Lights don't shed any light in scene (Iray)
So, I have this Iray scene where no light works. I tried spotlights, distant lights, point lights. None of them shed any light. The only sources of light working are the dome and the camera headlamp. Whether the environment mode is set on "dome and scene" or "scene only" changes nothing : still no light. Changing the intensity or the photometrics of the light sources changes nothing (I went up to several millions lumens right in the face of the character to no avail). I don't remember ever having this problem before.
Any idea of what could be causing this?
ETA : for the record, I tried to render the scene in 3Dlight, and there lights work normally. Also lights work normally in other scenes. It's not a general problem, only specific to this scene. And it's an outdoor scene. And finally, the lights appear normally in the viewport. The problem only appears when I switch to Iray view or try to render the scene.
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I don't know what is the issue, but I do know when you create a light with 3Delight active, the Photometric Mode is off and the parameter is Hidden. If it were me, I'd make sure the render engine is Iray and create a new spotlight. I would then select the old light, hit Ctrl+C, select the new light, and hit Ctrl+V, and then set Photometric Mode to On in the Parameters tab. (And any other settings like Lumens.)
Then I'd try a test render. If the new light worked, I do the same for all the lights in the scene.
I have the same issues, only the lamp from my camera seem to be working, I add multiple lights and set their values at 200% and my scene is still in total darkness...
Percentage is for 3Delight lights, for Iray it is lums that you adjust.
Thanks I will try this out.
I didn't know that you could use ctrl C ctrl V in Daz studio. That's very interesting.
On the other hand, it had no effect because new lights, like the old ones, don't work. Also, I didn't find a "photometric mode" in Parameters. There's a photometrics tab, if it's what you're refering to, but no "mode".
I started a new scene immediately after, and in this new scene, lights didn't work, either (I did several scenes during the last days without any light problem). I left Daz Studio, restarted it, started a scene, and lights worked. So, whatever the problem is with this scene, it's "contagious", and you need to quit Daz Studio to solve it (for new scenes. As far as I can tell, scenes where the problem happens stay corrupted).
I solved the issue by creating a new scene, adding lights (that worked) and merging it with the old scene (where lights didn't work). And not only the new lights kept working, but the old lights that didn't work worked perfectly once transfered to the new scene, so now I just have to render it without redoing anything.
I assume that the file of this scene was corrupted in some way or another.
Without redoing anything, almost... the environment map has changed, which makes sense. And since I've no clue where to find the original environment map, I guess I'll have to restart the scene anyway.
OK, I figured out what the problem was, but I don't understand *why* it is a problem.
I'm using this environment : https://www.daz3d.com/willow-creek
In it are included "renders". I noticed them in other products, but I'm not sure what they are, really. In any case, those "renders" include a new lighting. I guess coming from a modification of the skydome, correct me if I'm wrong. Thing is, once you've clicked on one of these "renders", you can't add any new light. Well, you can, but they don't work. It doesn't seem you can "undo" it, either.
I don't really understand what these "renders" are, and don't really understand why and how they prevent me to add new lights to the scene. If someone could shed some light (ah!) on this issue, it would be helpful.
I thnk you are referring to Render Settings, and one of the settings effected maybe that the render is being set to be lit by the environment map alone and for it to ignore any lights. Under Render Settings-->Editor-->Environment check and see if the first drop down box "Environment Mode" is set to "Dome and Scene". "Dome Only" would tell it to only use the skydome and ignore other lights.
No. I tried with "dome and scene", and even "scene only" without success.
What I call "renders" : in products, you have "props" : you click on it, and a prop appears. You have "materials" : you click on it and your prop changes color. And in some environments, you have "renders", and I'm not sure what they are exactly. In this case, you click on one of the "renders" and the light changes, the viewport changes shape, and...you can't add lights anymore, for whatever reason. Here's a screenshot of the "renders" :
Those "Render" things are camera/light settings that allow you to reproduce the Promo Pics for Willow Creek.
(I've no idea why you are not able to add extra lights to one of those scenes, though)
Ah, I just switched on my DS rendering PC and tried loading Willow Creek. The render presets all use a render Environment Mode of Sun-Sky Only, which does indeed ignore any scene lights you may add.
If you switch the Environment Mode to Dome and Scene, you run into a different problem, which is that there is a cylindrical object called tdfBackdrop which fills the background of the scene with images of trees. But this blocks most of the light from the default environment (HDRI map) or from any distant light loaded in the default position. I tried adding a distant light angled from well above the scene and a spotlight within the tdfBackdrop cylinder and they do then show up as long as they are set to sufficiently high lumens values.
I said that I don't understand what they are, because clicking on them dosn't change the camera focus. The camera stays where it is, simply changing the aspect ratio and pixel size. It clearly adds ligth, but I'm not sure where this light comes from since no new light source appears. So, I'm not sure what it does, really..
Well, they do show up, but don't give any light for me. As I wrote before, even a spotlight set at 3 millions lumens near the face of a character doesn't change anything. In fact, if I switch to scene only and remove the headlamp, leaving spotlights as the only sources of light, I just get a black image.
To be specific : the light of the spotlight appears in the work screen, but not in Iray preview or in the render.
Willow Creek comes with numerous Cameras, with render setting presets for each camera. These cameras and settings will give you the same image as the artistic promo images on the product page. Basically, camera 1 and render settings for camera 1 go together; Camera 2 and render settings for camera 2 go together; and so on. Of course, you can use any camera you want with the render settings..
Well sorry, but when I said "show up" I meant that I can see their light in the rendered image. That only happens though when I have changed the environment mode in the render tab to "Dome and Scene" or "Scene Only". I used a spotlight with 1,500,000 lumens pointing at one of the trees plus a distant light with 1,500,000 lumens pointing over the backdrop cylinder prop and while not really bright, they illuminated my scene enough to see detail.
Then maybe there was in fact something wrong with my scene/file, since for me regular lights (spotlights and distant lights) weren't working at all (the headlamp was).
@odastein, When I mentioned above that the Render Setting presets for the Cameras set up the lighting used for the promo image for that camera, I failed to mention these render settings set the Environment Mode to Sun-Sky Only. In that Environment Mode, Daz Studio Lights, (Create->New [Light],) won't work. Only the Sun and Sky settings. If you change the mode to Dome and Scene or Scene Only, you will be able to use the Lights, but you'll lose the lighting that Stonemason set up.
While the Daz Studio Lights won't work in the Sun-Sky Only mode, so called "Mesh Lights" will work, as they are really just emissive objects. I used this set and render settings for an image recently, (here, if you're interested—best viewed full-size,) and I used Ghost Lights to add light on the bear's face and bring out more of the details.
I hope this info will help.
I had something similar happen to me not too long ago. In my case, I somehow accidentally set the "Max Iterations" render setting to 0. This resulted in a very fast all black render.
I found the issue by looking at the log file. If you don't find the cause in the log file, then try setting your Render Settings to the default values by clickig the "Default" button in the top right corner of the Render Settings tab.
The log file can be found under Help->Trouble Shooting->View Log File
As I said, I had switched to "dome and scene" and even "scene only", and lights still didn't work. :( (except the headlamp, and I didn't try emissives)
Beautiful image, by the way.
Not the same problem. I had this issue only with this particular environment. Lights worked just fine with all other scenes, both before and after.
Some screenshots of your Render Settings, Scene Tree, and maybe even a screenshot showing the light in the scene and the parameters on the light would help.
Given that it's a Stonemason set, we can rule out that it's a poorly designed product.
Also, keep in mind that if you set it to "Dome and Scene" and THEN click one of the "Render Presets", it is going to change your environment setting back to "Sun and Sky". You don't have to load the "Render" files every time you want to render the image. just once to setup the settings to match the promo. After that, I always render using the blue Render button on the Render Settings pane.
Noob here to Daz3D, but I got stuck in this issue as well but somehow I figured it out.
The trick is to raise the Luminous Flux Value in the light parameters to something a lot higher than the default: I set it at 100000 and that made the light illuminate the scene.
This workaround works with distant, point and spotlights.
It is also very important to set the Environment Mode correctly as well: Daz3D lights will only illuminate your scene with "Dome and Scene" and "Scene Only". "Dome Only" and "Sun-Sky Only" modes will only light your scene respectvely only with the Dome and the Sun-Sky environment and ignore all Daz3D lights in the scene.
Cheers,
Giancarlo
So anyon know how to get any of the lights to actually work in daz?
Omg I got it you have to turn the lumen up sssssssooooo high I had to put it at 10000000 be for I could even see it sorry thank you everyone!
Did you try adjusting the Tone Mapping in Render Settings or via the Tonemapper Options node? Exposure (or ISO, fStop, and Shutter Speed in some combination) will control the overall brightness, gamma and the crush/burn settings will cotnrol the balance between light and dark. It should not be necessary to make the lights excessively bright, just remember that the defaults are for a bright day outside so will not suit an interior scene. Theer is an auto-exposur widget, though I've never had much success with it - set the Viewport to nVidia Iray preview mode (by clicking the sphere next to the button for picking the current camera/view at top-right of the Viewport) and an little exposure +/- icon will appear, click that then click a sample point in the Viewport that should be well lit but not overlit.
I found a reason，If I select the light from the panel it won't work, but I choose to create a new light at the top and it works，I don't know if it's the same problem as you.
after google searching "Daz 3d how to brighten render with scene lights" this post was the top link so I clicked on it after reading all the comments I changed all my spotlight Luminous Flux to 1500000.0 like you said you set your spotlights to and it worked great now I have that on a sticky note so all I have to do is copy-paste it now if only I knew of a way to make it to where it is a default setting and I will not have to copy past it again and thank you for the tip MelanieL
In general it's best to adjust Tone mapping to relfect the amount of light in the scene, rather than ramping a tablelamp up to a floodlight. Cretae>New Tonemapper Options if you don't initially have access.