lights dont seem to work

[tomabobu]

I've rendered your scene with a default diffuse mat on all objects and at your current settings was way too overblown. I've attached a render with the power set to around 300.
I think that the problem with your scene is that you are using only glass materials and your light is seen only in reflections.

[ArcaneParadigm]

thanks

[ArcaneParadigm]

actually i still don't understand why the daylight system works then ???

I know i turned the octane light all the way up because it wasn't affecting the scene like the daylight sun was

thats what was confusing me

[ArcaneParadigm]

u can shut off the area light and bring the daylight up to 5 and it looks good but you can't turn the daylight down to 0 and increase the area light to get it to reacte - is it because the daylight system uses the blue orange colors as a sort of hdri ?

if i turned a area light up in c4d to 10,000 it would blast that all out to white

[aoktar]

u can shut off the area light and bring the daylight up to 5 and it looks good but you can't turn the daylight down to 0 and increase the area light to get it to reacte - is it because the daylight system uses the blue orange colors as a sort of hdri ?

if i turned a area light up in c4d to 10,000 it would blast that all out to white

Daylight generates environment also. This makes the things are visible. You should use some hdri with you arealight. Also scene is complicated with many materials. Specular is good for glass. That's your mistake.