Please help me find my way out of the dark!
I'm learning DAZ and would appreciate it if someone can tell me exactly how I can identify where my lights and cameras are. I set up a lovely scene, try to render it, only to find the whole thing is almost completely dark! I suspect that the lights are someplace behind the wall in the scene, but I don't know how to identify their location or aim them to their targets. I know this probably sounds elementary to seasoned users, but I would really like to fix this problem. Thanks for your help. --- Victorio
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If you select them and have one of the node manipualtion tools active (such as the Universal tool) then you will see a widget in the viewport centred on the item's centre point. It may be easierst to switch to Perspective View so you can look around without messing up your camera view. You can also pick lights from the camera/view list (top-right corner of the viewport) and look through them to get an idea of where they are and to adjust their placement.
"Top View", at least for relatively small scenes, is sometimes most helpful for figuring out relative placements.
It is also possible that your light settings are not "high" enough. Are you using any of the DAZ Studio lights, or a pre-made light set? If the latter, then is it made for Iray?
Hey Victorio! Welcome.
So I'm including a screen capture of my DS. (Forgive the abundance of purple. I have recently changed the color scheme of DS. And I'm using the City Limits layout, so if my DS doesn't look like yours, don't worry. The location of where you want to go is pretty much the same.)
To view through your camera, or through your lights (for staging purposes) go to the drop down menu inside of the Viewport tab. I've labeled it with a white arrrow for you. As you can see in my screen capture, you can see I have a camera and a spotlight in my scene. Selecting on any of the cameras or lights from this drop down menu will change the view port, as though you are looking through the camera or the light. This is very helpful for making sure your camera and lights are pointing where you want them.
As Richard pointed out, if you also have the light you're looking through selected in the scene tab, it will bring up a gizmo that will show you the center of your light beam. This is extremely handy for aiming your lights, so I recommend you familiarize yourself with this practice.
Hopefully you find this useful.
As for other reasons why your scene renders dark - 1. you're using 3DL lights with the Iray render engine. In this situation you need to make sure your lumens on your light are cranked up. 2. Your lights aren't illuminating what you want or what you think. See my above method to point your lights into your scene. Sometimes lights get caught in the ceiling and moving them down help. But sometimes doing that brings your light into your scene which isn't what you want. In that case, go into your lights tab and adjust the beam spread angle. That will usually get you the coverage you want without having to worry about moving the light too far into your scene. 3. You've been running DS for a long time. Sometimes DS gets cranky like this, particularly if you have a lot of objects in your scene and you're working on an older/slower computer. Save your scene and reboot DS (sometimes it may require a full system reboot) and then open your scene and re-render it.
If none of these solve your problem, then we'd need to know more about what it is you're rendering - what kind of lights are you using? Are you rendering in 3DL or Iray?
Yeah, I have noticed the exact same thing from time to time - I can't put my finger on it but it seems to occur when I switch, in some way, between various 3DL and Iray lighting; like if I've been doing Iray for a while and then in a burst of experimentation I try switching to 3DL.
And I very often go down a rabbit hole of creativity on my old, slow computer, barely stopping to come up for air. Next thing I know things are no longer working and I have to re-boot. At these times ONLY my recent in-progress backups will save me... how did you know?!!
I'm going to have to think about the part about "looking at the scene through the light". I've never encountered this concept before. Camera yes; "light" - no.
Looking through the light to aim it was something I first encountered in Bryce 3.0. Eventually DS picked it up and made my life so much easier. I love using this function.
And as for the antics of DS going wonky like that, it's so completely arbitrary for me. I can go for days and it's just fine and then next time it'll be on for five minutes and act like it was so very put upon and taxed. Lol.
Wow! THANK YOU. I am amazed at the quality of support from all of you who responded to my qestion regarding the lack of lighting in my scene. I was using the Holiday Nook for a background. I will follow your advice and go back to try again.
I do have another question: When I installed DAZ Studio, it naturally went to Drive C: However, my C Drive is small and will fill up quickly with all the great products I've discovered from DAZ. I'd like to know the best way to move all my DAZ purchases (and perhaps Daz Studio itsef) from the C: hard disk to my larger D: drive. Any body out there who has done this?
Victorio - I have the same problem on my laptop. My C drive is way too small, so I wind up keeping my runtime on an external drive. It's really easy to set up a runtime anywhere you want it. If you use DIM, just click on the gear shaped icon in the upper right corner. Once that window pops up, click on the Installation tab and you will be given the opportunity to navigate to where ever you want to locate your runtime.
Then in DS, all you need to do is tell it to map to your new runtime. In the content tab drop down menu (the four parallel lines and white arror icon) scroll down to Content Directory Manager and then set up the new directory. I can't remember the exact steps at this point, but from what I remember it's pretty easy to stumble onto what to do. Meantime, I'll track down the exact steps, unless someone else speaks up.
Did you use this set alone: http://www.daz3d.com/holiday-nook
Or also the Iray add on? http://www.daz3d.com/holiday-nook-iray-addon
The light sets in the first set are 3Delight, so if you render in the Iray render engine, they will not light the scene. You'd either have to also use the Iray add on, or add your own lights.
There's some light stuff discussed in this thread which might give you a few ideas: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/110771/natural-iray-lighning-for-rooms#latest
There's a lot of good advice here. I often look through the lights, especially my main light, to make sure it is illuminating what I want. I also use top, left, right, front and back views with the preview set to wireframe and the light I am positioning seleted so I can see through the scene objects to position it.
I tend to find in Iray if I am setting the light intensity in lumens I have to set it to a very high number before I can see anything, basically a number with lots of zeroes at the end.
There is one little bug I have seen a few times. Sometimes if there is a wall behind the camera and very close to it the preview shows the camera as being in front of the wall but the render puts it behind and I just get a cloesup of the wall. It doesn't happen often and I don't know if the current version of Studio still has it.
I also find looking through the light, (select light in dropdown menu) the best way to position it in the scene. You can also create your own light from prespective view.
Really? I had no idea. That's handy.
When you create the light, there's a "show options" expander, and you can choose from perspective view. Saves lots of time.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYJ0DGPnofo
You're not talking about iRay.
Who's not talking about Iray? You can create lights in both 3DL scenes and Iray scenes. They're treated differently by the render engines, but you can set them up for either option. Or am I missing your meaning, AndyS?
Create from camera of cause, but shadow parameters are only available for 3Delight.
The dialog he shows in the video is the 3Delight setup.
Oh. I see what you're saying. Yes. The video First Bastion posted was made back before we had Iray available as a render engine. But the process of creating a light from the perspective camera is still the same for both 3DL and Iray. I just checked. Now, of course lights are treated differently in 3DL and Iray. You are correct in that Iray lights do not have the ability to have shadows turned off or on.
But as for creating lights from the perspective camera, it works for both scenarios.
Thanks Bee. Yes, you are correct. I was using the original Holiday nook with Iray and got nothing. I then discovered the Iray add on. That got me a little light, but not much. I guess I need to increase the intensity.
Thank all of you for your help!