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Ambient lighting

SeniraMSeniraM Posts: 20
in New Users

Hi, I need help understanding Ambient lighting in Daz Studio. I've been using spot lights and primitive panes with emission shaders, but my Iray renders seem to be taking way too long to render. I'm using an 1070 ti and even with what I would consider simple scenes, render times take several hours. My question is can ambient lighting speed up my renders and if so how to use it in Daz?

Thanks!

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,461

    What do you mean by ambient lighting? Are your scenes enclosed or open? Do they have lots of reflective/shiny surfaces?

  • SeniraMSeniraM Posts: 20

    Most are enclosed, and yes, they do tend to have reflective or shiny surfaces. I'm just wondering how to get more natural lighting in indoor scenes and if that even makes a big difference in render times.

  • SeniraMSeniraM Posts: 20
    edited December 2017

    I tend to use a lot of spotlights and It seems to be making my renders take way too long, but when I don't use them my characters seem to look flat and dull.

     

    Post edited by SeniraM on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,461

    Upping the luminance of the lights and/or using their shape options to make them a bit bigger (which will tend to soften shadow detail) may help.

  • SeniraMSeniraM Posts: 20
    edited December 2017

    So the bigger the light the softer the shadow..good to know. I'm always playing around with the luminance, however, I can't ever seem to get it right and end up using too many spotlights. I've read that some users delete the roofs and walls and just use the enviroment hdri lighting. I have purchased some hdri studio lights and they are awesome for some scenes, but I still can't seem to get the soft lighting that I'm looking for.

    Post edited by SeniraM on
  • SeniraMSeniraM Posts: 20

    By the way, thanks for the feedback...

  • BeeMKayBeeMKay Posts: 7,018

    If there's no light from the outside coming into your room, you can also change the scene environment to "Scene only", that will save Iray the calculation of the HDRI.

    Also, when you use panes, make sure that they just have one polygone. For each polygone that gives light, the render time will increase.

    By the way, you can also play around with the light temperature. The defaul light temperature is that of sunlight; if you want to simulate candle or bulb light, lower the light temperature, and the light will appear more yellowish/reddish.

  • SeniraMSeniraM Posts: 20

    Thanks so much for this information. I'm playing around with it now and my rendering speed has already increased dramatically...The "scene only" setting seemed to have made the biggest difference for me in my indoor scenes. I also had no idea about the panes and only using one polygone to increase rendering speeds..again, this info is invaulable to someone just starting out..thank you so much for the tips.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,461

    You can also use a Section Plane (Create>New Iray Section Plane) to hide the near side of the plane in the render, which lets light in (but can look odd).

  • SeniraMSeniraM Posts: 20

    Thanks, Richard! I'm going to try that next..great info

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,945

    Ghost lights are a big help to provide ambient lighting in interior spaces. Vendor KindredArts has three different ghost light products for sale in the store.

  • SeniraMSeniraM Posts: 20

    thanks, barbult, I will be buying those ASAP...exactly what I need.

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