LW 2020.0.2 no backdrop color or backdrop image visible in layout (MAC)

cwarden

cwarden

New member
I've yet to be able to use LW 2020 in my workflow because of just general weirdness and odd changes.

Why can I no longer see my chosen backdrop image or backdrop color in the VPR or renders? That seems like a silly thing to forget to fix.

Every render has a black backdrop. Welcome to the year 2020.
 
So apparently after spending an hour scouring panels, it seems like you have to create a "visible to camera" environment light for the backdrop image or backdrop color to be visible to the camera. That is so odd.
 
You need to add Light Type Environment in Light Properties to be able to see Backdrop even with flat color?
If so, fill bug report.
On Windows I can immediately see Backdrop in fresh newly made scene in LW 2020.
 
Likewise, a default scene on Mac shows backdrop.
cwarden: The new approach with LW2020 is to have an env light, that is just the new workflow.
 
But the benefit of the new Environment light is that you can have multiple backdrops for that light. One Environment light can now contain many instances of, say, Textured Environment. Each can have a different HDR image assigned to it. Then you can just toggle them on or off for different lighting conditions and background images. Very quick.

If an Environment Light has "Use Global" checked (default), then it will use what you have set up in the Backdrop Editor as the image/environment. Unchecking it allows each Environment light to use its own image/environment setup.
 
Sensei said:
You need to add Light Type Environment in Light Properties to be able to see Backdrop even with flat color?
If so, fill bug report.
On Windows I can immediately see Backdrop in fresh newly made scene in LW 2020.
Click to expand...

Actually, I just tested, and if you save a scene from LW2019.1.5 with, say, Textured Environment as backdrop (with loaded image) visible in VPR, then reload the same scene in LW2020.0.2, VPR in LW2020 shows black.

LW2020 does not appear to properly create/config the needed env light with loaded LW2019 (maybe also LW2018) scenes, even in LW2020.0.2, at least on Mac. It's definitely a bug, and OP should report it.
 
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Yeah but if you go open the Background tab and select Texture Environment from the dropdown and double click it open it should be there and set up, was last time i did this, 2020 doesn't know how you want to use it ie: BG or Environment Light so it leaves it off I guess, have difficulty calling it a bug, user lack of troubleshooting skills, possibly
 
gerry_g said:
user lack of troubleshooting skills, possibly
Click to expand...

You seem like a very pleasant person. Thank you for bringing your sparkling personality to my thread.


As Jwied had guessed, I was opening a 2019 scene and had not really used 2020 yet.
 
I took a scene fro 2015.3 and opened it in 2020.0.2, the original had an iSBL backdrop in it ie: a jpeg mapped to a sphere and an HDR mapped to Texture Environment in spherical mode, when I loaded it into 2020.0.2 and did the conversion by letting it write a new scene and put it in a new folder everything was present and correct, the HDR was still in Texture environment and its setting were correct, the jpeg was still mapped to the sphere.All I had to do was add an Environment Light and decide if I wanted it to use the HDR in Texture Environment or use something else, If there was anything you could remotely call a bug it was that some of the area lights in the scene had their axis flipped, despite being orientated correctly in the original 2015.3 version, which meant I had to go trouble shoot what had happened.
 
Im having exact same issue.. total nightmare.
Black background on VPR and render on a scene created from 2019

Thanks for posting this as I thought it was just me and was going to ask what to do on this forum, but you let us know already
 
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did you add an environment light and make sure it was using the backdrop or texture environment, whichever of the two you were using in the 2019 version
 
Sometimes I use the built in fog when working on landscape scenes, it blends nicely whatever the backdrop with the geometry. It doesnt work anymore as the visible to camera functionality of env light is not "seen" by the old fake fog engine. That is a shame that traditinal backdrop without envirolight can also be used alongside the new way.

So something gained and something lost

M
 
..Or perhaps nothing gained? as you also before could have multiple backdrops on the same envirolight. the envirolight scans whatever the backdrop anyway and the old backdrop panel allowed for many version of backdrop to be toggled on and off.
 
Mats Andersen said:
Sometimes I use the built in fog when working on landscape scenes, it blends nicely whatever the backdrop with the geometry. It doesnt work anymore as the visible to camera functionality of env light is not "seen" by the old fake fog engine. That is a shame that traditinal backdrop without envirolight can also be used alongside the new way.

So something gained and something lost

M
Click to expand...

The backdrop fog works the same way it always did in LW. If I have a backdrop image or a backdrop gradient, it will be used as the fog color over my scene. Just be sure to check "Use Backdrop" in the Render Properties > Volumetric tab.
 
fog is under Render Properties in the volumetric tab and it works just fine though you do need volumetric turned on, in fact legacy volumetric fog is still available in the Backdrop panel, needs legacy volumetric checked in Render Properties but it still works with an Environment light sampling a BG image, and furthermore you can have one image loaded for the Environment light and one for the BG, you can also load an inverted sphere and use it as a sky dome which is way more flexible as it allows you to scale your BG without ending up with multiple images
 
Axis3d said:
The backdrop fog works the same way it always did in LW. If I have a backdrop image or a backdrop gradient, it will be used as the fog color over my scene. Just be sure to check "Use Backdrop" in the Render Properties > Volumetric tab.
Click to expand...

Hi thanks for the input. yes no problem with that. Its just that the fog doesnt anymore affect the backdrop gradient or backdrop image, Since this is now the visible enviromentlight that we are looking at. What that if I used a fixed fog colour , before it would also lay itself on top of whatever backdrop I had so that it could nicely blend the backdrop image to the scene.. So the fog found in the backdrop panel (realistic, linear etc) is only affecting actual geometry now. so there is alway a nasty transition to the backdrop. I hope there is a workaround. The inverted sphere trick mentioned will fix it, but it would be nice with an even simpler way as I do this all the time.

Mats
 
Yep! Love reviving these old threads :p

When you have an older LW scene with an HDR environment and open it up in 2020+ it stays 100% black even in VPR and on a frame render. You need to manually add an environment light. You cannot change the properties of an existing one - you need to add a net new environment light in the scene. I did this and it worked!
 
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