StageFX Pro Beams
kwannie
Posts: 870
I have a few questions about StageFX Pro beams. Does anyone know if it is possible to have more than the four beams that are present in the presets? I know it is possible to parent the beams to other objects but can you actually have more than four at a time? Is it possible to get the beams to work in Iray, if not does anyone know of a beam product like this that works in Iray. I know this product is getting a bit old now but the fog effects with animation and beam controlability and even forr effects have not been matched. Stage Hand has a lot of very nice props but no beams or atmosphere. Any info would be appreciated.
Kwan
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I don't think it works in DS 4, and it's surely for 3DL. An alternative would be https://www.daz3d.com/atmospheric-effects-cameras-for-daz-studio, some functionality has been lost but the easy volume cam and fog cam still work in 3DL.
Here's a couple of renders made with the easy volume cam:
I'm only rendering in 3DL so don't know the IRay products, you have to search the store;)
I thought the EZ volume cam was broken after 4.5?
Oh actually Sven, I know it works in DS 4, I am actually using it in DS4.10, but I would like to be able to use it with come G3 characters whose skin looks so much more realistic in IRAY. I have converted several MMD motions into DAZ and I have many of just a single singer performing a concert number. StageFX is the perfect atmosphere for a concert. I have Stage Hand for the design of Stages but its the animatble beams that really make it look great. I would just like to get more than 4 beams in a scene at a time..........................Iray rendering would be a bonus, but I alsos use a lot of toon characters.
Kwan
I'm using it all the time in 4.9;)
Thanks for the heads up! The product page says it's for DS 3 only. Sorry I can't help since I don't have that product, maybe I get it then;) You could ask DAZ product support about it!
I used it once in DS 4.something and it works in Iray since it's a spotlight passing through semi-transparent colored planes.
The only issue I've found is that you need to make sure all your characters and stuff are set and posed before adding the lights because once you do, it will corrupt the last loaded figure in that if you try to adjust a pose, the character will go all wonky.
time to revisit it and see
If you can figure out how to use more than 4 beams hacsart that would be fantastic!
Just load more copies of the prop
Each one is a null with spot lights and textured planes parented to it so each time you load the stage beams, 4 more lights will be added.
Also, once you understand the structure tree for each spotlight, you can remove everything but what you need (often I set a single light and remove everything else, then duplicate that light to addas many as I need)
I hope this helps you. They work in daz 4.9 and in daz 4.10 beta , you can change the colors and the angles. they are made out of little flat panes group together & sadly they only work for 3delight . There is no way to make them work for iray I have tried a dozen times.
I used them to make the headlight fog effect in this animation.
as a friendly reminder you can only use 4 stage lights or load the complete 4 light presets at max at a time. I tried to add more but they won't load if you have the first set loaded . it just reverts back to the perloaded ones. takes a little playing with it to get them to look right in animation because of the moving angles when the camera moves other wise, work for stills great but, still they are made for 3dl not iray
OK, got it now. Just load beams only preset multiple times. That did the trick! Thanks for all the input!
Kwan
To get more than 1 set of lights, load the preset then select the top-most node and go to edit->duplicate->duplicate node heirarchies
They do work in iray, I've rendered 3 or 4 images using stagefx beams using iray. The only thing you need to do is select the spotlight and in the parameters, go to light and change the color of the light to match the color of the "fog" planes.
kaotkbliss, OK I tried your suggestion, but all I get with Iray is what looks like a mask of the beams against an alpha channel (checkered pattern background), or like photo negative with no color just the black shape of the beams.
Kwan
Yes that is exactly the same results I get as well even if i change the 3dl spot to a Iray spot using the lumes setting and converting the fog to uber iray, the fog panes still will need to be converted to iray with their own transmaps or something to get rid of those pixal checker boards. I think its because the 3dl transmaps don't translate to iray well. at least it don't seem to work for me when i convert it to iray. if someone ls is doing it please share how?
The only issue I have about parenting the stage-lights to more than instances or nodes is when your using multiple node spotlights it will follow the original preset that you made the copy from.. which is great if you have no intentions of moving it the spot lights during animation.. My experience has been if you parent more than one instance of the stage-light in multiple nodes, what ever color you change your original spot light to will also change all the other spots in same A,B,C,D, group preset by changing the colors in the rest of the nodes or instances you made copies of . I'd show you a screen shot demo but I'm not on my computer right now. . Yes this is It is a great product, I have used it for years. but its very old and originally made for DAZ3A .. it really needs to be updated to work with Iray and to load multiple instances and still keep the independent setting individual, instead of one preset setting changing all the spots in one group of all your instances. I just hate that .
The onbly checkerboard I'm getting is from the background because I didn't use one.
I am getting the black beams though which is weird because it wasn't that long ago I made a render using the stage beams.
I can select all the planes (easiest to do by right clicking in your scene tree and selecting expand all, then clicking on the top most node of the stage beams, scroll to the last item, then hold shift and left click)
Then apply the iray uber shader, and in the surfaces (with all still selected) find the emmissions option. Reset the temp to default and reset the lumens to default and you will start to see color.
I'll fiddle around some more and see if I can get good beams
*edit*
Ok, after you convert the planes to iray and reset the emissive settings (but not the colors)
Change the Luminence Units to W (other settings will either be way to bright or way too dark) then set the luminence to like 10,000
Ivy, I appreciate your input. I would love to find a way to recreate stages in DAZ that look and function like the ones used in the MikuMikuDance idolm@ster performances ( do a search for mmd idolm@ster REST@RT, or READY!!) Those stages come from the the XBOX game series but so they are hard to find in FBX, PMX or OBJ format, even then they have all knds of bells and whistles like light strings, animated color tiles in floors and walls and of course light beams and lasers. I have no idea how to get all those effects to work in DAZ. Stage Hand has a few of those features but again it only works in Iray, with emmisive settings. I am always trying to find stages akin to the old school TV variety shows from Japan in the 70's and 80's during the "Pink Lady" era. LOL, I actually have a lot of MMD motions for the old school singing groups. So I am trying to apply the more realistic Daz Characters to the old school performances. If you have and leads on free stage resources please let me know. I have Stage FX and Stage Hand............(certainly wasn't free) but, I and not very handy with the stage design aspect. Thanks!!
did you change the orginal spot light? then click the spot light & change to photoreal and then push up the lumens?
The issue I have is I would have to manually change the spotlight to a new Iray spot . because the old original spot lights does not have a photoreal setting which makes it impossible to work with the original spot light that set came with, because there no way to turn up the lumens, hence leaving you nothing but black
heres' a screen capture of using it in Iray using the original stage fx spotllights there no photoreal settings , so you would need to manually change the spots to iray ones in order for it to work which in that case the presets settings would no longer work unfortunately with the new spot light, those fog transparency maps would ned to be modified for iray to give them the proper glow as well other wise it will look like a flashlight looking through cellophane
I included a screen cap to show now I am home. I never had any luck using this set in iray myself
No, I started off changing the intensity and lumens (When I duplicated the first set, the entire 2nd set had the photorealistic settings) but found they really didn't do anything. so the settings for the actual lights are at default
I can make a iray spot and change it to make it work but the orginal on e does not have the photoreal setting as you can see in this shot where i made and use a iray spot .. I could have adds a fog pane which might have given me fx effect but thats hit or miss doing it that way
Oh I see you made the fog panes iray illumenate instead . thats a great idea never thought of that thanks for sharing that info :) DUH!
That doesn't seem to be important for this particular product as changing the settings doesn't affect the outcome anyway. (in iray)
The only settings that need changed are to convert the planes to uber-iray, reset the temp to default, change the units to W and the strength to around 10,000 (more or less depending on preference)
yeah I see that now , that makes sense I never thought of making the fog panes light up themsevles which is a really great idea and makes this useful for iray .. thank you for sharing that tib bit