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Can't get sky or ground to appear in Iray Sun-Sky mode renders

CrissieBCrissieB Posts: 195
in New Users

I'm learning DAZ Studio and experimenting with the Pergola set (from the Barefoot Dancer tutorial). I've placed some mesh lights and set it to render with Sun-Sky Only. The problem: I don't get any sky or ground in the render. I get only blank whiteness with some ground shadows.

 

Before you say "Make sure Draw Dome and Draw Ground are ON" ... they are. Here are all of my Render Environment Settings:

Environment Mode: Sun-Sky Only

Dome Mode: Infinite Sphere w/Ground

Draw Dome: ON

Environment Intensity: 1.00 (Default)

Environment Lighting Resolution: 512 (Default)

Environment Lighting Blur: Off (Default)

Dome Orientation (X,Y,Z): 0 (Default)

Dome Rotation: 0 (Default)

SS Sun Node: None (Should I choose an object for this?)

SS Latitude/Longitude: 40.76, 74.0 (Manhattan)

SS Date/Time: 5/14/2015, 8:35pm (Just after sunset)

SS UTC Offset: -6 hours (U.S. East Coast time)

SS Sun Disk Intensity: 0.5 (Reduced to make it dimmer)

SS Sun Disk Scale: 4 (Default)

SS Sun Glow Intensity: 0.5 (Reduced to make it dimmer)

SS Physically Scaled Sun: ON (Default)

SS Haze: 3.0 (It’s never perfectly clear in Manhattan)

SS Blue-Red Tint: 0 (Default)

SS Saturation: 1.0 (Default)

SS Horizon Blur: 0.1 (Default
SS Night Color: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 (Black, Default)

SS Multiplier: 0.1 (Default)

SS RGB Unit Conversion: 1.00 (Default)

SS Ground Color: 0.0066, 0.020, 0.00 (Forest Green)

Ground Texture Scale: 100 (Default)

Ground Position Mode: Auto (Default)

Ground Origin (X,Y,Z): 0 (Default)

Draw Ground: ON

Ground Shadow Intensity: 1.00 (Default)​

 

Comments

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    What are your tonemapping settings...because it is sounding like you have a rather overexposed image.

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,482
    edited January 2016

    Also, the Sun Sky mode doesn't really do much in the way of a realistic sky or ground. So you may be expectng too much from Sun and Sky, I mean the light is great... but it ain't much to look at.

    Post edited by evilded777 on
  • CrissieBCrissieB Posts: 195

    I had the Latitude set wrong. Manhattan is at 74W, so that should be -74 in DAZ terms. I also had the UTC offset wrong. July is Daylight Savings Time and that's UTC-4, not UTC-6. I corrected those and tried another test render. I also reset the SS Sun Disk Intensity and SS Sky Glow Intensity to 1.00 (the default).

    Still no background. Just stark whiteness from the edge of the set out to the horizon, and across the sky.

    @mjc: The scene is a conversation between two actors who are facing each other, so I'm using a standard Look R/L setup: one camera looking over Crissie's right shoulder at Karin (Look R), and a second camera looking over Karin's left shoulder at Crissie (Look L). As the Pergola set is open on three sides, at least one of those camera angles will see past the edge of the set, no matter how I place the actors.

    The set, actors, and props render beautifully. But the background beyond the edge of the set is stark white ... no sky, no ground.

    @evilded777: I don't need or want the background to be gorgeous. I just need it to be there. Right now, there's no background at all.

  • CrissieBCrissieB Posts: 195

    Problem Solved! The Environment>Backdrop must be set to NONE to show the sky/ground in Sun-Sky Only mode!

    ​I tried a test render with these settings on a blank scene, and got exactly what I wanted: dark ground out to the horizon, beneath a lovely, golden sky.

    But when I tried it on my set ... still stark whiteness beyond the edge of the set.

    Then I spotted the Environment tab (beneath the Scene tab in the City Limits Lite window layout). I clicked it and found that my Backdrop was set to White. (Maybe it was set for the tutorial scene.) Ah-HAH! I changed the Backdrop to NONE ... and there was my dark ground out to the horizon, beneath a lovely golden sky.

  • jestmartjestmart Posts: 4,449

    Set to Sun-Sky Only the mesh lights you added will not be used.

  • CrissieBCrissieB Posts: 195

    @jestmart Photometric lights don't work in Sun-Sky Only mode, but mesh lights do.

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