SkyScapes Backdrops

dennisgray41

No offense, But how is [SkyScapes Backdrops]this different from using any of the millions of free pics online for a backdrop?

Drip

Probably the convenience of having them (as well as the back panel) in your smart content with some categorization applied, instead of having to look them up in some distant folder on your HDD.
Illumination also tends to make them high res, upto about 8192 X 4489. (the description doesn't mention resolutions on this product though)
Maybe he did some color adjustments on them as well.

Personally, I have a strong preference for HDRI environments over background panels, though background panels do have some advantages as well. But, because of my HDRI preference, I rarely see a point in aquiring backdrop products. Depends on the users' style and workflow I guess.

fastbike1

@Drip "Personally, I have a strong preference for HDRI environments"

As do I, yet sometimes it's hard to get the light from a HDRI environ right, even with rotation. In that case a sky backdrop with Sun-Sky will give you what you want. Sometimes you just want a view from inside through a window without needing the lighting that comes with the HDRI. That's when Illuminationa backdrops are handy. Personally, I've learned that being too fixed with a "workflow" causes one to miss interesting possibilities.

Drip

fastbike1 said:

@Drip "Personally, I have a strong preference for HDRI environments"

As do I, yet sometimes it's hard to get the light from a HDRI environ right, even with rotation. In that case a sky backdrop with Sun-Sky will give you what you want. Sometimes you just want a view from inside through a window without needing the lighting that comes with the HDRI. That's when Illuminationa backdrops are handy. Personally, I've learned that being too fixed with a "workflow" causes one to miss interesting possibilities.

That's one of those situations. Other fairly good reasons are that some backgrounds are almost non-existant in HDRI format, and one simply has to make do with the options that are available. If backgrounds provide those options that HDRI's don't, well, a background it is in that occasion.
Another benefit of backdrops is, that they are by definition subject to Depth of Field settings. HDRI's are a little trickier in that regard and need some additional camera tweaking to have DoF applied to them.

Taoz

Drip said:

fastbike1 said:

@Drip "Personally, I have a strong preference for HDRI environments"

As do I, yet sometimes it's hard to get the light from a HDRI environ right, even with rotation. In that case a sky backdrop with Sun-Sky will give you what you want. Sometimes you just want a view from inside through a window without needing the lighting that comes with the HDRI. That's when Illuminationa backdrops are handy. Personally, I've learned that being too fixed with a "workflow" causes one to miss interesting possibilities.

Another benefit of backdrops is, that they are by definition subject to Depth of Field settings.

Not the one built into DS it seems - DOF has not effect on it.

Sevrin

Taoz said:

Drip said:

fastbike1 said:

@Drip "Personally, I have a strong preference for HDRI environments"

As do I, yet sometimes it's hard to get the light from a HDRI environ right, even with rotation. In that case a sky backdrop with Sun-Sky will give you what you want. Sometimes you just want a view from inside through a window without needing the lighting that comes with the HDRI. That's when Illuminationa backdrops are handy. Personally, I've learned that being too fixed with a "workflow" causes one to miss interesting possibilities.

Another benefit of backdrops is, that they are by definition subject to Depth of Field settings.

Not the one built into DS it seems - DOF has not effect on it.

There's a backdrop built into DS?

evacyn

I think they mean on the Environment tab you can select 'Backdrop' from the Type drop-down.

Drip

Taoz said:

Drip said:

fastbike1 said:

@Drip "Personally, I have a strong preference for HDRI environments"

As do I, yet sometimes it's hard to get the light from a HDRI environ right, even with rotation. In that case a sky backdrop with Sun-Sky will give you what you want. Sometimes you just want a view from inside through a window without needing the lighting that comes with the HDRI. That's when Illuminationa backdrops are handy. Personally, I've learned that being too fixed with a "workflow" causes one to miss interesting possibilities.

Another benefit of backdrops is, that they are by definition subject to Depth of Field settings.

Not the one built into DS it seems - DOF has not effect on it.

That one in the environment tab is a bit different from backdrop objects. I more approach it as a painted canvas, onto which I paint another picture. It has its uses, especially for people who want to layer renders on top of eachother, but don't have access to photoshop or something like that.

Backdrops like the ones in this product are actual objects within the scene. Usually a flat or slightly curved plane with a background image. But the skydomes used in 3Delight renders are also a variation of backdrops. Non-volumetric mist and smoke effects are also often accomplished using backdrops (even if these tend to be partially transparent, it's the same technique)

Taoz

Drip said:

Probably the convenience of having them (as well as the back panel) in your smart content with some categorization applied, instead of having to look them up in some distant folder on your HDD.

I've been considering creating a similar product for the same reason, though not with sky backgrounds but other motives (I have a collection of over 100.000 pictures with commercial rights and many of them are well suited for backgrounds).

 

Taoz

Drip said:

Taoz said:

Drip said:

fastbike1 said:

@Drip "Personally, I have a strong preference for HDRI environments"

As do I, yet sometimes it's hard to get the light from a HDRI environ right, even with rotation. In that case a sky backdrop with Sun-Sky will give you what you want. Sometimes you just want a view from inside through a window without needing the lighting that comes with the HDRI. That's when Illuminationa backdrops are handy. Personally, I've learned that being too fixed with a "workflow" causes one to miss interesting possibilities.

Another benefit of backdrops is, that they are by definition subject to Depth of Field settings.

Not the one built into DS it seems - DOF has not effect on it.

That one in the environment tab is a bit different from backdrop objects. I more approach it as a painted canvas, onto which I paint another picture. It has its uses, especially for people who want to layer renders on top of eachother, but don't have access to photoshop or something like that.

I guess technically it works like a layer yes, it's not affected by lighting either which can be an advantage in some cases.  A disadvantage is that it scales to adapt to the viewport size, another that in later versions of DS (> 4.10) it can slow down Iray preview updating considerably (I've seen over 10 seconds delays with a GTX 1070 with a 3000x4000 image), depending on how large it is.  In 4.10 and earlier it doesn't seem to have any effect on preview speed at all.

I've used the DS backdrop a lot, it works quite well with the right pictures.  Attached a sample, sky, mountains and ground are all part of the backdrop picture.  

 

 

Serene Night

I use these for scenes outside windows or when I use hdri but want  something different in the background.

Griffin Avid

When I had a slower machine, I needed this and others like it desperately.

Now, with so many greeble products, I'm making them myself.

I also find that there are only so many angles and dome rotations you can do before the skies start to look samey.

 

 

Wonderland

How is this any different from just creating a flat plane and sticking a photo on it in the diffuse slot?

dennisgray41

evacyn said:

I think they mean on the Environment tab you can select 'Backdrop' from the Type drop-down.

Hey! I learned something. I never even opened that tab. Glad I mentioned this.