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Wonderful promos, Cath - you seem to achieve an ultra-real, high contrast (but not blown out) look to your renders, is that a result of rendering to HDRI and then processing those?
Thank you Stu , and you welcome ! I like to mix stonemason building with my HDRIs always working so well together . I may doing some HDRI hybrids HDRI soon for those that can't load all the stuff to their cards for easier workflow and faster rendering
Phil, when you render with canvases you have total control over the shadows and highlight that Tone mapping does not give you, rendering with canvases beauty will ignore all tone mapping setting give you a raw render so you can set the level of light and shadows plus the render will be much more sharper with more texture details than normal render , it is like shooting photo in RAW format . You can also render separately ground shadow and edit to match better your back plates but usually what I do is render in Canvases Beauty , load in PS set the exposure to -14 EV then use Camera Raw to set the right balance between the light and shadows the way iray was indented too in place to render Low Dynamic renders and missing the true beauty of it and details and most easy you don't need to tweak the light at all just load HDRI throw in your model and render out, simple is beautiful !
Cath, I've been practicing with the tips you posted for canvases and mattes. Here are my attempts with your latest HDRI from the Norman Castle. Do you have any further tips?
Really well done, nice balance, soft box HDRI like the Norman Castle have just ambient light from the sky so we always need to push the value higher and lose details in regular renders if not being careful but I really like what I see and the one with matte function is very cute, I saw yesterday some behind scenes of GOT , they had like 12 ft x 12 ft white plane for back lighting in cloudy weather on top of a truck since it was so heavy , but it gives them the balanced light what lamps would never do , in the Norman Castle where the sun and light source is behind a back lighting like plane could even improve if you go for regular and not canvases render but for your work on this I can't add much here as it is just the way it should be and it is very pleasant for the eye .
Funny fact was that on this morning 7:10 am when I take the pictures there, I saw almost exactly girl as in your renders in the same place, she was running around catching Pokemon with her phone , I was like, do people don't want to sleep in the morning , I have always this thing, when I show somewhere with my camera so do the people the moment I start shooting . The moment I am done there is nobody. lol
Thanks, Cath, you have inspired me to give Canvases a try and I like the results I am getting!
Thank you so much for your encouragement! I've done a couple more to share here. Using Canvases does give a lot more adjustment room. I used some of your shaders on the truck, too, as well as A Touch of Dirt.
You welcome Phil
Very nice, I see you got back some of the sky colors as well, looking very cool the car .. more adjustment room because the render is high dynamic and especially the shadows areas can be tweaked to perfection what Tone Mapping in iray can't as it is too simple and it have only blacks and whites (highlight), not just with HDRI but with any renders canvases is the answer , now you got shadows that don't match the color of the HDRI shadows like blue tint, you can also render separate ground shadow layer and adjust color as you please .
This canvas rendering works great with HDR Efex Pro 2 and Silver Efex Pro 2. I made this nifty old looking abandoned truck image that way, using the same canvas I used for the colored image above. Cath has opened a new world of fun for us! I'm eager to hear about how to render a separate shadow layer.
Shadows and Ambient only for Interactive rendering, anything else can be rendered separately and stock up as layers so you can control everything independent from each other , you add Canvases and change the Type of Canvases making sure Alpha is checked ON -3D models and lights and you will have your 3D scene with all elements separate in layers for tweaking
Diffuse: you can add more brightness to your model skin
Specular: Increase or decrease highlight in the scene elements
Environment lighting: change the level of HDRI lighting to match better the 3D model's surfaces
Depth maps: for making DOF in Photoshop
Light Groups: to control lights in the scene like spot light
Emission: to control emissive shaders light source
Usually, I just render Beauty: full scene to save time and change the exposure to -14/-15 before doing anything on all canvases.
I am using too HDR Efex Pro it is a great tool, shadows in Interactive mode are actually cast that why can be rendered out with layers, in Photoreal mode not, shadow is created by changing the exposure of the background environment or back plate, still you have a great control over everything beyond iray control under Tone Mapping that once again is ignored when rendering using canvases for RAW output of the render . Funny thing to think that everything you do under Tone Mapping in iray is exactly the same when you slide the slides in Photoshop with your canvases render? is that post work ? as much as Tone mapping in iray including bloom filters , pixel filter etc.. as the functions are not rendered by iray engine but added on top of the render.
Have fun playing with! I am out for my weekend, hoping to shot beautiful Italian gardens tomorrow early morning on location if the weather doesn't change.
Gosh, I still don't understand about creating the separate ground shadow layer. I'm not sure what you mean by "Shadows and Ambient only for Interactive rendering". Do you mean I have to change the render mode from Photoreal to Interactive and then create some kind of canvas? Is there a tutorial abouth this someplace? I'm very much a beginner with canvases. I appreciate your help.
Have a good weekend! Good luck with your photoshoot.
Shadow and Ambient Occlusion layers can be rendered out only while using Interactive mode for rendering, in Photoreal mode you will have to render out the Environment as Alpha and then with lasso in PS select the shadow and adjust the temperature if needed . in Photoreal mode the shadows are not fake as in Interactive mode where a shadow layer is created on top, in Photoreal mode the shadow is as in real life just area without direct light and only exposure is changed of the environment maps in the background , however I am thinking here about using Matte function on a plane as a shadow catcher and render it out to see if this is better way as it should works since a plane is a 3d model and can be rendered as a layer, the standard shadow catcher ( environment ground) is not seeing by iray as separate layer, you know what I mean ? there are no tutorials I know off, some tutorials I saw very early in Nvidia Iray manual by Nvidia explaining iray engine and some functions, I just share stuff I was doing by myself, it is more fun playing with and discover stuff on the way.
I just came home, I will try the plane idea later on and if working I will let you know how it works out step by step
and thanks we had a great time, the New Jersey Botanical Gardens are so huge we need to go back on Wednesday, too much stuff to shot for one day and on Sunday too many people around, so another session on early Wednesday, so beautiful areas, gardens, lakes, and woods.
How do you get your Daz Studio canvas 32 bit EXR files into Adobe Camera Raw? The only way I coudl figure out was to convert to 16 bit TIFF first. Is there a better way?
Any tone mapping in PS will flaten HDRI , no matter render or HDRI eviorment map so doing it as 16bit is the only way in Camera Raw and enough data you have to do what you need, You can adjust exposure, shadows level and highlight not going into Camera Raw , Open your exr canvases> Image>Adjustments>HDRI tonning , your render should looks fine then click ok , next after go to Image>Mode>16bit and should open in Camera Raw for fine tunning as 16 bit.
When you use plane with iray matte function there is option to have the 3D model masked with shadows only as well , add Canvases and choice node : Environment Lighting and check Alpha , in PS set the exposure to -1/-15 then load the selection and your 3D model will be selected with shadow as alpha separate from everything else
Matte Function of the Plane will not only catch the shadow but also the light that bounces from the object and also reflection etc.. so I would set the value of any reflection to zero, change the diffuse to the proper light bounce effect and change the diffuse roughness to adjust the shadow level
I see using plane with matte function is more accurate as just the standard ground in iray when using environment maps as it offer almost the same option as the original ground in iray engine we don't have in DS .
Using the standard ground offer only shadows and nothing else , but sometimes you add 3D models like buildings or a single ball that should not only cast shadow but also bounce the light on the ground on some level , that why the matte function is better choice if you looking for perfection of light situation, I will post in a moment some more examples of how good it can be in usage where standard environment ground fail .
Here you have render with matte function plane as ground and the standard environment ground with less option to blend the model into the HDRI , I change the diffuse color of the plane with the matte function to closer to the actual ground color in the HDRI so the ambient occlusion shadows change color closer to accurate than simple gray shadows, also the reflection values are set higher to catch the reflection in the high polish surface and bounced light , so you get more options, you can even use normal maps on the plane with matte function to alter how the reflection and shadow works to match better the original, a lot fun to play with for the perfect results
PLANE WITH MATTE FUNCTION
I'm excited to try these ideas!
Here is the same HDRI scene but a normal map were added to the plane with a matte function to break down the reflection for a better match to the original HDRI environment ground, the main environment ground was set off as we don't need it .
I just added one more picture for the reflection break tips with bump or normal maps
and you welcome : )
I'm trying this, but I have a couple questions:
1) In the canvas that is set to Environment Lighting with Alpha checked, do I need to add my matte plane primitive in a node list?
2) Do I have to change from Photoreal to Interactive as you mentioned on one other post, or does the matte allow me to stay in Photoreal?
3) Do I also render a Beauty canvas at the same time to layer the shadow onto? If so, should the matte plane also be included in that render or do I have to exclude it with a node list that does not include it.
Thanks for all your help. I wouldn't figure this out on my own.
I am unable to get the shadow in a canvas by itself. Creating an Environment Lighting canvas with a node list containing only the plane is still rendering all my scene geometry into that canvas. It is as if it is ignoring the node list for the Environment Lighting canvas. I am rendering in Photoreal mode. I am attaching a screenshot of the canvas setup in Daz Studio and the canvas after loading into Photoshop and adjusting exposure to -12.66. The shadow is there on the matte plane, but so is the rest of the geometry. Do you see anything I am doing wrong?
You did everything right , but there is alpha on the plane node that should separate everything from the HDRI when you load selection in PS , as I mentioned before there is no shadows actually in Photoreal mode as shadows does not excist in real life, that are only areas where the ambient or direct light not shine , what is different scenario in Interactive mode where the shadows are fake layer on top , you need to set up your mind and think different for a moment ;)
When you see the rest of the plane geometry on canvases just use Load selection and it will exclude the shadows only and not the full plane geometry as it was in my ball render , something as you have in the picture # 2 with Alopha channel , it is not as easy as it is in Interactive mode where you can render only shadow layers , and I was thinking what about if you render shadow layer canvases using interactive mode and then canvases of your Beauty scene just with Photoreal mode and without ground ON or plane ? then you get ground shadows to play with easier , until the option to change ground shadow color is not added to Enviroment settings I am thinking it will be not easy way, I try to reduce the cast blue shadows in my last HDRI as much as possible to have less color issue but not possible to get rid of that completelly until sky turns purple plus not everyone want it, however PS have filters that can remove blue overcast from renders easier and fix it with one click like for example Color Lookup under Adjustments , or temperature adjustment in ACR , or white balance adjustment , there i always a way.
I can layer the Environment Lighting canvas (with all the geometry and the shadows) over a canvas that has just the HDRI. Then I can adjust the exposure of each of the two layers separately if I want to. But I think I misunderstood and thought that was supposed to allow me to adjust the shadows by themselves in Photoshop, to change the color or darkness. I gues I have to adjust the shadows with the matte plane surface settings before rendering the canvas. Unless I want to try the interactive mode render.
When you use a node list on your Environment Lighting canvas, does it seem to ingore that node list for you?
This is my render with the matte plane and HDRI ground off. I tried to balance the plane surface settings so the geometry reflections looked similar to the reflection of the door in the background of the HDRI. This is the JPEG render. I didn't even use the canvases for this.
The HDRI is from Aversis. I tried to find something with a shiny floor.
That is very good job on this one as best you can get since the shadows are not direct but just Ambient occlusion shadows ( from the Ambient light only ) and in most cases not much things need to be done besides tweaking the plane with matte function , with a sunny day HDRI you deal not only with the ambient occlusion shadows from the ambient light but also the direct light shadows from the sun that are the hardest part , the iray engine have function for the direct light color shadow but we miss it , actually it is more like the matte function standard HDRI ground and not just shadow catcher , I read a lot of documentation about
below render with matte function and primitives to blend light and shadows into 2D HDRI environment map , sometimes the day HDRI can be turn into the evening with little helpers ;) simple primitives can do the magic and only you will know that.