I've already rendered this scene several times, the lighting is all working fine, then suddenly, the renders are black. I didn't do anything except adjust the angle and intensity of a single light, as far as I know. And I adjusted the intensity up, not down. Anyway there are 6 other lights. What gives?

The only thing I notice that's different is that when I go to the perspective view of any of the lights, there is a box on the screen that basically shows a cropped view of the viewport, with a 1:1 in the upper left hand corner that wasn't there before.

I have had that problem recently. I can't remember exactly how I fixed it. It had something to do with the light dome. As I recall I was using iRay, I switched to 3Delight and I was able to render, when I changed skydomes I was able to use iRay...or something along those lines. Sorry I can't be more help.

No I have environment set to "scene only" which is exactly where it was set before.

Someone please help! As far as I can tell, DAZ is just broken now : p I can't find anything to get it to render as before. I literally JUST finished a render as normal, changed a light angle, upped the intensity just a little, hit render again, and it's all black.

So is this the case in all scenes or just the one you're working on?

If it's just this one you can assume it's an issue with the lighting settings of this scene.

Make sure when you changed the light settings you didn't lose a few 0's if you're changing the luminance. Make sure nothing is obscuring your camera view.

If you are using default lights you could also try saving a light preset of the lights. • Delete the lights from the scene.

• Test Render.

• Choose to default your render settings.

• Test Render.

• Save your scene as Scenename_b.

• Quit daz and reopen reload your Scenename_b scene.

• Load your lighting preset and retest render.

This will help pin down where the issue is.

Ok...I'm using the "character light rig" 3 point light system.

1. Delete lights, test render : scene appears exactly as it does in the viewport. All black, with a little silhouetting.
2. Delete lights, default settings, testrender: there is some light on the scene, though I don't know where it's coming from. In the preview viewport where I set up the scene, it is still fully black. When rendering, it is somewhat lit.
3. Save, close, reopen, load preset lights: Scene is fully lit in the preview viewport. test render: totally black. (default render settings again)

And is it just in this scene or all scenes?

I loaded a previous version of the scene, which still renders ok. I saved the settings as a render preset, and loaded them into the scene. It still renders black.

Are you sure that your angle adjustment didn't place the light inside another object, or on the far side of a wall? That won't show in preview (unless you are using the nVidia Iray preview) as that doesn't cast shadows - Iray always casts shadows in the default Photoreal mode. If your other lights were already blocked by bits of scenery losing the last one would have cast the scene into darkness.

It does sound as if it is an issue with the lights or camera setting. If it is still rendering black with the render settings being set to default.

Well, what could I have possibly done that would have been along the lines of accidentally bumping something, that could suddenly change renders from being correct, to all black? I didn't have all cameras and lights selected or anything. Actually, even starting from scratch, I now cannot figure out how to get the scene going at all. I am quite new to this, but I had it all dialed in before, but I don't exactly know what I had done...

What is in the scene? Would you be willing to upload the scene file so others can have a look?

it's literally nothing but a single character standing there. I'm simply practicing trying to learn lighting and shaders and skin stuff...

OK. If you render, then go to Help>Troubleshooting>View log and scroll to the end are there any error messages?

Hi check your spotlight is it facing the right angle ,also is the point light set correctly, try working with that that should help, good luck take care