Why does the render look like this?

Mjetzer

I spent about an hour searching the forums, but couldn't find anything that answered this. I load up the Dark Rites scene and lights and do a standard Daz3d render and it looks a "shiny." I just don't get it. I want it to look more like the preview render, but with shadows and the like.

Valandar

Simple. The preview render does not show specular highlights or reflections, nor does it fully take things like Uberlight into account.

Miss B

If you loaded the light presets that came with the Dark Rites set, those lights are Poser ready. IOW, they aren't the same as the lights native to DAZ Studio.

That said, however, I have had some success with Poser lights in DS by either turning off the lights (click the eye in the Scene Panel), and then turn them on one at a time to see which is the most offending light. You may be able to salvage the lighting by playing with the the intensity of the lights, or by deleting the Poser lights and adding DS lights to light the scene. I usually find that to be just as much a trial and error method as playing with the Poser lights until they work the way I want.

Lighting a scene, to me, is one of the hardest things about 3D, but you might also try playing with the textures of the pieces in the scene that are too shiny/bright. Poser MATs usually need tweaking in DS, especially specularity. In Poser the lower the number the lower the specularity, whereas in DS, the higher the number the lower the specularity.

I hope some of that helps in some way to get the lighting the way you want.

MADMANMIKE

Valandar said:

Simple. The preview render does not show specular highlights or reflections, nor does it fully take things like Uberlight into account.

This. Poser scenes can load in DAZ, but they often have the specular set to full white and reflection maps at 100%. Both will cause this sort of problem.

It's the only thing about D|S that frustrates me regularly. {casts a side-long glance at Valendar}..

Well, that and the fact that I can't use a version of D|S beyond 2.3 on my computer..

Szark

All DM's product are manily set up for Poser. I have never seen their sets with Daz Studio Mats...the downside of this for newcomers is that the surfaces will need adjusting. As others have said it is probably the Specualer Strength that needs adjusting.

And Preview (what you see in the viewport window) is just that a preview and not a true representation of what you get at render time.

Oh and Miss B in my expereince Poser lights generally work the same in Daz Studio in the fact that using the Poser Light presets will load Daz Studio lights.

SpottedKitty

MADMANMIKE said:

Poser scenes can load in DAZ, but they often have the specular set to full white and reflection maps at 100%. Both will cause this sort of problem.

It's a bit more than that, I think. The only parameters you can really rely on carrying over accurately if you load a Poser scene, figure or MAT set are the diffuse texture and opacity. And then you've got the "diffuse applied colour" problem, Poser frequently adds a colour to the texture which looks all wrong in D|S. This is why Poser people can look greenish in D|S.

Every other parameter has to be treated as either suspect or requiring to be completely reset with the maps loaded manually. Sometimes you will get Poser materials looking all right in D|S, but the vast majority will need at least a little tweaking.

Jaderail

Once again the Poser mat issue and lighting not matching the preview trips up a new user, this happens often but is not hard to fix and well worth learning early in your DS days.

As stated before you will need to check the surface settings for the parts of the scene that are too shiny and reflective. To do that just select each item in the scene you wish to fix (adjust) and open the Surfaces Tab. Make your adjustments and then do a Spot Render to see if it looks the way you wont it, Spot render is the Camera with a Pointer next to it in the tool bar. You will need to fix each item that you think needs it.

TIP: Once I fix a item I Select that item and SAVE AS> Material(s) Preset With a DS in the File name so I can use it again.

Once you have the materials set as you like them you move on to the Lighting. To do that you select each light one at a time in the Scene Tab and open it in the Parameters Tab, as long it is not a Uber light like Uber Environment. You can Adjust each setting for each light, Color, Intensity and others. For Uber lights you select the Main item (UE) for example and Open the Surfaces Tab, Uber lights are Shaders so they work in the Surfaces Tab, you adjust them much the same way as a normal light. Szark has a great thread on Uber lights and I'm sure they will point you to any help you need with Uber lighting.

Once again do Spot renders as you go so you can see if you have the lighting set as you wish it to Render. Once that is done I again do a Save As> Light(s) Preset so I can use the fixed Light set the next time.

This might seem like more than should be needed to use a Pay for Set but once fixed you can use the fix on that set every time you use it or a part of it. And you will understand how to fix other Items that might (will) have the same issues when you use them.

I hope this helps.

kyoto kid

...ran into a slightly similar issue with Predatron3D's Escape to Kyoto except for the fact the lighting provided only accented the walls of the set leaving the middle of the floor rather dark. I added one spot on the character (60% intensity, .40 focus) and suddenly the entire set lit up like the proverbial yule tree.

In looking at the scene tab, I saw no UE component (which would have accounted for the sudden "brightness" when I added the single spotlight), just about a dozen spotlights (with labels that indicated there were supposed to be at least ten more).