Digital Art Zone

This looks interesting ... but I am not sure how it would be used (maybe I am one of those Bryce novices ...!)  I tend to need practical examples of ‘real world’ things to help me to grasp things.
If I, in Bryce, ‘knocked up’ a scene with sky and terrain, etc., and used this product to save as a ‘spherical mapped image’, how would I end up actually using that in DS4?  Would I create a big sphere primitive and assign the image as the diffuse image?

Pretty much that way, yeah. Skydomes often have couple of settings tweaked (ubersurface, “accept shadows” off), but yeah.

Oh hey—how long this thing is going to be on sale? I checked my banking, and I kinda need it to remain on sale ‘till month rolls over + couple of days. (Stupid credit cards. Stupid payments not tweaking the use limit ‘till a day or two later.)

In “the good old days” sales continued for 14 days…  That wasn’t the case with the last product - but that did coincide with the instigation of the new regime.  Maybe things are better now?

Okeydoke, thanks.

David Brinnen - 29 June 2012 09:55 AM

Here you go… http://www.daz3d.com/shop/new-releases/bryce-7-pro-spherical-mapper/
 
To you - Special Price: $12.56
 
Now that’s what I call service.

Bought it, yay!  I’m going up to my Mom’s for the weekend after work, so I won’t be able to download’n'play with this till next week.  Looking forward to it!
 

SimonJM - 29 June 2012 10:36 AM

This looks interesting ... but I am not sure how it would be used (maybe I am one of those Bryce novices ...!)  I tend to need practical examples of ‘real world’ things to help me to grasp things.
If I, in Bryce, ‘knocked up’ a scene with sky and terrain, etc., and used this product to save as a ‘spherical mapped image’, how would I end up actually using that in DS4?  Would I create a big sphere primitive and assign the image as the diffuse image?

Bryce7Pro has a similiar (but limited since it’s sky-only) feature built in — I used it to create the seamless skymaps I included in this tutorial (click here), which should answer your questions on how to use something like this in DS4.
 
Although you don’t need the Spherical Mapper to do what I did (I didn’t have it at the time), it will significantly expand your capabilities since it includes entire scenes — that means you can make far more complicated backgrounds to use in DS4 than just a sky, and then apply them to a DS4 sphere primitive with the same ease as one of my simple seamless skymaps.
 
 
PS:  David, thanks again for all your help with the tutorial!!!

David Brinnen - 29 June 2012 09:55 AM

Here you go…

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/new-releases/bryce-7-pro-spherical-mapper/

To you - Special Price: $12.56

Now that’s what I call service.

spotted and wishlisted

I see that in addition to the “Bryce 7 Pro Spherical Mapper”, there is also a “Bryce 7 Pro Scene Converter” http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-pro-scene-converter/ .  I’m a bit confused about the difference between them as it relates to getting a Bryce sky or scene into DAZ Studio as a backdrop; can somebody elaborate?

Also, how streamlined of a process is this?  Something I need to sit down and dig into or approach differently for different kinds of scenes, a basic render-and-go where I don’t have to worry about anything, a process that can be used for ANY scene or doesn’t work as smoothly for certain types of scenes, etc?  I’m not trying to get a critique on the product(s), just trying to get a feel for what to expect.

Thanks in advance for any information!

Sean Riesch - 05 February 2013 09:28 PM

I see that in addition to the “Bryce 7 Pro Spherical Mapper”, there is also a “Bryce 7 Pro Scene Converter” http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-pro-scene-converter/ .  I’m a bit confused about the difference between them as it relates to getting a Bryce sky or scene into DAZ Studio as a backdrop; can somebody elaborate?

Also, how streamlined of a process is this?  Something I need to sit down and dig into or approach differently for different kinds of scenes, a basic render-and-go where I don’t have to worry about anything, a process that can be used for ANY scene or doesn’t work as smoothly for certain types of scenes, etc?  I’m not trying to get a critique on the product(s), just trying to get a feel for what to expect.

Thanks in advance for any information!

The scene converter produces angular maps of your Bryce scenes - for export as HDRI - in other words light probes.

The spherical mapper - as the name suggests - produces spherical maps.

If you have something like HDRIshop though, you only need one and you can use the transformation tools to convert between either angular map and spherical.  In which case I would favour spherical since has less errors.

So if you can tell me what format the DAZ Studio uses I can tell how how to make something in that format in Bryce and what is the most efficient way to go about it.

All I need to know is what files DAZ Studio needs for its backdrops - simple as - because I don’t know nothing about DS myself.

@Sean - if you want to use a Bryce sky in Studio, you would rather go for the Spherical Mapper. Both are easy to use and create a full panoramic scene out of Bryce in one go. The Scene Converter creates an angular map projection which can be exported as HDRI to re-use as light probe in Bryce. Studio cannot use angular maps but needs a spherical (or equirectangular) panorama. The Spherical Mapper does that in one go. It can also be exported as HDRI. However, Studio “IBL” works differently than Bryce. You can use the spherical render in Studio to map around a sphere and use it as a backdrop. Studio Uberlight 2 (by Omnifreaker) uses such a LDRI (low dynamic range) high resolution panorama as backdrop and for the light, a small, specular convolved HDRI also in the spherical projection is needed. HDRI and LDRI must be appropriately offset because Studio Uberlight 2 has a mapping bug. However, any render created in Bryce using the Spherical Mapper can be used as backdrop in Studio.

Thanks for the info!

For the Spherical Mapper, will the result be created in a format that I can just directly apply to a sphere primitive in DAZ Studio, or will I need something else to convert the mapping between Bryce and DAZ Studio?

Works directly. You might have to swap left and right, i.e. mirroring it if you have the camera inside the sphere. But that’s the same in Bryce. It is usually right if mapped on the outside.

great, thanks.