Lighting Issues -- DAZ Error?
DrowElfMorwen
Posts: 536
I've tried ev3erything I can to lighten up this scene, to the extreme of setting two distant lights as bright as possible (which you can see below on the right). The lefti mage is using a mix of shadow and diffuse and ambient lighting. No matter what I do, this scene remains ridiculously dark! To say this is frustrating is an understatement. I have deleted all lights, tried using just one, or three, with and without Uber, etc... nothing lights this scene properly.
All I can think is that, somehow, a shader I am using is somehow causing a lighting error in the rest of the scene. This isn't the first time I have had this problem.
I am using Gemologica shaders as well as Eva Silk Shaders, and DzFire's RealMetal shaders.
Please, if anyone knows how to fix this I really would appreciate it.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
If there is a Skydome in the scene make sure cast shadows isn't turned on.
Are there any errors in the log file? Help/Troubleshooting/Log file
If that fails add a distant light only and try removing different things from the scene.
Try the ship first in case it's blocking your lights, then try removing the full figure and all attachments leaving only the other elements.
Hope this helps. :)
For the record: I used a shader cleaner and got rid of all the shaders I was using. She is still rendering way, way too dark.
Thank you, but I definitely thought of ALL of this before I posted--checking the Skydome was the first thing I did.
Now, here is a scene rendered again--with ONLY Genesis and her clothing and jewelry. All shaders removed, no skydome, nothing. Just 2 distant lights with no shadows. This "scene" should be blindingly bright!!
Also, I am not using any special settings on her skin. It's default Genesis settings. Lastly, there is no rendering error at all.
Is it only in this scene?
How are the tattoos applied to the figure? LIE, Geoshell?
Are your render setting set to default or custom?
I'd hazard a guess that the 'gain' setting in the Render Settings is set to about 0.2...
Just for the record, as you say it nowhere... are you using DS 4.7 or 4.8?
And if 4.8, what renderer?
Ah good questions.
Okay so I screencapped my render settings. Now please understand I almost NEVER play with any of these, except the Shading Rate. So while I have had this problem before, again I don't know why. I rendered a picture last night with this character just fine (http://drowelfmorwen.deviantart.com/art/Atha-an-Miere-Windfinder-535051094), with lighting appropriate. It's a sunset. But when I went to render a "daylight" version, that's when everything decided to mess up. I did not change any render settings except the size of the picture.
Oh, and I use DAZ 4.6; regular rendering, nothing fancy. No iray, nothing.
Edit: Now that I know DAZ 4.7 is out (you mentioned 4.8 but all I can find is 4.7!) I'm going to download and install it and see if it changes anything.
Quick reply: I downloaded 4.7 and oh no (since I think I can't swear here, that's putting it politely)!! They totally changed the render pane!!! How in the Nine Hells are we supposed to render? Every little part must be clicked? That's a royal pain in the... ANYWAY, how do I change it back to its traditional nice advanced box like above?!
Edit: Also, it didn't work. Render is still turning out almost black all around.
You have gamma correction On, but a gamma value of 1.0. This setting gives you a linear image, appropriate for post-processing in e.g. photoshop or so, but not for directly displaying the render on screen. Set the gamma to 2.2 for this.
Unfortunately this is the new standard for render settings in 4.7 & 4.8
Its actually not bad when you get used to it.
It looks to be something with the gamma try turning gamma correction off to see if thats where the issue lies.
Also reset the gain to 1. Gain 1, gamma 2.2, gamma correction on and see what you get.
With Gain at 1, but Gamma set at 1.2, it turned out... okay. Her skin and other stuff renders deep and colorful, but the silk shaders now look pale and totally off.
So, still not Solved. It just doesn't explain what the problem is/was--it's not the settings, something is just wrong with this scene, and I don't know what. As a test, I opened up a totally different scene, with the same render settings (my original settings), and it rendered just beautifully as before. So I still don't know why this one scene was affected--and it'd be nice to figure out what the problem is/was.
Below, other setting: Gain 1.2, Gamma 2. Silks... still not good.
Posting again: I tried to do an LDP-R render. But again everything is super dark. :(
Okay, last post: Problem is fixed! So I want to share the solution.
As I first suspected, but didn't work around correctly, it was an error that was created when the file was saved.
I decided today to merge another scene, with a separate figure and lighting, into the girl-on-ship scene. As suspected, everything rendered dark despite the two full sets of lights. Then I deleted everything in the scene except the figure from the new merged-in scene. Again, everything rendered dark--and the figure rendered awkwardly as well, I noticed: the faced looked oddly skeletal and the fingers actually shriveled!
I finally decided to do it backwards. I opened another scene and imported my girl-on-ship scene. Suddenly everything rendered fine. I deleted the scene I imported the girl-on-ship into, and rendered her alone with her scene as before. Happily it has worked.
So it seems it was an error that occurred while saving the scene at some point.