Diamonds showing up black

[Chatterbox]

Almost forgot to mention. When I loaded some earrings that have no diamonds, it appears that the gold shader is reflecting the spotlight as black instead of the actual color of the light. So I'm thinking something is funky with both the metal and gemstone shaders.

 

[Porcus Dev]

Yeah...loaded a completely new scene, basic Gen8 female, and even different jewelry. Still a no go. This one really has me stumped.

I even uninstalled literally everything, and reinstalled DAZ with the basic packages that come with it, a jewelry package for testing, and updated my drivers. Still a no go.

Not glad to hear this...

Well... sometimes even if you uninstall and reinstall things, some archives can keep in some folders.
If you can, use an empty hdd to do a clean install of OS, drivers and DAZ and test it. This way you can know if the problem is software or hardware related

 

[Porcus Dev]

Almost forgot to mention. When I loaded some earrings that have no diamonds, it appears that the gold shader is reflecting the spotlight as black instead of the actual color of the light. So I'm thinking something is funky with both the metal and gemstone shaders.

I uploaded a copy of my shaders, not sure if helps but if you wanna try:

You must be registered to see the links

Just copy shaders folder on DAZ installation folder, in my case c:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\
(Backup your shaders folder just in case)

Fingers crossed

 

[Chatterbox]

Even that didn't work. So it's not the shaders. It's got to be drivers or hardware. There's no other option that I can think of.

 

[Porcus Dev]

But if with dome it shows corretly it's strange.

Anyway, as I said, if you have an empy hard drive and can do the test of clean OS install just for try, then you will know for sure if it's related to software or hardware.

 

[Chatterbox]

But if with dome it shows corretly it's strange.

Anyway, as I said, if you have an empy hard drive and can do the test of clean OS install just for try, then you will know for sure if it's related to software or hardware.

That's my next step. I'm trying one more thing before I go though all that. That step is gonna suck.

Thanks for the help. I'm sure I'll eventually figure this out.

 

[Chatterbox]

What light/focus do you use? Have you tried to use some other type?

I missed this question before. Not sure what you mean. Do you mean spread angle?
My camera is always 120mm, and light spread is usually 60, rectangle shape, but all shapes do the same thing.

Btw...I installed Windows on another hard drive with Daz like you suggested. Same results.

I noticed that you also have black metal reflections without the dome light. That shouldn't happen. I noticed that it happens on any spot light, or emmissive plane, and even shows up with the Dome and Scene lights on if you turn on the spot light or the emmissive. But it looks better on yours with that JM Softbox you mentioned. I'll have to look for that. Also my diamonds show up darker than yours. You don't appear to have problems with that shader, just the metal parts.

I reported it to Daz, and maybe they can come up with an answer. This crap didn't happen to me just a couple months ago. There's been some kind of change in the lights. This is either an iray issue with shaders, or a daz issue. Either way...I can't solve it.

 

[Porcus Dev]

I missed this question before. Not sure what you mean. Do you mean spread angle?
My camera is always 120mm, and light spread is usually 60, rectangle shape, but all shapes do the same thing.

That I was asking in case it was a problem of some light in particular, not the case.

Btw...I installed Windows on another hard drive with Daz like you suggested. Same results.

Ups, so it seems a hardware related problem... well, you can make another test to know if the VGA is the problem.

I supose that in advanced tab in render settings you have checked your VGA and unchecked your CPU (or perhaps two are checked but I don't think so, it's worst); so you can make test with only CPU checked, I know it will work slower but it's only for the test. And if you have an integrated VGA I recommend to unplug temporally your Nvidia for that test, this way you will know if the problem is the Nvidia card or not.

I noticed that you also have black metal reflections without the dome light. That shouldn't happen. I noticed that it happens on any spot light, or emmissive plane, and even shows up with the Dome and Scene lights on if you turn on the spot light or the emmissive. But it looks better on yours with that JM Softbox you mentioned. I'll have to look for that. Also my diamonds show up darker than yours. You don't appear to have problems with that shader, just the metal parts.

I think that this could be because of the structure of earrings, the difference is that dome are a 360º light, I think that if I put 3 or 4 spot lights to iluminate earring at 360º it will show well to (as with dome looks)... sorry, I can't make this test now, I'm rendering, but if you want to view how it will show with this 3 or 4 spot lights I can test it later.

 

[OhWee]

OK, I'll hazard two guesses here.

1) The Iray vs 3Delight thing has already been alluded to. If you are rendering in Iray, try applying the Iray Uber Base shader to the diamonds. This will keep your textures, but flip things to Iray if they aren't Iray already.

2) The max path length may be set too low. If it's -1, that's 'infinite', but any other number affects the number of times light rays bounce. I've seen mentions in a few Daz threads about setting this number less than say 8 causing black eye issues, so I imagine that translucent diamonds could have a similar issue under Iray.

Another thought, this one is a long shot. Try deleting all of the lights in a scene and using a HDRI sphere (which generates illumination from all directions). HDRIHaven.com has a few of these (just pick one and use it for the environment map). My thought here is that if the HDRI illuminates your diamond properly, then it could be a spotlight issue of some sort. Again, this one's a long shot, but might be worth experimenting with at least.

Dunno if these ideas will help, but they might be worth checking out at least.

 

[Chatterbox]

OK, I'll hazard two guesses here.

1) The Iray vs 3Delight thing has already been alluded to. If you are rendering in Iray, try applying the Iray Uber Base shader to the diamonds. This will keep your textures, but flip things to Iray if they aren't Iray already.

2) The max path length may be set too low. If it's -1, that's 'infinite', but any other number affects the number of times light rays bounce. I've seen mentions in a few Daz threads about setting this number less than say 8 causing black eye issues, so I imagine that translucent diamonds could have a similar issue under Iray.

Another thought, this one is a long shot. Try deleting all of the lights in a scene and using a HDRI sphere (which generates illumination from all directions). HDRIHaven.com has a few of these (just pick one and use it for the environment map). My thought here is that if the HDRI illuminates your diamond properly, then it could be a spotlight issue of some sort. Again, this one's a long shot, but might be worth experimenting with at least.

Dunno if these ideas will help, but they might be worth checking out at least.

I've applied Iray shaders to it, even the Iray uber shaders. The funny thing is that this only effects gold, silver, nickle, and a few other less common ones like Platnum. A lot of other metals are fine.

I usually have max path at 7, but also tried -1.

I've already done that with the HDRI. Dome and scene has a default HDRI and it does solve the problem. Here is the interesting thing though, with the hdri on, as soon as you turn on a spot light or an emmissive plane, you can see the black reflection start to appear in diamonds and on these metals.

I loaded another set of earrings that are just a long strand of gold beads. You can see the black reflections in the metal.

I'm gonna render those and post it here.

 

[Chatterbox]

Earrings Dome off
Earrings Dome on

Bracelet Dome off

Bracelet Dome on

 

[Chatterbox]

Finally solved it. Turns out that if you even have one side of the room open, it will catch the reflection of emptiness. So I guess jewelry requires a dome, or a fully enclosed room.