Are your Daz3D Lights not working? It would seem that you did everything correctly but they still donโt work as you intended. Or maybe donโt work at all. We created this article where we will look into the causes of these problems and how to deal with them.
Examples and How to Fix.
There would be two main situations when lighting is not working as you intended it. First if your scene is too dark and it looks like lights do not give the lighting. And the reverse one – when everything seems to be too lighted and too bright.
Everything is Dark: Daz3D Lights Not Working properly
You changed to the Iray shading and understand that for some reason you canโt see your character and scene. Everything is black. What happened and how to fix it?
- Most obvious thing is that the lights settings are incorrect. Select your light source and open the โLightsโ tab. Make sure that โIlluminationโ is set to โOnโ and โIntensityโ is set to around 100%.
- If previous settings are okay – there can be a problem in one more thing – โLuminous Fluxโ setting. This setting changes the power of your lights. So be sure to change this instead of the โIntensityโ if you want to make them brighter or darker. For some reason the default value of 1500 is far too small. To properly light your scene you will need to go into hundreds of thousands. I recommend setting it to 500 000 and figuring it out from there.
- This may be too obvious for someone – but needs to be said. Make sure that your lights are facing the right direction. You can change your view to the light and check if it is faced in the right direction.
- Check the โEnvironmentโ option in the โRender Settingsโ pane. The โEnvironment Modeโ should be set to either โDome and Sceneโ or โScene Onlyโ. Otherwise – your scene lights would not make an effect on a scene.
- And the last possible problem here is the โTone Mappingโ settings that can be found in the โRender Settingsโ. Wrong settings here can make your scene look a lot darker than it really is. Set everything to default to be sure that it is not a problem.
Everything is Too Bright: Daz3D Lights Not Working properly
Alternative to previous examples – is when everything is unwantedly too bright or too lighted. Now is the time to fix this problem.
- Most obvious thing. Your lights can be too strong for the scene that you are making. Be sure that the โIntensityโ value and the โLuminous Fluxโ is set appropriately.
- Check your headlamp settings. Camera can have the โHeadlampโ turned on and this will create an additional light pointed from your camera.
- You can have an Environment Map added to your scene that you donโt know of. Check the โRender settingsโ settings to make sure that โEnvironment Mapโ is set to โNoneโ if you donโt want one.
- Same as when everything is too dark – โTone Mappingโ can make everything appear too lighted. And if your โTone Mappingโ is disabled it can even make everything look simply white.
If nothing of this did help you – donโt forget to try to restart your programs or even computer.
If even that did not help and you canโt find what the problem is or you simply donโt want to spend your time on this – it is possible to buy yourself a light preset. These presets should work on any computer and light your scene good. Good examples would be IDG Toolbox Studio by DestinysGarden &InaneGlory and Fantastic Lights for Daz Studio Iray by Akasha & Anain. Or find more yourself on the Daz3D Shop..
Source IDG Toolbox Studio by DestinysGarden &InaneGlory
Conclusion Daz3D Lights Not Working
We did cover the most obvious and common problematic situations when lights are not working in an intended way. Also we did explain how to fix each of the possible examples. Now you should be able to render your scene without these problems.
If you want to learn more about lighting in the Daz Studio and how to properly set it up – check out the Daz3d Iray Lighting Tutorial where we dive into that.