Digital Art Zone

I see your stores are in the PA sales
you have some HDRI files in some of your sets
sorry, Bryce just TOO hard for me but 360 HDRI images are great for Carrara too.
which of your products has the most of these, preferably but necessarily photographic, great Bryce renders ok too but not just plainish backgrounds
(I am having some difficulty working out what is all included in each)
I am weighing up buying some or not with the added bonus of if I ever do tackle Bryce they will be usefull there as scenes.

wendy♥catz - 15 September 2012 12:49 AM

I see your stores are in the PA sales
you have some HDRI files in some of your sets
sorry, Bryce just TOO hard for me but 360 HDRI images are great for Carrara too.
which of your products has the most of these, preferably but necessarily photographic, great Bryce renders ok too but not just plainish backgrounds
(I am having some difficulty working out what is all included in each)
I am weighing up buying some or not with the added bonus of if I ever do tackle Bryce they will be usefull there as scenes.

Horo would perhaps be the best to advise you on this because he is the HDRI master.  However, in terms of just HDRI quantity Horo’s

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/hdri-pack1
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/hdri-pack-2

We have made other products that incorporate HDRI but… by and large here the images are intended for incorporation into Bryce scenes, to work with content provided along side, frequently, some tutorials.

The two packs listed above however, are purely HDRI at a variety of resolutions.

Cheers,

David.

The two products David mentioned: the first has 4 photographic and 2 Bryce rendered HDRIs, see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hfurka_en.html,
http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hlake_en.html,
http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hpfaffort_en.html.
http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hsimplon_en.html.

The second has 5 photographic (one of them special) and 2 Bryce rendered HDRIs, see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hpfynjungle2_en.html
http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hsramp2_en.html
http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hsunset_en.html

Then there are products with just one HDRI:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/hdri-scene-files-2 has one indoor photographic HDRI (technical room).
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/hdri-scene-files-3 has one outdoor photographic HDRI (pond surrounded by trees), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hsuome_en.html.
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/hdri-scene-files-4 has one outdoor photographic HDRI (arid alpine scene near a glacier), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hplainemorte_en.html.
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/hdri-scene-files-5 has one outdoor photographic HDRI (open forest on one side, far mountains and a valley in the middle and background), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hpreggontji_en.html.

Then, there is the Tourbillion series with one HDRI in each one:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/tourbillion-chapel-hdri-and-scene-files (inside a chapel), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hTchapel_en.html.
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/tourbillion-tower-hdri-and-scene-files (landscape as seen from a tower top), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hTtower_en.html.
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/tourbillion-room-hdri-and-scene-files (in a ruin, half walls, half landscape), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hTroom_en.html
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/tourbillion-garden-hdri-and-scene-files (some trees), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hTgarden_en.html
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/tourbillion-dungeon-hdri-and-scene-files (inside a tower ruin), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hTdungeon_en.html

The Deep Space HDRIs http://www.daz3d.com/shop/bryce-7-pro-deep-space-hdri-1 and
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/bryce-7-pro-deep-space-hdri-2 are partly photographic and partly Bryce made HDRIs

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/bryce-7-pro-advanced-layered-skies has a photographic HDRI (mountain pass), see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hsanetsch_en.html

These two products from David have a photographic HDRI each:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/premium-rendering-hdri-ta-stoneheap has a photographic HDRI, see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hstoneheap_en.html and
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/premium-rendering-hdri-ta-2-rockfall has also a photographic HDRI, see http://www.horo.ch/photos/hdri/html/hrockfall_en.html

There are yet others, but I don’t remember exactly.

Now: generally, all HDRIs are in the angular map projection, Carrara needs them in the spherical/equirectangular/latitude-longitude format. You can transform them right in Bryce. Load the HDRI and Export it with the Filetype HDRI Image Files (*.hdr) and the Type Spherical. You can use that file as HDRI in Carrara.

If you only want the photographic background, load the HDRI in Bryce, click on Tonemap and export it as *.BMP, *.PNG or TIFF 24 Bits Per Pixel, Type Spherical. You can then wrap it on a sphere in Carrara. It will not produce light, it’s just a backdrop. If you want it correct, you have to mirror the exported image in a graphics application because the camera is inside the sphere and the picture is mapped on the outside. But this is only necessary if you want tho retain the original landscape. Nobody knows how it looks in reality anyway, so having it mirrored doesn’t really change anything.

There are some free, lower resolution HDRIs that come with the Bryce 7.1 Pro content. Try one or two of them to bring over to Carrara. Or generate an HDRI from the sky and export it to see how it works in Carrara. Once you see how it works, you may want to consider a purchase.

I hope no-one reading this post will be surprised when I recommend to just purchasing all the products to have the maximal choice of HDRIs

wow - 48 Bryce things to buy
didn’t know you guys had done some many !!!

bigh - 15 September 2012 04:19 AM

wow - 48 Bryce things to buy
didn’t know you guys had done some many !!!

96 if you buy them twice

I am overwhelmed maybe this one can only afford one
still deciding, keep looking at your photos and scratching my head
getting psoriasis flakes all over my shoulders, must go wash my hair!!!

@wendy - there are also a few free ones beside the ones that came with Bryce 7.1 Pro. On my website (see sig below) go to Raytracing > Resources and help yourself. The same as above applies to make them Carrara compatible.

OMG you have a lot of freebies
Pity I am not into Bryce
I never realized there were so many HDRIs inc with Bryce either, looking through the skylab at them now
I realize you need to sell stuff to pay for your travels to the cool locations and your photographic gear (plus insurance!!!0
but so much in Bryce already, I might wait a bit until I have tried some.there will be more sales!!!

Wendy you could always try Bryce out properly you know, I do keep telling everyone, including you, that it is a fun app. I am even trying to subvert BlumBlum, although haven’t had too much success yet I admit.

the scenes OTHERS do, inc you look fantastic
got quite a few I bought in a background pack from Renderosity when I just used iClone, they are now my desktop backgrounds!!!

I was pleased to discover that David & Horo’s stores were on today’s PA sale and I rushed over to snag a few things to play around with!  I intend to re-familiarize myself with Bryce again and some of these items should be a great help.  Was VERY tempted by the mentoring dvd but decided not to spend quite as much so just grabbed a few interesting things to play around with.  (Trust me, I could have easily went for the entire contents of both stores but had to really restrain myself!)

I mainly use Daz Studio & Bryce and, though I own Carrara 8 pro, I haven’t really used it a lot yet.  Actually I haven’t used any 3d apps in over a year or so which makes me extremely rusty but getting the hang of them back again gradually.

On a side note, IIRC Daz Studio also needs HDRI images in lat long format correct?  Then I should be able to use the same technique Horo mentioned to convert them for D|S?

Thank you GreyMouser69 for you kind remarks and of course, for your purchases.

Right, Horo can probably set me right here, but I don’t believe that DS has fully working HDRI capability, it is either buggy or does not correctly respond to dynamic range… I forget which (possibly both) - but I am a self confessed DS idiot and struggle to do anything right with the software - I am slowly learning - but don’t take anything I say about DS as gospel.  But, as it happens, I do know that it does require the long-lat format.

@GreyMouser69 - correct, DS needs the HDRI in spherical. Uberenvironment2 uses a specular convolved spherical mapped HDRI (can be quite small) and for the backdrop an LDRI, also in the spherical projection - needs to be large. Unfortunately, the HDRI generating the light and the LDRI shown as backdrop are around 30° offset. This means that light and shadows don’t match the backdrop. I haven’t tested in DS 4.5 but I doubt that Omnifreaker has updated Uberenvironment2.

The products have usually a specular convolved probe included, which can be loaded into Bryce and exported as HDRI in the spherical projection. If there is none, take the smallest probe, usually the 1280 pixel diameter, and create a specular map in Bryce itself, using a Phong exponent of 100 and export that one as HDR spherically mapped.

For the backdrop, you would use the probe with 3840 pixel diameter, tone-map it and export in an LDRI format (e.g. BMP) also in the spherical projection. If you have the courage, you can shift with wrap the LDRI by 30° - I just don’t remember which direction, most probably to the right. Take the pixels of the picture width and divide it by 12 (360/12=30) and shift the picture this much pixels. Be sure that the picture wraps over to the opposite side, otherwise you have to resort to cut and paste.