Can't see custom lights in renders

Using Iray, whenever I add for example a spot light I can clearly see how it affects the scenery before rendering but during the actuall render or the preview the lights are not visible at all and I only get the default light. How can I fix this?

Comments

  • jestmartjestmart Posts: 4,449

    In Render Setting pane under Environment switch the scene lightinh option to Scene Only.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 104,156

    That sounds as if the spotlight is being swamped by the default HDR environment map - if you go to the Editor tab of render Settings and under Environment set the type to Scene only then you will not get that, but you probably will find the sceen is woefully under-lit; you will want to adjust the Tone mapping settings but also probably add some more, dimmer lights to fill the illumination in.

  • Peter WadePeter Wade Posts: 1,649

    When you put a photometric light into an Iray scene the default light intensity is so low it usually doesn't show up. I usually have to set light intensities in the hundreds of thousands to make them any use. There is an option on photometric lights to change the intensity scale used but I haven't tried this.

    Iray has an environment light, sort of like a sky dome, and this is switched on by default. If you go to the environment settings in the scene tab as Richard describes you can switch if off. Dome and Scene includes the sky dome, Scene only switches it off and only uses lights in the scene. If you don't want the default light added to your lights then select Scene only.

    You can increase overall lighting by going to Tone Mapping in render settings and adjusting Shutter Speed, F/Stop and Film ISO but I think using this to correct for very low lighting can lower the render quality. I usually only use it for fine tuning when I've got the lighthing close to OK.

    One final point, Daz Studio also has a light called the Headlamp that only comes on if you have no lights in the scene. If you are using spotlights, point lights or distant lights you don't need to bother about this. But if all your lights are Iray emissive surfaces the automatic swich off doesn't work and you have to switch it off in the General tab in render settings.

  • fastbike1fastbike1 Posts: 4,078

    @Peter Wade "There is an option on photometric lights to change the intensity scale used"

    Where is this option? I couldn't find it in the Paramters tab for a photometric spot or in Preferences etc. I know one can change units for emissive lights.

     

    This does beg another question. In the Parameters tab>Light>Luminous Flux, one can get to the paramter settings and apparently change the default value (from 1500). However,  when I change this value and Accept, the new deault doesn't stick for a new Spotlight. What am I missing?

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