8 lights

JavP

First, congratulations to the DAZ team. I changed from XP to W7 and all my problems dissapeared. Now DAZ Studio goes really great including the render.

Now my question. I see in my hardware features ( video card ) into DAZ 4.6, that I can use 8 lights. But I can't in preview, render in viewport or rendering to a file.

I use:

2 distant lights
2 points of light
4 spot lights

Seems that not more that 4 or 5 lights can be used. Someone knows why ? Thank you.

Jaderail

What the 8 lights means is only 8 are supported by most Graphic cards in OpenGL, the Viewport or quality 1 through 3 render options. In the Quality 4 (3Delight) Render setting all your lights will render but only the number set by your Graphic Card will show in your Viewport as the first ones loaded. You can have as many in your render on Full Render setting as your PC can handle.

JavP

"but only the number set by your Graphic Card will show in your Viewport"

Sorry, maybe I am not understanding. That is the question as you explain it.

I have an ASUS EAH5450 and,appears into the hardware features of DAZ 4.6, with all options in green and puts "8 lights"... then... if I have 8 lights in my scene all of them must be rendered in mode 4 ( 3delight ) not ?

XoechZ

You can see only max. 8 lights in the Viewport. This is a limitation on OpenGL and the DS Viewport is working in OpenGL. But when you render your scene, it renders of course ALL lights that you have placed into it.

Jaderail

As just stated in the DAZ Studio Viewport only 8 lights TOTAL can be shown. For a Render in 3Delight they All will render. I have used well over 8 in many renders they render fine but do not show in the OpenGL Viewport as lit.

Szark

As pointed out already it is an Open GL limitation that limits the effects visible in the Viewport window of 8 lights including the Preview Light. So effectively that means only the effect of 7 lights will be visible. However this does not mean we can only use 7 lights in a scene. That number is only limited by your computer power. There is a function in the Light Parameters called Render Priority which allows us to change the OpenGL priority so we can see 7 different lights. So if we have a scene with 10 light, 3 will no show any light in the viewport window, changing the priority will allow those lights to be seen at the same time turning the effect off on 3 other lights.

There are a few cards on the market that will allow 16.

JavP

I was not seeing 2 of them because I wanted to create the effect of a flash using the edge opacity, but this was imposible since to put an object in front as semi-trransparency to reflect the light.

In fact as you say, appears 8 but finally with this I can use 7.

Thank you.