking is to shove point lights into tubes to direct the light and use that falloff effect instead. An easier method would be preferred though.

    One way to get the effect you want is by doing two renders and then compositing them in an image editor.

    1. Render the full scene with the problem spotlight turned off.

    2. Hide everything in the scene except for Sam the two girls and the chair, turn the spotlight on and render again saving the render as a .png.

    3. In an image editor use layers to the first render on the bottom layer and the second render on the top layer.

    I hope this helps you.

    For those who may not have an image editor with the layer option, this is another way:

    1. Render the scene without Sam, the two girls, the chair, and the problem spotlight. Save render.

    2. Hide everything in the scene and unhide Sam, the two girls, the chair, and the problem spotlight.

    3. Load that saved render into Daz Studio as a background image.

    Bonus : No halo effect that comes with .png

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 2012

    Ray length is just a visual guide only. The lights for Daz Studio that have Fall Off are Linear Point lights, Area Lights, Homemade Shader Mixer lights and Uber Point and Spot lights.

    HeraldOfFire nicely done.

    sithkitten hair is not an easy thing to get right, a lot depends on the quality of the product and the surfaces. I use Uber Hair Shader which is a cut down and tweaked version of UberSurface for hair and I try to buy hair the looks good and has a lot of movement morphs.

    Post edited by Szark on
  • GrazeGraze Posts: 418
    edited December 2012

    The Sounds of Christmas.

    Little kids, with their childlike innocence, are said to be able to see and hear things that others cannot. Like an angel singing.

    Just working on the composition at the moment. Will be starting on the lighting soon.

    z3.jpg
    539 x 620 - 194K
    Post edited by Graze on
  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    Well, I've made some minor cosmetic changes and I'm finally ready to submit my entry. It's early on Christmas Day here, so I won't hang around for long but everyone's still asleep, so I've got a few minutes to spare.

    Good luck fellow competitors, and Merry Christmas!

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    HeraldOfFire seen it and sweet stuff......Just shows if you push yourself outside your comfort zone then things happen. But you could be suffering the side effects of your image been chosen the other day by Ippotamus. :)

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    Not sure what you mean by side effects. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? o.O

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Trust me it is a good thing...

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Just thought I would share what I made for the Area Light tutorial using Area Base preset on the two light bulbs thenselves and one Area Sphere in the fireplace and UberEn2 for a little fill light and postwork

    nooke_copy.jpg
    807 x 1100 - 859K
  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    Nice effect. My use of area lights has been pretty basic. Mostly experimentation, though the overall light filling in my christmas entry was done using a giant area light from above. From my own very basic experiments it seems that big light = less light. Like the total light is divided up across the surface. I also tend to get unusual results when using anything other than flat area lights.

    I'm definitely looking forward to seeing your tutorial on them so I can put them to better use.

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Nearly finsihed

    You are correct that the bigger the surface area the less light is emitted and vice versa. I have included that in my tutorail.

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Ok tut up for review in the CV's private section so as soon as it has the go ahead I will be posting it.

  • Miss BMiss B Posts: 3,071
    edited December 1969

    Kewl, I look forward to seeing it. Will you be posting it in a new thread?

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    yep but with many CV's on holiday I can't say when it wll get reviewed. :(

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Hmm, when CloudFlare stops raining on everyone's parade ?

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Don't and haven't had any issues with that cho...must be good timing by me. :)

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Hmm, how come you get to be so special. Just a small query, are you using terrestrial broadband, as we had one or 2 occasions when the Cloud seemed to be singling out British users, all except one who was beaming his signal down from an orbiting satellite.

    So are you Extraterrestrial or do you have your feet firmly on the ground like the rest of us did.

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 2012

    Virgin which is terrestrial and I only got the Cloud splash screen once in the last week, hence why I said my timing was good. :)
    But I am an Extraterrestrial with my feet firmly on the ground

    Post edited by Szark on
  • Miss BMiss B Posts: 3,071
    edited December 1969

    Szark said:
    yep but with many CV's on holiday I can't say when it wll get reviewed. :(
    Not a problem, I can wait until it's ready.

    Hmm, when CloudFlare stops raining on everyone's parade ?


    Oh so it's not just us good folks on the "other side of the pond" that are having problems with CloudFlare.
  • GrazeGraze Posts: 418
    edited December 1969

    Added some lighting. No postwork yet. The colors on the wings are just a bunch of point lights.

    xx.jpg
    539 x 620 - 206K
  • Security16Security16 Posts: 79
    edited December 1969

    Egads i did a test render on my scene and PESKY HAIR IS IN EVERYTHING! Is there a way you can get hair to "flow" more naturally without having to spend hours stuffing around with morph translations :(

    test.png
    1500 x 1500 - 2M
  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    LOL Not really apart from using deformers or using the collision mod BUT in order to use the collision mod you would need to save the female and child with clothing out as an OBJ then you would set the hair to collide with that obj BUT in my experience when using the collision mod the smoothing aspect of the mods can thin out the hair even when smoothing is set to 1.

  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Security 16 said:
    Egads i did a test render on my scene and PESKY HAIR IS IN EVERYTHING! Is there a way you can get hair to "flow" more naturally without having to spend hours stuffing around with morph translations :(
    What? You dont enjoy the hours needed to get some hairs to do what they need? Me either, but it really is the only way to fix some things in my experiance. I do wish more hairs came with linked morphs for fast easy set up. I use one that has 149 morphs, none of them linked, I must edit each just a little bit to get things just right.
  • Security16Security16 Posts: 79
    edited December 1969

    I futzed with it some more and changed the hair colours and just decided i'm probably going to have to do some postwork WHICH I DESPISE! and i added some stuff to the background to make it a bit less blank. Any thoughts or suggestions on how i could improve so i can dry my eyes out some more in front of the screen :P

    Xmas2012.jpg
    703 x 800 - 109K
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