Lights too weak?

Fussel2107

Hello, it is I, the resident re-learning noob.

I managed to kinda tackle the content, the surface tab and now I'm stuck on lightin.

For some reason, the lights I add to the scene are incredibly weak. I'm rendering in Iray and they barely manage to illuminate the basic scene even at 100%. I already had to remove the walls around the scene because I thought there was some hidden blocking going on, but it just stays barely visible. 

What am I doing wrong here?

maclean

Go into Tone Mapping in the Render Settings and try changing the Exposure Value. The default 13.00 is for a bright cloudy day. If you're doing an interior, you have to lower it to match your scene.

You can find a guide to Exposure Values here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value#Tabulated_exposure_values

BeeMKay

I've described a few basics about lighting in Iray here and in the followings posts, with examples: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1536281/#Comment_1536281

Some more examples here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/869789/#Comment_869789

I'd especially like to point out this post of the lot: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/869852/#Comment_869852

Also, be careful what light you are adding. Some sets are for 3Delight and will not give you any light in Iray. Check out if in the parameter tab of the light, the value for "photometric" is set to "ON". Iray lights are controlled through limuance, not strength (that value is for 3Delight).

Fussel2107

and there you are, saving me again!

Thank you so much

DDCreate

Good tip Maclean! I didn't know about that! I'm going to try that and see what it does. 

DDCreate

Yowza, I must have misunderstood what this was about :P

I looked at the wikipedia page and determined that I should set the exposure value to 7 because it was in an interior scene (no windows) and it looked like someone had just set off a flashbang in my scene. I do have a light rig as well as some other lighting in the room though. I wonder if changing the exposure did something to exaggerate the lighting. Anyone have any thoughts?

maclean

Well, it depends on what your lights are set to. Do you have the lumens cranked way up high?

EV is meant as a starting point for different types of scenes. You set the EV for an interior scene, rather than using ridiculously high light values. But it's often a question of trial and error. If 7 is too bright, try 9 or 10. The beneift of it is that you can alter the brightness of the entire scene with one click, instead of changing every single light, and it doesn't affect anything else, other than brightness. Once you get close, then you can tweak individual lights.

DDCreate

Thank you Maclean. I'll keep trying.

Lights, you vile demon! Why do you mock me so?!