Lost Black Background on Rendering - Still have it in viewport
jukingeo
Posts: 757
Hello All!
I have run into a bit of a problem with one of my renders. Now from what I gather, this is only happening to this particular render. What happens is that I have lost the black background when making a night setting on a main render, however, the background is still there in the view port. Please see pictures:
Now I have made sure the enviroment settings are correct as I always set it up with the Environment intensity set to 0 and the Draw Dome is set to "on".
Within Daz Studio, the render below (right), instead of a black background, I get the gray checkerboard. Outside of Daz Studio, the checkerboard appears as a flat white background as you see. Now, the kicker is that if I try to change the environment settings to "1.00" to show the dome, nothing happens. I still get the checkerboard pattern. Now, this is only happening in an actual render, not the viewport render, which is the picture ojn the left. In the viewport, everything is working fine.
I had tested this on another render when I had encountered the problem and that render worked fine. So the issue is with this particular render. Somehow, I must have "brushed against" some setting to have caused this. I had worked too long on this render to scrap it and start over, so I would like to see if it can be fixed.
Thank you,
Geo
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Are you using the environment for lighting?
Anyway, I would suggest you turn Draw Dome to Off, and set Environment to Backdrop, and set it to black in the Environment tab (not Environment in Render Settings).
The checkerboard pattern means there is no image in the white/black area. If I'm remembering correctly, if you save the image as a PNG. It won't become solid white when you open it up in a viewing program. Just the checkerboard pattern again. Then you can simply edit in photoshop or GIMP as @FJM1977 said.
Another option you can use is the ENVIRONMENT pane. Select WINDOW>PANES(TABS)>ENVIRONMENT. Then change the TYPE from NONE to BACKGROUND. Then change the color as desired.
Best of luck!
Did as you suggested. Sorry, it didn't work.
...interesting, What are you using for the background, an HDRI or a flat image?
Are you saving the render (save to file) as a PNG?
If you definately are...
You don't put in the OP what background you do have selected. Even if you are using an HDRI, try setting the above noted to [black].
I've done eight test renders with DRAW DOME on and off. Saved all of them as the four options available (JPG, TIF, PNG, BMP). All of them ended up the same. Solid black background. The only thing I can suggest is to take a screenshot of your render settings and share them so we can see what the issue might be.
...OK just ran a couple tests and found the issue,
Check to make sure the "Visible in render" control (at the bottom of the Environment tab) is set to "on".. Even with it "off" Iray view mode will still render.
The first render attachement below is with the "visible in render" control turned off while the scene is with it turned on.
Okay...
Below are my environment settings on both renders. If you look carefully, these are full renders in a window and not the viewport. On my render on the left, it exhibits the problem. Now I kept the same settings, cleared the render AND the file for it. In the second photo, I only placed the Female Centaur and ran the render again. Low and behold, the black background shows up. Looking further to the right, the background settings are set to NONE, so that isn't affecting it.
Any assitance appreciated as I don't want to have to redo the entire render. I am sure some setting, someplace is blown off. And yes, in the first picture, I have tried to delete the items in the shot and render it with only the Centaur, and vice versa. I still get the checkerboard on render.
In your 2nd image, it seems that Headlamp on Camera is turned on / Auto or Auto Headlamp in Render Settings is set as When No Scene Light. Then with 0 set in Environment Intensity + Draw Dome, you just got a black background. Check if that's the case ~~
Hello All!
I'm back! I think I might have solved my own problem.
What I have done is to see what was the difference between this particlar render and another one. I have noticed the appearance of an additional tab on the left called "Canvases" (left attached picture). Investigating, I opened this up and looked over the settings (picture 2). None of this made sence to me, but I had noticed that there is another "Canvases" tab on top and on a render that is working, this is empty. I had noticed the little "C" (for clear) button on the left and pushed it. This cleared the canvas settings out and made it blank. I tried the render button again and low and behold (picture 3), it worked!
Now, the question I have is what is that "Canvases" tab used for and how come it disrupted my render in the first place?
Well, thanks for the help anyway, but I guess with a little poking around, I found the issue on my own. Still, this is good information if this happens to someone else. I guess I might have accidentally make some kind of button combination by mistyping to create the canvases as I know, for certain, I didn't do it purposely. Thankfully, I was able to easily remove them and restore full operation to my render and got my black background back.
Geo
Edit: I had found a faster way of doing things and I selected the "Defaults" button next to the "Render" button and then to get my settings back, I undid this with Ctrl-Z. The Canvases tab on the left disappears and I get my black background back. So doing it this way works too.
...I never use Canvasses as I utually don't do extensive postwork, but yes, that would have caused the ieeue