3Delight will not render area lights with certain characters/textures...

RenderPretender

Hello...

I normally have pretty good luck with area lights. I have noticed, though, that when using several of my characters, 3Delight prepares the shadows, etc., and then stops rendering when it gets to the character. It seems to be related to particular skin textures, because I can get the render to work by turning off the character. Does this issue sound familiar to anyone? Any ideas as to how to resolve it?

Thank you.

AndyS

Yes,

this is very familiar. It really depends on the usage of subsurfaces, etc.
But you just have to be a little patience. After a few minutes (depending on your processor power) the render continues.

RenderPretender

Thanks for replying... I will try to be more patient and see how it goes. But you may well be right about the use of subsurfaces, etc..

AndyS

Yep,

you only have to look into the surface tab for the skin of your characters. There you see where you have to expect this "pause". ;-)

RenderPretender

I did that... even turned SS off, but it didn't help. Even spot renders just lock up with certain shaders, but I usually use SS, so I'm a bit stumped there. This shader is so nice that I'm not wanting to discontinue using it, so I'll have to find a friendlier/comparable lighting alternative.

AndyS

Hi,

think, you're really inpatient. And you really can't turn off the SSS. Its an important attribute of the skin.
In my renders, it only lasts 3 minutes, when using IDL. Then the render proceeds and finishes quickly to its end.
Using UE2 with only directional occlusion, the interruption is only for round 1 minute.

You have to keep in mind that serious renders for complete scenes can take several days.

Andy

Jaderail

What you are seeing with some skin textures is the Calculation pause, which can be very long indeed. For this instance not only is the render engine doing the Calculations for the Skin shader, SSS is shader based, but the render engine is now also doing the Shadow, specular, SSS and all lighting calculations for the Shader based lighting. Area lighting is also Shader Based. And once the major calculations are done as noted the rest of the render should fill in rather quickly, but not always. It will depend on the Scene and things like reflections and such.

RenderPretender

I do have some understanding of what is happening behind the scenes. What I can't understand, though, is why even localized spot renders just never proceed past about 1% with this one particular skin shader, which does fine with omnifreaker's UE light, but simply refuses to play ball with either Gleam or IG lights. With deference to the need for calculations, etc., this scene has one model, one backdrop, one uncomplicated prop. And it's just not practical to have to wait indefinitely for a spot render just to check my work or assess lighting. Something is definitely odd about this shader with Gleam/IG.

Jaderail

Sometimes its just the settings that need set up properly, in both the lighting and the surfaces. I suggest you ask about this in the Release Threads for the light sets you are having issues with. The Creators of the lighting sets will be able to give you much better information than any other user. They often pop in and help users in those threads when a user needs it.

Jaderail

There is a HUGE thread on the Uber Lights in the New User Forum.

RenderPretender

Jaderail said:

There is a HUGE thread on the Uber Lights in the New User Forum.

Yes, I read that in my research, but I didn't find anything that addressed this particular issue.

I did get a spot render to push through after about 20 minutes, and the results are stellar, but I have eight more of my custom set-ups to preview. I should probably look into some long-term care insurance.

Jaderail

When I'm using Shader based lighting I never bother with a spot render. Here is why, to do the Sport render properly, think if reflections will be in part of the area, or other factors that are not in the Selected area but effect the lighting in any way, the FULL image calculations are still getting done for the most part. I just lower my Render settings to proof quality and do a full render. The time will be very close for both, depending on the Spot selected over a Lower quality Full test render.

I use the Adamr001 render settings for DAZ Studio 4+ just for the simple fast changing of my render quality.

RenderPretender

Jaderail said:

When I'm using Shader based lighting I never bother with a spot render. Here is why, to do the Sport render properly, think if reflections will be in part of the area, or other factors that are not in the Selected area but effect the lighting in any way, the FULL image calculations are still getting done for the most part. I just lower my Render settings to proof quality and do a full render. The time will be very close for both, depending on the Spot selected over a Lower quality Full test render.

I use the Adamr001 render settings for DAZ Studio 4+ just for the simple fast changing of my render quality.

Thank you... I might have to try that in the interest of economy of time. But at least I know they are indeed working.

scorpio

If you're using any character with HD settings that also holds up the render.

Szark

masi3vee said:

Jaderail said:

There is a HUGE thread on the Uber Lights in the New User Forum.

Yes, I read that in my research, but I didn't find anything that addressed this particular issue.

I did get a spot render to push through after about 20 minutes, and the results are stellar, but I have eight more of my custom set-ups to preview. I should probably look into some long-term care insurance.I will add this to my rewrite.

As folks have pointed out already tis is common and the best approach is dropping the quality setting in the render settings as Jaderial suggested, then your tests will render a lot faster.