warning! obsuring the viewport during openGL... CRASHES
reserv888
Posts: 1,150
I have seen there are other threads regarding this warning. I haven't seen anyone though covering my problem.
1. My first problem was that the render was VERY murky, not black, but very dark, when I rendered in the "4" (best) quality. The scene looked ok until I rendered it. I tried to add more light. That helped but instead my Victoria 5 model looked blotchy like she contracted som strange skin diseas. To save time when trying to solve this, I rendered the scene on the lowest quality and suddenly everything looked just fine. I got this above mentioned warning, but it worked out fine. Same thing when I rendered in the "2" quality. (Same warning). But then something weird happened which leads to my second problem.
2. When I rendered the scen in the "3" quality, same warning, but this time Daz crashed instantly. I have retried numerous times and restarted the computer. Daz crashes every time.
To sum it up:
Why does the scene look so dark when I render it in the highest quality? (i have tried to rendered it with no lights at all, besides the original Daz Studio light. No difference)
Why does the model look so blotchy when I add more lights?
Why does Daz crash when I render in the second highest quality?
More importantly than "why" the problem occurs is; what can I do to fix this?
Oh, and I don't obscure the viewport, (if that means surfing or doing something else while rendering).
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Comments
Not sure what you mean here — DAZ|Studio has no 1-4 setting for render quality. Where are you finding that setting? Which D|S version are you using?
There are issues with OpenGL rendering, but there is usually no problem if you take note of the warning message and don't try to do other things on your computer while the render is running. I've never heard of an actual crash because of render setting before, not in OpenGL anyway.
Changing from OpenGL to 3Delight can give you a better render, but a lot depends on the lighting, and the final render might not look the same as the Viewport preview — what lights are you using in the scene?
Ah, sorry, I never use that slider so I always have it hidden. It isn't really a quality setting anyway, it's a render type setting — 1, very basic preview, or 2, 3, controlled by your graphics card, or 4, controlled by the rendering system included in DAZ|Studio. The actual controls for fine control of render quality are below that, in the Advanced tab.
The difference between setting 2 and 3 is the capabilities of your graphics card; which one do you have, or is it embedded in your motherboard? Take a screenshot of your graphics card specs (Help>Troubleshooting>About Your Video Card...) and post it here.
Incidentally, if you use setting 1 and it looks OK (it shouldn't), there might be a lighting issue — that's a preview setting, there are no shadows, and it isn't supposed to be used for a final render. What lights do you have in the scene?
Setting 4 (which I use) ignores your graphics card and lets your computer do the full render on its own. If that's coming out dark or not looking right, again it could be an issue with your lighting setup.
On my older machine with a single core CPU and low RAM < 2GB. I had similar problems, especially with sensitivity of the Render window and renders crashing. Lucky for me that computer died (Did I just say that?) and I got a much larger system, multicore 64bit, 8GB RAM and all of those problems vanished. If you machine is small or slow that could be part of the problem.
I've had darkness issues but I finally realized that I had some lights partially obscured by walls or floor or other objects. Make sure your lights are not obscured and/or not casting shadows.
Also, can you provide some details about your system and it's graphics card or graphics chip?
Making sure you have the latest driver from the manufacturer of the chip (NOT Microsoft) sometimes helps graphic issues.
In the past, graphic cards/chips and/or their drivers were often the cause of major issues. Sometimes it pays to get a better graphic engine if possible. In almost any desktop computer you can simply buy a compatible add-in graphic card. But unfortunately only high-end laptops let you change their graphic chip.
HARDWARE
I am using:
AMD Phenom 4 cores 3,20 GHz
Windows 7 (64 bit)
GeForce GTX 460 graphics card.
8 GB RAM
SOFTWARE
Daz Studio 4.6
LIGHTS
A. At the moment I have two distant lights and one UberEnvironment2. (This makes the scene very dark)
B. I have also tried the "LIGHT Fiery Genesis"-lights. With those the character looks blotchy and sick.
UPDATE:
Now I can't recreate any of the problems, so maybe my computer just was in a bad mood yesterday. I haven't the slightest idea why the blotchyness disappeared or why the renders now are not as dark. Lets consider both A and B SOLVED.
I did however run into another mystery (to me at least). When I added a AREA LIGHT DISC, the skin of the character turned out very strange and unsmooth. (See attached pic).
Anyone has any idea why?
(I still have the problem with crashes when I render on the "3" quality, but that's a minor issue since I ususally only render on the "4".)
Just like Uber Environment Lights the Uber Area lights have a Samples setting try settings from 32 to 64 to 128 to clear this up. Be warned Uber lights increase Render times.
In addition to the light settings, there might also be something in Render Settings affecting the final quality. Can you open the Render Settings Advanced tab and post a screenshot here?
(This might not have been a problem before: render settings and light settings can interact in unobvious ways, depending on the type of lights.)
@jaderail
Where do I find those settings?
@Spotted Kitty
Here are the advanced render settings. As far as i know they are default settings. I haven't changed anything.
The grainyness in the picture occurs when i turn the area light disc on. Whitout it, the render is simply dark.
I learned through trial and error that the area light disc has a front- and a backside. I am using it as a spotlight, standing up (instead of lying down as a plate). Not sure it is supposed to be used that way... When i flipped it 180 degrees it lit up the character.
Another thing occured which I don't understand. When I set the area light disc to "point at the head", it flipped 90 degrees and lit the celing instead, turning the character dark again. In my world "point at the head" means "light up the face"... But maybe that's just me... :)
Ohhh... another object that doesn't understand "point at" very well. :-( It seems to me that it should be obvious that things like cameras and lights and eyes and head/arms/hands/fingers/feet, sticks, guns, etc. should be well trained in what "point at" should mean. It's better than it used to be but every now and then you run into something that goes wonky when told to "point at".
Thank you Jaderail. I will check that.
FWIW, those render settings seem to be pretty much similar to mine, except I use a lower Shading Rate, as low as 0.1 or 0.2 when I'm ready for a final render. That shouldn't cause your blotchiness, it's more likely something in the light settings.