LON the Palace strange cam/light problem

Philor

It is the first time I find this problem in Daz.
It occurs only with Lords of the Night the Palace by Larsen when it is fully loaded.
My wiewport is totally obscured in camera and perspective view.
I can use it only with the lights view (and I had to create a spotlight to do this).
This is always the case even when loading the provided Palace cameras and lights.
The funny thing is that it renders correctly..... but it is painful to work that way...
My specs are :
+++++++++++++++ DAZ Studio 4.7.0.12 starting +++++++++++++++++
Platform bits: 64
Qt Version: 4.8.6
OpenSubdiv Version: 2.3.5
Running on Windows 7, Build 7601, Service Pack 1
CPU Information:
CPU String: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand String: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500 CPU @ 3.30GHz
Cache Line Size = 64
L2 Associativity = 6
Cache Size = 256
Stepping ID = 7
Model = 10
Family = 6
Extended model = 2
CLFLUSH cache line size = 64
APIC Physical ID = 4
Supported CPU Features:
SSE3 New Instructions
MONITOR/MWAIT
CPL Qualified Debug Store
Thermal Monitor 2
x87 FPU On Chip
Virtual-8086 Mode Enhancement
Debugging Extensions
Page Size Extensions
Time Stamp Counter
RDMSR and WRMSR Support
Physical Address Extensions
Machine Check Exception
CMPXCHG8B Instruction
APIC On Chip
SYSENTER and SYSEXIT
Memory Type Range Registers
PTE Global Bit
Machine Check Architecture
Conditional Move/Compare Instruction
Page Attribute Table
Page Size Extension
CFLUSH Extension
Debug Store
Thermal Monitor and Clock Ctrl
MMX Technology
FXSAVE/FXRSTOR
SSE Extensions
SSE2 Extensions
Self Snoop
Hyper-threading Technology
Thermal Monitor
Pend. Brk. EN.
Physical Memory:
Total: 7.8 GB (8477089792)
Avail: 6.0 GB (6549618688)
Virtual Memory:
Total: 7.9 TB (8796092891136)
Avail: 7.9 TB (8795874148352)
Current Memory Usage: 22%
Current DateTime:
Loc: ven. 26. déc. 22:29:57 2014
UTC: ven. 26. déc. 21:29:57 2014
Temp Data:
Location = C:/Users/Proprietaire/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/temp
Disk Total: 111.6 GB (119926681600)
Disk Avail: 40.1 GB (43131113472)
+++++++++

The Palace was manually installed (my preferred way of doing things as I have several complex folder structures on the second HD while my Win7 is on a SSD).
The individual props load normally and are visible as usual.
the problem is when I want to load thePalaceFull or ThePalaceStructure (duf files).
They load (hoping in duf files as there are also the pp2 files) taking a longer time (7 seconds) than usual (I regularly load very heavy and more complex scenes sometimes with ten-twenty genesis 2 with different clothing and numerous lights) but immediately obscure the wiewport (the grid is also masked, it is pitch black) including things I have previously loaded.
At first I suspected a path problem but
the log text is :
File loaded in 0 min 7.5 sec.
Loaded file: !LoN_ThePalace_Structure.duf
followed by a myriad of tdlmake and absolutely no error message.
I am somewhat puzzled.
I would like to know if I am alone in this predicament.
Thank you for reading and for any hint or opinion.

Richard Haseltine

Have you tried moving the camera, or pressing ctrl-f with nothing selected to frame everything in the viewport?

Philor

Richard, Thank you for yout interest.
Yes, I did move the cams to no avail. I tried all the tricks I am aware of...
However, while waiting for any answer I managed to overcome the situation....
I created a new scene with my own default lights (for interior dark scenes), put a G2M (aslo a default for my tests) and a cam
and SAVED . Curiously, when I loaded the Palace (duf) again in the saved scene, it worked instantly....
I get the impression you need to have a good light (UE2 and stuff) in place BEFORE loading the Palace.
I do not understand but I am glad it works.
I am surprised that recent products such as this one are still in a runtime only format (poser) with no database reference for DAZ, I had to search in a prop subfolder to launch it (fortunately I knew where I had installed it which is not the case with auto installs).
Thanks again.

info_689ca6dd65

p19.a19 said:

Richard, Thank you for yout interest.
Yes, I did move the cams to no avail. I tried all the tricks I am aware of...
However, while waiting for any answer I managed to overcome the situation....
I created a new scene with my own default lights (for interior dark scenes), put a G2M (aslo a default for my tests) and a cam
and SAVED . Curiously, when I loaded the Palace (duf) again in the saved scene, it worked instantly....
I get the impression you need to have a good light (UE2 and stuff) in place BEFORE loading the Palace.
I do not understand but I am glad it works.
I am surprised that recent products such as this one are still in a runtime only format (poser) with no database reference for DAZ, I had to search in a prop subfolder to launch it (fortunately I knew where I had installed it which is not the case with auto installs).
Thanks again.

Hi p19.a19,
the problem you're facing when the light set is loaded is that there are more than 100 lights in the scene (every acndle has its own light) and only 4-8 can be considered by the OpenGL realtime render at once. So you get a very dark preview while the final render is ok. I guess your workaround is the best right now since I usually only use the wireframe preview mode to setup my scenes for renders.
I'm really sorry this is affecting your experience with my set and in my future products I'll try to include some sort of 'dummy' light set to help the scene setup process.
Kind regards,
Larsen

Philor

@Larsen
Thank you for your answer.
I suppose I am not alone in using a full openGL view to visualize the future render.
However I also use other products with lots of complex lights and I had never been puzzled this way.
I am glad you provided support and took my problem into account.
Your product is interesting and I appreciate very large sceneries.
Now I would be curious to know the exact limits of the viewport regarding complex lighs.
Thanks again.

info_689ca6dd65

Hi again,
I obviously can speak only for my sets and this one in particular has lots of not very bright lights with linear falloff applied (as candle lights should be in my opinion) and this is why you see the OpenGL preview so dark. I have tried yesterday to see if there was a way to improve the preview but have found nothing except adding a UE2 to the scene before loading the light set and then make it inactive before rendering. I don't know if this may be a solution for you and maybe others but if I'll find a better way I'll sure post here.
As said in the previous post I am sorry if this is something which is consistently reducing the enjoyment of my set but I couldn't do any better than this due to the nature of the light set and the described limitations.
Kind regards,
Larsen