Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
The only thing you can change after you build your matte function catcher scene is the focal, any rotation of the camera will not match the HDRI background anymore, you can go as complex as you want
below just simple example, also added bump maps to the floor plane with matte function
Take a look at this thread.
I am traveling for the next week and won't be able to try it.
I'm guessing from reading that thread that we might be able to created a Photoreal-mode shadow-only canvas by setting it to Beauty instead of Environment Lighting and creating a node list with maybe just the matte plane or maybe add a dummy object as suggested in that thread.
@Barbult , ok I got it , and only shadows are rendered as layer in Photoreal mode
this will not work with ground ON as there is no option to create a node for the standard ground so a plane with matte function is the answer
here 2 nodes and canvases 1 beauty without shadows, 1 beauty alpha with shadows only
P.S forgot to add that you can render only 1 Beauty at a time , so after you create the 2 nodes, render first Beauty with a no shadow node, then second Beauty with shadow only node
if you have 2 canvases Beauty at a time it will render nothing at all just empty alpha
Hey Cath,
Love the beach HDRI!! Renders very fast with little noise in Octane!
looking great , the feet are freaking realistic in this render and nice shadow transition in Octane, thanks for sharing and for the support, really appreciate it.
I was so busy I forgot about the release lol
P.S the reason it produce little noise is that you have open space and more pixels with the same level of light ( blue sky and sand ), and not much elements closer to the center of the figure with different level of light since each pixel represent light source , in general if there is a lot of different object like in an interior HDRI the calculation need more time so more photons with different light level bounce around creating noises before it clear up, for that reason I choice Nikon D800E since this camera has no build in antialiasing pixel filter and all pixels are used on the sensor and not blurred out or altered on the final image, tested so many cameras and sensors and this gives me the best results so far , iray has a pixel filter that need to be used for rendering 3D figures so a great combination of both worlds.
Well you are a master at HDRI lighting, and I can't wait to see what you cook up next. :)
Awwww blush... thank you, my friend, did I mentioned that the NY beach HDRI location is where John Lenon and Yoko loved to mess all year around?
they added just so much sand since then and make the beach 3 times bigger as it was, the last big hurricane we had consumed everything again but they rebuild everything before the sand was always reddish in color almost powder like on a tennis court, staining your clothing but now they added a new layer of more yellow course sand . I remember once we had a sand devil twister so crazy on the beach the air becomes so dense red, it was kinda scary since I was in the water swimming, you could not see for 20 inches with flying objects around and people screaming, I was like it is the end since I never saw one like that before lol
Wow, I didn't know that! John would be proud with the work you have done! :) Trust me, I live in Florida so hurricane's are a fact of life down here. That does sound wild though! Glad you survived! :)
in september I have one more pack from his favorite walk paths in Central Park, the strawberry fields and above but sadly without John or strawberries and Yoko staying in her apartment shopping via internet to avoid turists lol ;) but we got raccons posing for photos and turtles and of course not to forget new rats invasion in Central park in Upper West at 72 st, turists leaving so much food around ..enough for everyone hahaha
John would say, damn you people trying to change the world ? but nobody care to change the toilet paper in the NYC public bathrooms .lol
The last big huricane and waves blow off all the heavy stones in liberty park pushing it into the land, bend metal latterns and all grass was unrotten and gone like someone shaved it to the ground , horror , but Lady Liberty was still standing proud and untouched , I was kinda emotional when I saw it, everything like after a war or something . For me all new stuff I am originally from Europe so things like that are still exotic for me sometimes and so is Florida :) .
I got the Beach HDRI set yesterday - wonderful! Such great opportunities for photos and angles. And of course great light!
Can I ask a slightly off-topic question as Siciliano posted an Octane render - I have Octane but only the Carrara interface. I am finding iRay to be very good, so what benefits would there be from adding the DS interface to Octane? And how good is the automatic translation of materials - I had heard that it was not as good as the Carrara version, so how much tweaking is required?
Hey PhilW, I use the standalone and just import my .objs into Standalone and render away. I found the DAZ interface to Octane sort of busy and a bit confusing. I think I had it crash on me a couple of times and that was the end of that. I am not sure about the latest version of DAZ to octane plugin. I think they may have fixed all that. I am so used to the Standalone with my own materials. I find it so much easier to create realistic skin shaders that rival anything I have seen in Iray in my opinion. I use one simple Specular material vs all the complicated Iray components. Iray is an excellent renderer once you get the hang of it though. I would say if you are happy with Iray I would stay with it. Here is a 3 minute render from Octane with the specular SSS material I created. The eye needs work, and I need HD morphs for Gen8/V8 as I can't get normal maps to show up properly with the specular material in Octane.
Thank you Phil for the support, regarding Octane I would say it was best when DS doesn't have iray , but since iray arrived I did not use it ever again lol it will not make sense to use Octane if you have iray, the rendering results will be the same waste of money on the interface , I have couple friends that still do that but they convert shaders manually as the translation is not as good so what the point of that, as Siciliano said, use standalone for some fun, Octane has nice sss options for the skin creation but there will be not better light than you already have with Carrara plugin or iray, so waste of money
When I saw Statue of Liberty for the first time from the water said on the boat and visiting Ellis Island, I cried, I was so emotional, so much history .. my father's relatives are from north Italy ;)
well when time and money allows I may drop into Florida, I planning a trip to the south but before that, I am going to West Coast so maybe next year in spring , after I will be on the way home from Texas
Aww, that is such a nice touching story paesana! ;) Well, come on down when you get the chance! Funny, my wife's name is Caterina, and I always call her Cath! LOL
Thanks guys for the advice on Octane - one of the things I like about DS/iRay is that you can just load most things and render without having to continually adjust shaders like you have to in Carrara (much as I love Carrara!), whether for Octane or its native renderer. All recent content comes with iRay shaders ready to go, so any adjustments are for artistic considerations rather than out of necessity! I do like the way that Octane renders skin (beautiful example Siciliano!), but the latest iRay and character materials also give very realistic results.
The last shaders for the DAZ figure is just perfect and the best ever , it response so good to the proper light in iray as never before and it reaches the correct level the way it should, I don't have to adjust anything so the future is bright! PBR shaders are not different they both working in the same principle a lot of my customers easy convert my PBR shaders to Octane since all values are in maps so not need translation .. I love Carrara the functionality of it I wish they made hybrid with iray that would be my first choice software
Thanks PhilW...hey by the way...even though I go by Siciliano....I'm a Phil as well...PhilR LOL
Great name! When I first discovered all the online resources for Poser many years ago, there was a seller called PhilC who did various fantasy outfits and other stuff, so I used the same styling and it has stuck ever since.
and some how I was always confused Who was Who until I did not know you better lol
Lol - I didn't know that! I just searched for him to see if he was still around - and discovered he has the most impressive beard!
http://www.philc.net/
I have him on my google+ list , he do amazing stuff from wood , very talented dude , yeah the beard ! wow
Really going to need the 'for Dummies' version .... Sometimes I can be wholly blind on how to do something, even if it is seemingly obvious! For example - what Matte function in Iray? Without knowing how that is done I can try and follow the steps about canvases but they do not seem to be working as I'd expect making me uncertain if I am doing things right!
I have created a few Matte Objects for my own use and am happy share these - see attached. Let me know if they don't work, I don't think there should be any external references so I think they should, but experience has taught never to take these things totally for granted! Simply move and scale them into position, these shapes should cover most common situations.
Thanks, however ...
2017-08-15 17:10:54.483 Could not resolve : "/data/phil.wilkes2/Product/Matte Plane/Morphs/phil.wilkes2/Base/Enable Iray Matte.dsf"
2017-08-15 17:10:54.483 Could not resolve : "/data/phil.wilkes2/Product/Matte Plane/UV Sets/phil.wilkes2/Base/default.dsf"
2017-08-15 17:10:54.483 Could not resolve : "/data/phil.wilkes2/Product/Matte Plane/plane.dsf"
2017-08-15 17:10:54.487 WARNING: fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(1904): Could not find geometry definition: /data/phil.wilkes2/Product/Matte%20Plane/plane.dsf#geometry.
2017-08-15 17:10:54.487 WARNING: fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(4789): Could not find geometry for the material instance.m_uri.
2017-08-15 17:10:54.488 WARNING: fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(1368): Failed to create material!
2017-08-15 17:10:54.488 WARNING: fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(4838): Could not find modifier definition.
2017-08-15 17:10:54.488 WARNING: fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(1427): Failed to prepare modifier: Enable Iray Matte!
2017-08-15 17:10:54.488 WARNING: fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(1438): Failed to create modifier: Enable Iray Matte!
2017-08-15 17:10:54.488 File loaded in 0 min 0.0 sec.
2017-08-15 17:10:54.489 Loaded file: Matte Plane.duf
2017-08-15 17:10:54.545 Could not resolve : "/data/phil.wilkes2/Product/Matte Plane/Morphs/phil.wilkes2/Base/Enable Iray Matte.dsf"
2017-08-15 17:10:54.546 Could not resolve : "/data/phil.wilkes2/Product/Matte Plane/plane.dsf"
Simon if you check out the MEC4D Youtube channel Cath has 3 really good tutorials on how the Matte funtion works. I refer back to them all the time just to remind myself what to do.
Hopefully I can share the link to Cath's Youtube to make it easier for you to find: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY7ywI1xsB5ekLPViocLdnQ
It's really worth the effort to learn though because it lets you do stuff like this. (ps loving the beach HDRI's Cath! Your best yet, and that's really saying something!).
That's very nice render , I love it , you know you can use a simple stone prop turn it into matte function to get the right shadows behavior, I see you did on the other hand as well , Stonemason's Lake has a lot of stones btw hahahaha
here are the matte function videos , it does not include the new workflow I was talking about the other day doing reflections and ground plane shadow distoritons but I will make one Saturday and Sunday