Skydome and lighting

Hamishboy

Hi there,

I appreciate you taking the time to read this post and hope that someone can help me pinpoint what I might be doing wrong.

I purchased DZFire's warehouse and alley set (http://www.daz3d.com/environments-props/cityscapes-buildings/dzfire-s-building-pak-1), and am using it for a "comic" I'm making for fun. However, when I render with the skydome visible, it casts a shadow (I'm assuming) even though that is turned off (cast shadow) in the parameters. With it invisible, my Uberenvironment lighting and one distant light work as expected; make it visible again and the distant light appears blocked with only the uberenvironment lighting to illuminate the scene.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Szark

I don't have this product so I can't check but if Casting Shadows is turned OFF then yes you are correct it should work. Load a Sphere in and set it up as a new dome and just turn off casting shadows, hide the sky dome and set if the primitve sphere works. If it does then it is down to the sky dome it it doesn't then well I don't know what would be next. :(

Hamishboy

Nuts. I should have thought of that. Let me try that out.

Hamishboy

Okay, the sphere works fine so it has something to do with the dome. I hope this doesn't turn out to be one of those RTFM things. I'll be so embarrassed.

Szark

RTFM, shouldn't need to.

But too be honest I am scratching my head at this stage. If a sphere works but the skydome doesn't, twilight zone. :)

Tramp Graphics

I've had a similar issue with the sky dome that comes with the freebie "The Hills" by Fober over at ShareCG. The only way I've found to handle it is turn off the visibility on the stock sky dome, and to use a different sky dome instead. As a rule I use this one by Fuseling. It's free too.

Bejaymac

Fober's is rigged as a figure, and you can't turn off shadows on a body part, only on the whole body, that's why that doesn't work, so if DZFire's product is the same then that would explain it.

Hamishboy

Where would I look to see if it's set as a figure? I'm thinking that might explain it but I've no idea where you go to check it let alone change it.

Richard Haseltine

If you look in the Scene pane a prop will have a simple perspective cube icon next to it, after the eye for visibility and the arrow for selectability. A figure will have a stack of three cubes, their drawing style depending on whether it's a TriAx figure like Genesis or a legacy figure like Michael 4, and the children of a figure will have bones next to them while any children of a prop will also be props.

Joe Cotter

That is excellent information (everyone) but why would a skydome be saved as a figure rather then a prop, especially if it has this issue when done so? And, could one save it as a prop to fix the problem?

Hamishboy

Thanks Richard.

I can confirm that the Warehouse is a figure not a prop.

How do you go about changing that?

Tramp Graphics

Shamusboy said:

Thanks Richard.

I can confirm that the Warehouse is a figure not a prop.

How do you go about changing that?

You don't, to my knowledge. Simply turn off the sky dome, and load a prop sky dome, like Fuseling's.

Hamishboy

Nuts. It's one thing I don't like about DS - how it handles data management. Eh.

Thanks for the feedback and info all :)

Joe Cotter

Well if nothing else, I would think one could export to Hexagon, re-import as obj and save as prop.

vwrangler

Gedd said:

Well if nothing else, I would think one could export to Hexagon, re-import as obj and save as prop.

Just out of curiosity: if it's a figure, doesn't it already have an OBJ source? Why couldn't you just find that, import it, save as prop -- no Hexagon needed. It's probably in a directory called Runtime\Geometries\DZFire or something like that.

(...Or one could just ask DZFire to maybe update the product; I think he (he?) participates in the forums with some frequency. That does seem like it's the type of issue that should be addressed by the vendor.)