DAZ quick tip: Take me to the light

Pushee-Ri · 2023-11-13T08:58:57-05:00

This is a tip for Newbies ... and I would have been glad to have information like this when I first "encountered" the "Dome". Of course, as an "old hand" you already know the following. Sometimes you see beautifully arranged outdoor scenes, but "somehow" something is not right with the light. The light is often too diffuse (scattered), although it does not correspond to the scene, and sometimes it is clearly too bright (overexposed). This can easily be remedied with a slightly different use of the "Dome". But first, a brief excursion into the real world: When outdoor photos are taken for fashion, not only the model, the photographer and the sun are involved, but dozens of other people who, for example, provide good lighting with additional lights and / or reflectors. This is - more or less - easy to recreate in DAZ. The following steps can all be performed in "Texture Shaded" mode: * Load your "Dome" scene that you want to give a little more light. * Go to "Render Settings" -> General and select "Never" for the "Auto Headlamp". * Go to "Render Settings" -> Environment and switch the "Environment Mode" to "Dome and Scene". You may want to decrease the "Environment Intensity" to 0.65 ... but this can be done later when you start experimenting. * Now create a new Spotlight, select it in the Scene, switch to the "Parameters" pane and change the following "Light" options: - Set "Luminous Flux (Lumen)" to 250000 (for Iray you need high values) - Set "Light Geometry" to "Rectangle" and change both values for "Height" and "Width" to 60.00 * Stay in the "Texture Shaded" view (with "Preview lights" activated) and switch to your newly created Spotlight in the "View mode" drop-down (where you can switch between Perspective View, Camera View, etc.). * Align the spotlight with your model using the Cube and / or the rotation and panning tools beside the cube. * When everything is done, switch to "Nvidia Iray Display" mode. Now you can start experimenting. Just a few tips at this point: - Try positioning the spotlight differently and compare the result. - Change the options "Intensity" and "Spread Angle" in the "Parameters" pane -> Light Section. - Experiment with "Render Settings" -> "Tone Mapping" and (slightly) change the values of "Vignetting" (+/-), "Burn Highlights", "Crush Blacks" and "Gamma". Happy experimenting!