what to use for foreground and background?
Kharma
Posts: 3,214
I know this sounds like a silly question but I was trying to put together a scene using moongate and I realized, not having made an actual scene before, how do I make a foreground - what items are good for this? and what do I put in the background -- what are good options to create this? I don't have a pic of what I was working on but it had the moongate with a character standing in front of the gate, then i had this huge expanse of space behind with nothing and I had no idea how to go about filling it up...... I realized at this point I have no idea how to create a complete scene in Studio. Any pointers would be appreciated
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That only depends on what you want, which kind of scene you try to create. You can place any kind of props everywhere. There are no limitations. So, if you want to place the MoonGate in a wood, it would be good to add some trees around it, and so on.
But it also depends on your camera angle. If you view the person in the gate from a lower angle, it may happen that you can only see the sky in the background. Therefore just add a sky.
And it also depends on the mood. For example if the scene is set in the night, there is not much light and you can see not much from the environment.
And it also depends on if you are setting up a real scene or a fantasy scene. In a fantasy scene you could just surround it with some colors.
So you see, the possibilities are almost endless, always depending on what you want to achieve. I always found it heplful to watch images and to get some inspiration from them.
I did look at alot of images in the galleries to get ideas. I really had no idea how to get a sky in there or just a ground cover, going through my library to find something that might work. As far as skies are these made in a different program like Carrara or bryce? I see some products include a ground plane...and camera angles and lighting is a whole new ballgame. I'm sure it will be easier as I learn how things work.
I usually render my images without a sky, save the render in .png format and insert the sky afterwards with PhotoShop or Gimp or whatever. This way you can insert any 2D sky image that fits your scene. But there are some other ways to do it, like using sky domes (big spheres with a sky texture around your scene).
I do have skies of economy on my wishlist
Whenever I'm using Reality 2 I try my best to avoid skydomes as they can murder render times. Luckily, Reality has a few tricks to add its own backgrounds in where needed. For cartoony stuff, or when I just want a nice crisp quick image, sky domes are an efficient way to add a background without worrying too much about where the camera is pointing.
Assuming you're using Daz straight out of the box, sky domes are probably your best bet. You can find simple sky dome textures on the internet, so all you need to do is apply one to an inverted sphere and expand it to encompass your scene. Set the ambient to 100% (so it's fully visible regardless of how your scene is lit) and you're away. For indoor scenes where outdoor detail isn't as necessary, you can even up the ambient past 100% so it gives a fake bloom effect like staring out from a dark area into light suddenly, with much brighter colours.
Experiment and see what works best for you.
Google sky and say: sunset, or dawn, or midday... hit the images button, and, after rendering to PNG, just use that as a backdrop...
That's what I did for this scene (which is still unfinished)
http://wancow.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5m06wp
The Millennium Environment and its add-on textures can set up a variety of backgrounds. Depends what mood you're trying to create.
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/catalogsearch/result/index/?limit=30&q="Millennium+Environment"
I tend to like to use backdrops with sky patterns. If I'm not tilting the camera too much to get a cool angle (which can look weird if the clouds are horizontal) they work for me. Then I use a ground plane with either grass or rock in the foreground. Some trees and shrug in front and behind moongate will give it some depth.
I've bought a lot of things to "fill in the spaces" as it were.
When I first started, I'd create backgrounds in Bryce and the foregrounds in DS and then put them together in Gimp.
Now, I use things like First Bastions Hilly Surround (http://www.daz3d.com/shop/hilly-surround) or Worldbase XT (http://www.daz3d.com/shop/the-all-new-worldbase-xt-lushlands) or the many Worldbase extensions for my world. I'm eyeing some of First Bastion's other things. I also love Dimension Theory's Cloud Nine for Daz (http://www.daz3d.com/shop/cloud-nine-for-daz-studio).
I also like some of the props like the Castle Creator (http://www.daz3d.com/shop/castle-creator) and things like that because those can provide good backdrops.
Another good trick, though, is to learn to use the Depth of Field (DOF) on the cameras you use to create the picture. This can blur the background and make even cheap, freebie props look better and more realistic.
I have tons of dramatic sky photos and I would be willing to send you some. (LARGE FILES) PM me if you want some. Here is a small sample. Too small to use, but PM me if you want larger.
Thank you all for the great info and tips and links, I so appreciate all the help everyone is so quick to give here, it really is amazing :))