Some thoughts about UberLights by omnifreaker

XoechZ

As far as I can see, omnifreaker is a vendor here at the DAZ Store, who creates mainly lights. He has also made the really great UberEnvironment and UberArea Lights.
Well, I am not sure about this, but I guess that he has sold these 2 lights to DAZ, so that they can include them into DAZ Studio for free. Mainly because DAZ Studio has no native area and environment lights.

What I wonder now is the following:

1. Is omnifreaker working on updates for the UE2 and UberArea Light or will they simply stay as they are?

I mean, those lights are really great, but technical progress is going on every day, and maybe there are already some ways to improve them even more (like more features, better quality, lower impact on render times)

2. Will there ever be native DAZ Studio area and environment lights? Or will we use the omnifreaker lights forever?

Again, the lights are great, but you can see it as you want, it is still "just" a 3rd party addition and not a native function.

What do you think about this?

Szark

Your assumptions are correct that Omni sold the included products to DAZ3D and it would be DAZ3D's responsibility to upgraded them. The alternative is for another to make a new native HDRI light rig and Area lights that can include Bump, and displacement mapping for example. I am hoping DAZ3D do bring out a native HDRI instead of using Tiff's. Area Lighting I can live with as it stands.

XoechZ

I use the AreaLight a lot. So what I really would like to have is a full integration of the AreaLight into DAZ Studio, so that it is set up and used like any other light (distant, spot, point, linear point).
That means no seperate download, no seperate installation, not loading it from the content menu, but:

- go to Create -> AreaLight to load it (DAZ Studio has to accept it as a light then and the HeadLampBlocker is not needed any more)
- find all the options and parameters under the Parameter Tab (and not the Surface Tab)

This would be great! :-)

Kevin Sanderson

To the best of my understanding (I could be wrong), an area light is a surface light. So it has to be under a surface tab. It probably is the way 3Delight is designed to work and DAZ can't change that. dna research, the makers of 3Delight, would have to do that.

Szark

Yeah Area Lighting isn't a light per se but a shader hence the headlamp blocker. I don't know enough about the backend of Daz Studio to know if it would be possible to do it another way as you describe.

XoechZ

I am also not an expert with all that technical things in the background (coding and stuff). I am just a customer and artist who thinks loud about his wishes:-)

Other applications have area lights built in, so it is not impossible. You are right, at this time the UberAreaLight is a shader based surface light, but I am not sure if it definitely has to be that way. Take away the surface, use the light only. Possible? Maybe similar to a distant light, but with a limited (and adjustable) size. And of course a different kind of light emission.

Richard Haseltine

For what the uberArea light does, makes a surface glow, it has to be a shader. If you want a light that has an extent, rather than being a point-source (a rectangle or a disc) that might be possible to make, and might be possible to implement as a new light type - but it would be different from uberArea. You can make a feature request via the Zendesk Contact Us page. You could also create a Scene Subset with uberArea applied to a primitive, then right-click it in the content library and make a Custom Action which you could then set up as a toolbar button or menu entry for quick access.

XoechZ

I see it this way:
Due to the way the uberArea Light is made (coded) it has the very positive side effect that it CAN be used to make surfaces glow. But this is not the main purpose of an area light.
Thanks for the suggestion about Zendesk. I will really try that.

mjc1016

Ok...in Renderman (rispec) terms, an area light is a light emitting surface. What you do with that surface is up to you...whether it is to make a 'glow' or be a 'soft box'...whatever.

The headlamp blocker isn't absolutely needed, as far as 3Delight cares. But for the way Studio is set up, it's needed unless there is another light in the scene.

And it's not quite true that there aren't other area lights in DS...for a while (I'm not sure it's in the current set or maybe it's in the SDK) but there was also an area light in the DS 'default' shader lights. And there are bricks to build them in ShaderMixer.

An 'area light' without geometry does exist...it's an environment light. And no, there isn't one, by default in Studio (other than UE2), but there are bricks to build in ShaderMixer, too. A geometric sphere isn't absolutely needed for an environment light...but if you want to use it to provide a 'background' you need the sphere/box.

XoechZ

Thanks for the explanation mjc1016!

So it is a 3Delight limitation and not a DAZ Studio limitation not to have a "simple" area light. But now I start understanding why things are how they are :-)

I really use the UberAreaLight a lot. Currently I have made several scenes with 2 or 3 UberAreaLights only. I love them for their soft light, soft shadows and natural look. Only the setup and adjusting is always a bit strange to me, but I will get used to it.

Richard Haseltine had a good idea above: Create some UberAreaLights and save them as a scene subset. I will try that because I think this saves some time.

mjc1016

In 3DL terms what an area light is pretty much defined as light emitting GEOMETRY. It's not a limitation...it's more a difference in terminology. In Luxrender they'd be mesh lights. In other things they'd be a subset of 'area light'...