Sun-Sky environment mode: the Sun
Rafmer
Posts: 564
Hello everyone! This is my first post in these forums, I have been lurking for a few months since I started with Daz Studio and I wanted to contribute with something.
I just recently discovered the relation between haze and the sun, while using the "sun-sky only" environment; and since I haven´t found anything related to this I thought I would share it with you all. Thing is, increasing the haze will make the sun visible; not only the shining area you usually get. The higher the sun, the more haze you will have to put. I have made some screencaps to show some examples.
And that´s all. Maybe this was common knowledge and I am just embarrasing myself for being a noob, but didn´t find anything in the forums. Have fun!
PD: Now I miss some clouds...
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Comments
Thanks for posting! No, I don't think this is common knowledge at all.
What are you using for your "Sun" node? I see it listed in the panel.
You can add clouds with a skydome, but it'd be tricky.
How I'd do it is have a sky dome with a transparency map of a sky, (clouds, etc), then crank up the sun until it cuts through decently. Not sure this would WORK, but... work a shot.
I´m using the Sun Dial Set, you can find it in Render Presets.
I think that if you use a skydome, you would have to turn the "draw dome" off from the sun-sky, so the sun would not be visible.
Holy crap this is amazing!! I had no idea this was even possible!! Thank you for this! :D
what I do is take a cloud prop from the stonmason Winter Terrains For DAZ Studio and place them where i need them , ad a Uber Iray shader to it and then reduce the transparence a bit because in Iray it tends to render the outline of the cloud obj if you don't reduce the trans map a little works pretty good using just the sun dial and it speeds up the rendering
VERY useful tip! Thank you.
I'd love for some HDR-type things which are purely Iray-compatible skies to show in the store. Especially night and starfield visuals. I've now got an idea for how to darken the environment sufficiently to give an illusion of something like dusk, but I do feel disappointed at not being able to one-click use my previous skydomes and such.
We need stormy clouds, overcast skies, colourful alien gases... Weather systems! And, as I say, stars and outer space. :) there are some nice-looking HDRI sets in the store, but they seem to have very specific ground environments which would be totally incompatible with historical, fantasy and science-fiction projects.
After struggling a bit, one ... tolerable approach I've found is to take the skydome and essentially try to pull out the blue sky, and sun, putting it in cutout so that the clear sky shines through. Then make it emit. And then try to line up the sun.
I had earlier did two domes, one with the sun and everything else masked out, the other with the full sky. But it renders fairly slowly.
What I really wish we had was some ability to set a 'sun point' to where, in an environmental image, the sun is, and let sun settings come from there. Yes, if you make a proper HDRI it will do this. But I've found that pretty much impossible.
Ivy demonstrated doing exactly this in another thread. Apparently, the sundial setting affects the quality of light (color temperature, etc.) even from the HDRi. Dial the sundial for a setting sun, and the color temperature drops. Very clever. If you want a bright sun light, you'd need an HDR image with a bright light source, which is what's more rare. The "Pixar Campus" HDR is a good example of an HDRi with a very bright sun, so maybe start with that one.
In other threads, we've talked about lopping the top or front side of a skydome so that you can use its background, plus light from the Environment dome. I did that with a TerraDome, and it yielded good results, even without making the dome emissive, which just has to kill render times.
I've done several tricks. The problem is the lack of clouds in the sky with Sun-Sky normally.
What I've tried:
Skydome with blue part removed, line up sun and sun in skydome so it looks right. Works ok.
Skydome with smaller skydome nested inside; inner skydome is masked to just be the sun, so you can set the emission of each independently. Best result, but a bit slow.
Skydome with spotlight where sun is placed. Good result and fast (relatively), but it can be tricky to place the spot properly. (I think next time I'll try shrinking the dome so I can easily place the spot, then parent it and expand it back out.)
Sounds like a lot of work when a simple composite can give you a backdrop of blue sky and fluffy clouds. This is for a still, and not animation, right? You can render without the dome in Sun-Sky, and get a transparent background. Separately render a skydome in 3DLight -- I like Alessandro's Ultimo Paradiso, which gives beautiful azure skies and very realistic clouds -- and combine in Photoshop. Or Paint.net in your case...
Then don't use Sun-Sky! Use an HDRi with a very strong main light, and the reflections you want. Or if you absolutely must simulate the sun, that can be done with a spotlight. Movies have long used a big, bright spotlight on a studio soundstage for sunlight. Why are we so special that we can't use the same techniques?
If the HDRi you are using doesn't have a pretty enough background, don't render its image. As long as your background plate you've chosen has a minimum in common with your HDRi, no one will know the difference.
Indeed, many of the free HDRi's are little more than pretty pictures. And then there are the really nice free ones, like Pixar Campus, that is beautifully done, but non-commercial only. I'm not sure of your use, so maybe that would not be a conflict.
I've gone through maybe six dozen HDRi's and have even bought a few. Once I find some that I like, I use them in everything. I never use the image as a backdrop, as that smacks to me of paint-by-numbers. I like my work to have a distinctive look. I use a plate, sometimes of my own taking, that more or less matches the mood and lighting of the HDRi.
Most of my uses are indoors (my webcomic occurs either in space stations, open space, or in virtual reality). But for random other stuff, just having a good cloudy backdrop... I've been using the skydomes with Ocean Wide, which are nice looking. If I'm willing to put up with the performance hit, sun dome within skydome looks great.