Iray Ghost Light MANUAL (PDF) request
Griffin Avid
Posts: 3,763
Why is the idea of a readable, saveable, keepable manual so outside the norm round these parts?
How do so many vendors make so many diverse products and no one wants to make a guide to use them?
Am I crazy? Lost and confused?
I remember years ago, asking "Do You Use Google?!" and RTFM was the snappy reply to anyone who appeared to be asking a lazy question.
A question, with little effort - could be answered rather easily.
How did we get here?
Oh, I'm having render night and using Iray Ghost Light kit by Kindred Arts.
No manual. Okay, what's even better, in the SUPPORT thread where Kindred Arts himself says:
"if you are having any issues and would like support on lighting set ups, or even general queries about the product, let me know!"
THREE posts in is this:
Is there any documentation on how to use this, other than the promo images on the product page? Are there any presets for your architecture products?
He's ignored and told it was easy to figure out and grab the Promo images and make your own manual.
and to add salt to the would, on Deviant, this person is advertising a TUTORIAL which is his cartooned piece of art.
http://marlonbaker.deviantart.com/art/Iray-Ghost-Light-Kit-Tutorial-654308667
Is it me, or is it wild that nothing seems to come with a manual, including Daz itself.
So you know what, I figured it out in 15 minutes.
1) I opened the product file.
2) Picked a PROP light (the arrows indicate which way the light will emit from) and it opened a square checkerboard.
3) I moved the checkerboard and resized it to where I wanted a light source.
4) I hit the (Do this before applying presets box) and the light dissapeared.
5) Went to the presets and picked the bringhest one (the highest nujmber) to see what happens. (Scene looked the same)
6) Trusted Kindred Arts and hit render.
A big smile later, all is well within the Dynamic Universe.
So once again, I'm going to write all this down and include those promo pictures and make my own document.
In 2 weeks, when I do this again, I won't remeber any of this. I'll be too busy trying to figure out some other aspect or product.
Why are manuals so taboo?
I'll construct a mnaual and convert it to pdf is someone knows the deeper aspects like what all the "K" levels really mean and maybe some of the deeper waters the rest of that thread seemed to be heading toward.
Genius would be to find a chart with all the K-levels for more realistic light values...
Like a car's halogen. Your average flashlight....Spot lights...Cozy, sexy lights
Club/disco....
Airplane cabin....
etc...
and maybe some hidden tweaks or general sweet spots....
/rant.
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Comments
I can echo some of your frustration, and add a bit of my own.
Why are readme files for products so hard to find?
Why are there no instructions for new users (or anyone else) explaining how to find readme files?
How can you tell when there are no readme files so you don't waste precious time looking for them?
And most important of all, WHY IS THE SEARCH ENGINE HERE SO USELESS!!!??
I'm well aware that there's a ton of priceless information around here contributed by the community. But without the ability to access it easily and quickly, it may as well not exist. Unlike many around here, I don't have hours and hours day after day to devote to this hobby. My time fiddling around is very limited. When I have a question or a problem, I don't want to spend my limited time doing a search for "how to find product readme files", then wade through EVERY appearance of each word in the string, and often in German or some other language!
I don't have time to post a question and wait for some kind soul to answer it...maybe tomorrow or maybe next week. I abandon projects and walk away from DAZ Studio in frustration more often than I finish projects.
So..maybe I'll go work on figuring out how to make my wife look like a character in Doctor Strange, with cool special effects, and forget about DAZ altogether.
It's not like I don't have anything else to do...
Readmes can be accessed from DIM by clicking the i icon to the right of the item name. In Smart Content's products tab right-click and select More Information. Readme's can also be reached by clicking help at the top of this page, then Documentation Centre, then Product Readmes.
I get 404 errors with a lot of them so I stopped trying.
Will put that in effect. Still, most readmes that I've I have read - have only contained information on where to install the content.
Thanks, @Richard Haseltine , I can always count on you to come through for me, but that's not really what I'm looking for. In a month, when I have forgotten where you said they could be found, and I can't find this email because the search is useless, I'll be right back where I am today. n Frustrated beyond belief.
/begin rant
How are new people supposed to know or find any of this stuff out? I went where I thought any new user would go to learn about useful and needed information:
The New Users' Forum. Nothing. Why not? Why isn't there a sticky there with info about where to find product documentation? Why don't vendors include a link to their documentation on their product page? Why doesn't DAZ insist that that vendors put a link there, or put one there for them? Why isn't there any information about documentation, product readmes or PDF files in My Account > Product Library? Isn't the documentation part of the products we buy? Why isn't it included with the product, and clear instruction about where to find it made obvious to the brand new user?
I've been around for over 3 years, and I STILL can't find stuff that I know exists out there somewhere! How is a new user supposed to find anything?
Richard, you listed multiple ways that product readmes could be accessed. And that's great. But how can I have been here for over 3 years, and never been able to locate that info? And believe me, I've looked and given up many times! I've clicked links only to get the dreaded 404 error. I don't know where to go to find product readmes, and I don't know where to go to find out where to go. Are they located on my computer? Are they on the website somewhere? Is it different for every vendor or every product?
Why can't I find anything without asking in the forums? Because when I ask in the forums, I just know someone is going to say, "This question has been asked and answered many times. Why don't you just look for it yourself." So I always try looking for it myself before asking the same question that has been asked numerous times.
Why can't I find anything easily?
Since there are multiple ways that product readmes can be accessed; there should also be multiple ways telling new users, (or clueless old users) how they can find that information when they go searching for it.
You said: "Readmes can be accessed from DIM by clicking the i icon to the right of the item name." Great. Where does it say that besides in your post? Is there any documentation for how to use DIM, and what the features are? Is it in Studio itself? Where can I find it since searching is a waste of time.
BTW, I went looking in DIM, and found nothing for @marshian 's Reflective Radiance for 3Delight ,which I just bought. Does this mean there is no readme file?
@marshian 's store page for Reflective Radiance for 3Delight, says, "Instructions are included with tips on adjusting surfaces and details about how to get the most out of these realistic lights. See the ReadMe."
I'd love to. Where is it?
You said: "In Smart Content's products tab right-click and select More Information." The only thing I've ever found there is a copy of the Product Store page. That's not a readme file. And why are there so many 404 errors? If needed information is available, it shouldn't be hidden behind a 404 error. Either make the link work, or remove the link.
It can't be that difficult to put much needed information like this someplace obvious where new users, or part time hobbyists can find it easily and quickly without bothering people who have more important things to do than babysit newbies. I expect a steep learning curve when tackling a complicated software program. I do not expect a seep learnign curve tracking down documentation and readmes for the program.
/end rant
Sorry Richard. Not directed at you. But I'm sure you know who it needs to be pointed at.
There is a user guide on the product readme under "Additional Details".
http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/public/read_me/index/37691/37691_reflective-radiance-for-3delight-user-guide_.pdf
To be fair, the i in a circle symbol is a standard sign for information..
Thanks, Lindsey. I know you're trying to be helpful, but the point is...I have never been able to find the readme files.
What I want to know is where to go to find out where the readme files are. I don't want anyone to tell me in a forum post. That's not how it's supposed to work. Clear instructions for newbies (which I still am) should be a minimum requirement for a successful business, shouldn't they? Bringing newbies along so they can focus on learning the software should be a much higher priority than it seems to be around here. We don't even have a FAQ on the New Users page! (ok..we have one for MAC users. Doesn't count...)
Would it be possible to start a FAQ page that LINKS to information that everyone takes for granted, but newbies can't possibly be expected to know? I know various forum regulars have taken it on themselves to link to tutorials on various topics, and that's very helpful!
But wait. Where did I see that tutorial on uber environment shaders?
No idea.
And doing a search won't help. (PLEEAASE FIX THAT!!)
Oh well...guess I'll go watch TV... (how many times do you think this has happened?)
We REALLY need a forum index. C'mon guys! We're supposed to be living in the information age, not the information stone age!!
@Marshian , I didn't know until today that you post a link to your readmes on your New Product page. I even posted on your page because I couldn't find it after 30 minutes of searching! I knew it was out there, but a search for Product readmes was unbelievably frustrating.
I have several of your products, and some of them are quite complicated, and not at all intuitive. I would have appreciated knowing there's more information available. It needs to be ON THE PRODUCT PAGE where people buy the product, so they know exactly where to go when they buy it and start using it and run into a snag. Or so they can check it out before buying. (No additional information available for this extremely complex sounding product? Maybe I'm not buying then... I don't think I am savvy enough to figure it out on my own...)
This should be DAZ's default position. And it shouldn't be a link to a separate page that simply lists the product info from the store page. I can't tell you how many times I have started reading only to realize I had already read it on the store page. (Why in the world would you list the same information twice!? Put a link to the store page, and list something new on the readme page.) So I would stop reading, and go look somewhere else. Now I find out that there is a LINK to additional info (the actual readme) wayyyy down below?
Wonderful.
I know I'm not the only person to have these kinds of frustrating experiences.
Marshian, I found your newest product only today. I bought it and had a specific project I have been working on in mind to try it out. But when I tried to use it, anticipating some of the results I saw on your Commercial Products page, all I got were errors. So, I remember reading that you had a readme available for it. My inability to locate that, when I knew it was out there somewhere, just infuriated me.
So...now that I have totally embarrassed myself by losing my cool, and by exposing my lack of technical know-how (not only can I not understand the manual...I can't even FIND the manual!), I will go back to lurking, and stop bothering people.
just ignore this.
To all vendors:
when you create a readme, please
a) name it not "readme.txt" but readme_for_your_product_name (otherwise it will be overwritten by other readmes)
b) write in and describe in your readme FOR WHAT PRODUCT IT IS and how to use (short version). I often find in readmes only copyright-blablabla ... but not for what product the readme is and what i can do with it. It happens very often in readmes for computerprograms.
c) write a contact-adress in the readme if problems appear.
thanks
Hi!
My apologies, i've only just come across this thread. This is indeed a reasonable criticism, and i've actually taken the time to write a tutorial for the Iray Decal Kit i released recently. The reason i wanted to have an interactive support thread instead of a manual, is because the ghost lights are a bit tricky to sum up with only a couple of scenarios. Users have deployed them in very weird and wonderful ways, which i didn't even consider myself at the time. For instance, i could have given an explanation of how K (Kilocandela/Square meter) affects your scene brightness and how it translates to accurate physical representations (eg light bulbs) - but that all changes with tonemapping and exposure, which is another topic entirely. It would have been a minefield to explain everything accurately and coherently without overwhelming the end user. It wasn't a matter of laziness or lack of commitment to the community that made me come to this decision, i just felt it may have been more helpful to react to issues in real time, openly, in order to see how people actually use the lights.
With that said, i am working on expanding the set to include a more fully featured and in-depth toolkit. I've taken note of how users utilize the base set and i will write a manual to support general tasks and usage, focusing on how users compose their scenes and work with the lights. I'm working with several forum volunteers in order to make it as user friendly and accessible as possible. I will also add documentation to the base set based on user feedback and my own observations, with no extra purchase necessary.
Thank you for your feedback, i appreciate it.
Thank you, sir - for replying in this thread.
Question 1, where is the pdf manual for iray decals kept? I use the Daz internal install manager (contect connect) and NOT the DIM seperate program. I usually have to re-download the product again, manually to get the manual- if there is one. Is that the case and I should probably be asking in you product-release thread, but....
1) Do you ever put the ghost light outdoors, set to sunlight, to light up an outdoor scene?
2) Have you ever put the lights on the floor facing UP?
3) I will be experiemnting further - what happens if I put the light behind (or inside) an object- will it cast around or through the object?
4) Have you considered an expansion with different shaped light sources? Round, or multiple small ones etc......
5) Or a light source that passes lights on both sides as opposed to making two lights and manually placing them together?
--------------------
Today's the day I dive into your decal release.
Thansk for replying.
Preaching to the choir brothers and/or sisters. Preaching to the choir.
Right now I've got this dilemma. I'm trying to use Sorrow Hair for G3F on a morph of a niece of mine and her hair is black. For the life of me I can't locate the black material. The mats have incredibly descriptive names like 01 Sorrow Hair or 01 Sorrow BS, all the way up to 18. Now some few of the hair icons have a color - like brown, red or white. But... pretty much anything that isn't those colors just looks black too and I'm left trying them out at random to see which one is actually black. The first one was also reddish, the next was green, the next blue. And I can't tell until I render - in my window they all look black. Admittedly it doesn't take too long to render enough to see the hair color but it's still annoying. I looked up the readme,
I have a link on every product page to a readme whether it works or not and can get to them in Smart Content too. The problem is that the readme doesn't help. Has no truly useful information and the file list is just a list of relatively generic file names. Ah for someone who might have thought that naming thirty-six colors was more practical than giving them essentially the same name.
Right-click on the product and select More Information - that will open the readme, from which you can open the pdf.
That would be like using a reflector
Not on the floor, but I ddi use an up-and-down pointing ghost Light at the level of soem wall torches to bump up the lighting without flooding the room.
If the light is wholly inside another object it will be blocked, unless the surfaces allow light to scatter or transmit out. If it's partially obscured by an object the obect will cast shadows. The Ghost lights behave like any area light as far as being a light source is concerned.
I obviosuly can't answer that, but my understanding was that planes were used as they were low-polygon. A disc or other shape, or multple shapes, would add more polygons.
There isn't a preset for that, but you can turn double-sided on I think if you select the ghost light's surface in the Surfaces pane (I might have done that in my torch set-up).
The readme for iray decal kit is in a folder called "ReadMe's" and its called "37479_iray-decal-kit-user-guide.pdf". I don't use DIM or connect so i'm not entirely sure what happens with readme's, Richard or some other kind soul might have better input with that.
1. You could use them as a replacement sun, but i don't do it personally. If i was going to use a GLK as a fake sun, i would have a scaled down mesh with higher intensity (Kcdm) because this produces harder shadows. Larger meshes = softer shadows, smaller meshes = harder shadows.
2. You can place upward facing lights into the scene, no problem. I'm not sure of the context here but i'm guessing this is perhaps for horror lighting, or something else?
3. If you put a light inside an object (like a cube), it will illuminate the interior of the object. It will not shine through an object unless you are using some kind of cutout/refraction or SSS.
4. Yes, i am working on an expansion to the kit with a comprehensive suite of props and primitives. It's much larger in scope than the original set so its taking a while, but it will be on the store soon.
5. I believe you are talking about a light rig? Novica made a really great character lighting kit here if you're interested. Let me know if you were thinking of something different.
Best of luck with the decals, and let me know if you need any further help.
Andy/KA
Thanks for the info. I sometimes forget that the Daz 3-D environment is a true simulation of a hollywood movie set.
I've used the Ghost Lights outdoors. And face-up, too.
And on the manual part of the discussion, I have never ever seen "this has been asked many times before, look it up." Here at Daz in response to a query. It's just not part of forum culture here, and is one of the reasons this is one of the best forums on the internet. Plus if you start a thread it becomes very easy for you to keep track of since you can go see your own post history on the forums.
Just for everyone who is looking for the Doc for the Iray Ghost Light kit 2 here is the link.
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/43797/start
Could you at least put a link to the forum support thread on the read_me page for the ghost lights?
It's funny to re-read my own thread. I had Daz open in a partial window and read my own comment without knowing I posted it. That's very surreal.
4) Have you considered an expansion with different shaped light sources? Round, or multiple small ones etc......
And to see this - is funny - as it's the current product that's on sale- which I thought was an instant buy.
And the first few times I used it, I couldn't get it to work. And searched for a manual. lol
--
I don't know how vendors do it, but there's a preset box that's reserved for instructions and when you click it- it opens up a text box with instructions.
That's what's needed. It's too much for finding PDFs and apparently some vendors don't speak English as their primary or don't have the tech-know to make their own PDFs.
AND Daz seems to not have an easy way to make the pdfs incorporated in the products.
--------
And I guess for piracy's sake, you don;t want the pdfs and manuals easily accessible to everyone.
Doesn't do much good for those of us who's art computers stay offline.
Readme's should download with the product into a sepate readme folder for easy access.
With the product name in the readme name.
It has been suggested that a kickstarter be opened for a full
Studio PDF manual, and there was no response.
I'm not the only one who would pay $50.00 for a manual.
Okay, $49.99, but you get the idea.
So how high would the Kickstarter have gone? Nobody knows,
and nobody appeared interested in finding out.
I have several products that I don't use because I can't figure them out,
and when I'm creating, I don't want to break the train and get on the
internet and search.
So that's money wasted, and future vendors I won't buy from.
(But Kindred Arts is NOT one of them, their products I will happily purchase!)
If they have documentation, that does usually get included, and is generally found in either a folder labeled documentation or readmes (although the spelling may vary).
Thanks for making a manual. You saved me a lot of time from trying to figure it out all myself.
i can feel with you. I often have the same problem, but
- sometimes i know where i can find the vendor, but in most cases the vendor is not contactable.
- there are people in the facebook-groups who can help
- in most cases daz can help.
- in the newer products there is in most cases a pdf or a tipp when you hover over an icon.
But the problem can be more:
In this product
https://www.daz3d.com/environment-blend-shader
There is a 2 sided pdf with description:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/54769/start
but i have still not idea how to work with. I made a few tries but i didn't get a result
So i asked daz. They told me that even they do not understand fully this product ;-)
lol ...