Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Thanks, BWSman. Maybe I'll try rendering that scene, then. Maybe it will come out. Although, the last time I tried DS just went poof. Maybe I'll try to hit the minimize button right away like I did the first time I rendered it. I know spot rendering is out of the question, that made it go poof instantly. I've devoted my time to this for over a week now. I haven't touched my website at all, except to log in and check for new registrations. There haven't been any in that time.
Dana
By the way, BWSman, please don't ask for special favors for me. I'd feel awkward about it. I don't want people starting an uprising because I was allowed something that is normally not allowed. It just wouldn't, and doesn't, seem fair.
Dana
One question, Szark. For the UberArea light plane, should I set opacity to less than 100% for the TV glow image to work, or will setting the Ambiance on and high be enough? I do want it to throw colored light into the room, as a real TV would in a dimly lit room.
Should I rather make that the only UberArea light, if it won't render with both?
Sorry, I guess that was two or three questions.
Dana
Given what BWSman said what are your system specs and in Daz Studiio go the Help > Troubleshooting > About you video card and see what version of OpenGL you use.
Also do you maintian a clean computer?
If the TV screen doesn't have a mat zone of its own then we can make it separate inside Daz Studio. Yes it is easy to do. But I will wait until you report back.
I'll have to get back to you on that. I have to be somewhere shortly and I haven't eaten yet. This is a bit early for me...lately.
Specs I know right now:
Windows XP Pro 32 bit.
4 Gig RAM.
nVidea 960 (I think) w/1 Gig RAM
Clean? I've had no complaints from Norton. Norton even does defragging and deleting of Windows and Internet temporary files, and rids me of unused registry keys (orphans) and such. Gets rid of tracking cookies and the like. As far as services, I have what I have. I don't normally go mucking with those things. The tray has a dozen things in it, one of which is MS Outlook 2007. But I don't run that when I'm going to start up DS 4.5, nor do I run Firefox or anything else.
I have to go for now.
Dana
It won't be a special favour for you. I feel that creating a composite image due to memory limitations is a valid use of postwork & therefore should be allowed.
And; judging by your system specs; you will be lucky if DS sees 1.5GB of that memory. Windows will reserve memory for video despite the fact that the video card has it's own memory; plus the memory it take for itself and whatever programs are running in the background (including Norton).
If the TV screen doesn't have a mat zone of its own then we can make it separate inside Daz Studio. Yes it is easy to do. But I will wait until you report back.
Actually, I just created an UberArea light plane, and added the texture to it. I have it facing the scene, Ambiance on and at 100%. However, before I started getting answers in here. So the texture is only in the diffuse and ambiance channels. I didn't know to add it to the color channel. It is a particular image that relates to the them of the scene. I don't dare add another prop to the scene at this point, seeing how I'm already having memory issues.
Dana
It won't be a special favour for you. I feel that creating a composite image due to memory limitations is a valid use of postwork & therefore should be allowed.
And; judging by your system specs; you will be lucky if DS sees 1.5GB of that memory. Windows will reserve memory for video despite the fact that the video card has it's own memory; plus the memory it take for itself and whatever programs are running in the background (including Norton).
Actually, when I looked at the log trying to see what's wrong, it said 2.6 Gigs were available to DS!
It also had messages about duplicate ID's, which also came up as a warning when loading the scene. All of them seem to be related to clothing articles, jeans and tee shirt from Wilmap at ShareCG, and sickle snug tee (tank actually) and leggings also at ShareCG. Even after I changed the scene so that only one of the Genesis figures were wearing the Wilmap tee shirt, it still came up with that warning. So maybe it's an ID within the object itself that is duplicated. I wouldn't know. But the tee and jeans don't seem to be involved in the texture weirdness. *shrug*
Dana
Soory I don't understand your last.
What I am trying to convey is that you can use the TV Screen itself and a light emitting surfaces (area light) as explained above if the screen has a separate material zone so you don't need to add any thing else in to the scene and deleteing the area plane will help save a tiny bit of memory. I outlined this approach in my tutorial http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/14536/#211167
If the TV screen doesn't have a material zone of its own then we can make one in Daz Studio. More on that later if needed.
The colour channel of an Area light or surface is what controls the light colour so putting the texture map in to this colur channel will drive the light collour. Ambient has nothing to do with light but how bright it glows.
Sorry that I didn't make that more clear. There is no TV screen. I am only attempting to simulate one by using the UberArea light with the texture image applied to it.
Dana
LOL Silly me. Well you have all the info now to make it work. Good luck.
That's all I got.
Well, I have resorted to making a new scene copy, deleting everything from the scene except the main Genesis character and clothing and props, and tried to do it that way. I've tried several freebie glasses and none of them have a separate material zone for the lenses, and I can't get any of them to reflect the damn TV image! :shut: This is not fun anymore.
I saw a pair that really aren't the style I was looking for (the character is known for a particular style of glasses), but I'm going to try them anyway, because it looks like the lenses reflect things from the scene. I hope.
BWSman, maybe I need to take you up on that offer to do a composite...if I can figure out how to do that right.
Dana
This just happens to some people. My mother is like that... if it's electronic, it will freak out on her. Even an iPad, which is pretty much foolproof, has crashed and frozen when she gets her hands on it. I'm pretty tech-savvy, but she has presented me with more mysteries than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I can't even imagine what that whole thing in the first post was, with the numbers and whatnot. I thought at first that maybe there was a layered image applied to your base textures. Of course, how they would get there without you clicking a button somewhere is a mystery itself, but that's what I thought happened. But, you have reapplied the textures and the problem persists. I would so love to have your scene in front of me to figure it out, but obviously that is not possible.
I hope you get the problem in check and still get your entry in time for the challenge. Best of luck to you.
Putting my nose where it wasn't invited... I don't think this request would be intended just for you. This would help many artists on slower pc's and is not really postwork, in my opinion. It's just compositing vignettes that were rendered purely, then putting them together. No special effects, layer blending, color adjustments, etc. I hope BWSman does ask the contest hosts, and that they agree that it would be helpful for older computers which most of us are working with.
This just happens to some people. My mother is like that... if it's electronic, it will freak out on her. Even an iPad, which is pretty much foolproof, has crashed and frozen when she gets her hands on it. I'm pretty tech-savvy, but she has presented me with more mysteries than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I can't even imagine what that whole thing in the first post was, with the numbers and whatnot. I thought at first that maybe there was a layered image applied to your base textures. Of course, how they would get there without you clicking a button somewhere is a mystery itself, but that's what I thought happened. But, you have reapplied the textures and the problem persists. I would so love to have your scene in front of me to figure it out, but obviously that is not possible.
I hope you get the problem in check and still get your entry in time for the challenge. Best of luck to you.
Thank you! And it's not just this, everything in life is that way. I seem to prove out Murphy's law often. But not all is doom and gloom, even though it seems like it lately.
Dana
Putting my nose where it wasn't invited... I don't think this request would be intended just for you. This would help many artists on slower pc's and is not really postwork, in my opinion. It's just compositing vignettes that were rendered purely, then putting them together. No special effects, layer blending, color adjustments, etc. I hope BWSman does ask the contest hosts, and that they agree that it would be helpful for older computers which most of us are working with.
I look at some of the images and wonder how in the world they got so much into them. But it seems that every new version of DS needs more and more resources. I can't imagine what the new fiber based hairs would do to my computer. I bought that Beautiful African Hair, but now I'd be afraid to try it out.
Dana
Dana, for the glasses; have you tried the Polygon Group Editor to create separate lens areas in the frames? Can you post an image of the glasses in wireframe view so I can see if that's possible?
I just made a test with a reflecting mirror in it, and got no reflections in that either. I've very frustrated. At first, I saw no separate zones in that, either, in the Surfaces tab. But then I clicked twice, accidentally, on the mirror in the list and suddenly a sub-list dropped down. You shouldn't have to double-click when there's an arrow! I really don't like some of the "features" of DS 4.5! Anyway, I'll try that with one of the glasses later...I'm too frustrated right now. But I' don't know what I'm doing wrong. No reflection in a mirror that is called a reflecting mirror. The promo had a reflection. I went to the mirror surface and made sure it was glossy...in fact I chose glossy metallic. Still no reflection. I've done reflections before. Remember Rock Your World, the girl with the black Les Paul on the black plexiglass? I didn't use any special shaders to get the reflection, just made it glossy. I don't understand. This is making me think about just giving up on 3D. I don't want to. But it seems I can't do anything right.
Dana
Check 'raytrace depth' in your render settings to see if it's higher than 1. It has to be 2 (or mor for reflections.
1 will give you one reflection and 2 will give you a reflection of a reflection and so on.
0 max raytrace depth will only provide raytraced shadows from lights
1 will allow UberEnviroment 2 to start working properly.
Thank you, both. In render settings? OK, now they've changed that, too? Or have I just forgotten? I only remember setting the ray trace bounces in the lighting parameters (which I did in the UberArea light surface tab settings). Maybe that's what I'm missing, then. I'll have another go at it shortly.
Dana
OK, I'm really tired of everything not working for me now!
Attached are screen caps of my settings, both Render and UberArea surfaces.
Dana
No reflections, and I did find the lens surface, and set it to glossy. Ray tracing is on, depth is 2. You can see all the settings in the screen caps.
So, what the hell am I doing wrong? I'm about to give up and just use the image without the reflection. It does have a muted red lighting from the image on the character, just no reflection of the image on the glasses.
Dana
The Angle from the Surface to be Reflected (you have none, it's a light) and the Reflected surface must be in the camera. To Reflect it must be a Rendered in (Seen to the camera) object before it will reflect on a surface. Lights have no 3D surface to the bounce.
I hope this helps. I'm not sure it does. Hmm... 3Delight can not bounce a reflection if the item is not a 3D object. I think your angle from the Mesh to the Lens to the camera is all that is not right. (the Texture Map would need to be in the Diffuse channel as well).
I thought the Ambient channel is what is needed to see the glow. :-S The UberArea light plane is quite big and not far from the Genesis figure. What about Point At (or is it Point to?)? Would that work if I made the UberArea light plane point at the glasses' lenses? I'm running out of ideas now.
But if it must be in the camera, that's the end of that.
Does anyone know how to make a gel light out of a regular spot light? Would that work if I could put the image into the gel light. I don't know what gel lights are, I've seen them for sale, but I thought there must be a way to make your own. I'm kind of out of time on this, the challenge ends today (the 30th). I might have to do without the reflection. I don't know how well it would show up in the glasses anyway, but I wanted to try.
Dana
You have not done anything wrong. But as I said the MESH must Show to the Render camera before it can reflect off another item.
Only Solid items, (items with a Diffuse surface) can reflect. For a Light mesh you have done the right things.
EDIT: And it is a GEL as you have done it.
Well, that's it then. I'll just do the composite with the red-ish light glow on the main character and that will be it. I give up at this point. That seems to be a shortcoming. A light should reflect off of a glossy surface, and if the light is multi-colored it should reflect that. Oh, well. I guess my ideas are always too ambitious for the tools and resources I have. I fear that even if I get better tools and more resources, my ideas will get bigger, too. :roll:
Thanks for all your help, to everybody here!
Dana
Oh, God, I can't believe this! The renders don't match up! I didn't change the position of the figure or props or anything. All I changed was the lighting setup. And the camera position (transforms) and settings (focal length, etc.) are exactly the same in both scenes. But the main character does not line up! I match the head, and the arms and prop he's holding do not match. :ahhh:
Dana