Skydome vs. Terragen vs. HDRI vs infinito vs more!
Griffin Avid
Posts: 3,815
I apologize in advance for this horrible thread I'm starting. In my exuberance to begin creating, I've bought into several methods of creating environments.
At the top for photrealism are products like the Yosemite HDRI and infinito. They look like postcards. Terradome 3 is also in that group of creating very realistic renders of nature.
At the bottom are user chosen backdrop images and the Sears sets where it's like a photoshoot set up. The image is like, 15 ft wide and looks like, a studio...for real.
Somewhere in the middle, in my opinion are the Easy Environments (type products), where you get an area of land and a Skydome that encircles your entire scene and a few lighting options.
Depending on the complexity of my lighting set up and rendering choices, all these approaches can lead to serious render times.
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By a show of hands or cast of POST, what are the most common ways of creating "places"? Have I gotten them all (correct)?
For someone relatively new, is the EASY environment the thing to stick with?
The venerable DimensionTheory has a set of HDRIs for sale in Fastgrab.
http://www.daz3d.com/skies-of-iradiance-night-sky-hdris-for-iray
I have many free HDRIs downloaded from various sites, but have never attempted to use one.
Not even sure where they go or how to, honestly.
BUT! Can I open an easy environment and swap out the skydome sphere for an HDRI and get quicker render times- especially for night or darker scenes that take forever?
I've read a few articles about HDRI and the bit depth and the lighting spectrum...yeah...so.....
If you don't need ULTRA REALISTIC environments, what's the best relationship between (render) Speed, (final image) Quaily and (time and money) Cost?
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I have a lot of those too and agree with your lists. I'm also trying to find the easiest way to create and render backgrounds. (I'll edit this in a few minutes with links and examples.)
The answer is: there are lots of ways and options, and comes down to your preferences as well as your computer. Terradome is amazing, I have all versions, but having a heck of a time with the most recent one. I need to dig into the documentation. I know how it works but it really strains my computer and I don't think I'm optimizing the setup in Terradome3 to render well.
I have Infinito, but haven't tried it yet.
I've heard of Terragen, but haven't used it.
Easy Environments are awesome and I use them a lot. They render blazingly fast and are a joy to work with. Unforutnately, you can't swap your own backgrounds out. I asked Flipmode about that in his PA thread. I used his First Light HDRI here and it's stunning: (click for larger pic.)
HDRIs are great, I have a lot of them. I love Dimension Theory's. You just can't go wrong with those. Here I used one of the desert HDRIs for the background and the only light source. Turned out great:
Often, I find it easier to render characters separately from the background for the book covers and promos I do. In that case, it doesn't really matter what rendering engine you use, of if they're rendered at all, as long as they're blended well in Photoshop. You can also add a background to the Environment tab in DAZ but I don't think it looks as good.
This book cover was done in layers. That's Magix101's Iray Worlds Skydome SuperPak behind her:
Here I rendered Dry Mud Desert in 3Delight separately and put it with an Iray render of Redz' new character, Raj (at Rendo.)
I got worried about the Skydome NOT affecting the lighting of characters if I remove it.
So, in other words, what I've been doing is adding it to the scene, but unchecking DRAW DOME and rendering my scene as a .PNG with transparency.
That way, the characters are affected by the would-be natural lighting, but the render should be quicker because it's not drawing that SUPER COMPLEX real time generated environment.
Goodbye Terragen3.
But then I thought, I'd still be rendering the background (eventually) to be added in photoshop later...When I played with this before, I got some renders where the characters don't cast shadows.
I'm stuck between human panoramas - a small area where the action takes place and large lanscapes, for large spaceships, cityscapes or sky battles. Mostly I've been doing it all in post and using photoshop's cloud brushes and noise filters to create skies. Space, when done with programs like Grand Designer, the planets look great, but the stars and celestial void and cosmic....expanse are all a little shady looking. So far it's the Easy Environments in the lead.
I apologize in advance for this horrible thread I'm starting. In my exuberance to begin creating, I've bought into several methods of creating environments.
At the top for photrealism are products like the Yosemite HDRI and infinito. They look like postcards. Terradome 3 is also in that group of creating very realistic renders of nature.
At the bottom are user chosen backdrop images and the Sears sets where it's like a photoshoot set up. The image is like, 15 ft wide and looks like, a studio...for real.
Somewhere in the middle, in my opinion are the Easy Environments (type products), where you get an area of land and a Skydome that encircles your entire scene and a few lighting options.
Depending on the complexity of my lighting set up and rendering choices, all these approaches can lead to serious render times.
------------------
By a show of hands or cast of POST, what are the most common ways of creating "places"? Have I gotten them all (correct)?
For someone relatively new, is the EASY environment the thing to stick with?
The venerable DimensionTheory has a set of HDRIs for sale in Fastgrab.
http://www.daz3d.com/skies-of-iradiance-night-sky-hdris-for-iray
I have many free HDRIs downloaded from various sites, but have never attempted to use one.
Not even sure where they go or how to, honestly.
BUT! Can I open an easy environment and swap out the skydome sphere for an HDRI and get quicker render times- especially for night or darker scenes that take forever?
I've read a few articles about HDRI and the bit depth and the lighting spectrum...yeah...so.....
If you don't need ULTRA REALISTIC environments, what's the best relationship between (render) Speed, (final image) Quaily and (time and money) Cost?
Where to begin? I agree that a really good HDRI can and will create the rest results. There are a lot of free ones out on the net, yet they are not all created equally. For instance there is a Photoshop function to create and HDRI that does not in fact create the right type of file to light your IRay scene. I spent $60 recently on Envato for so called HDRI files. They all absolutely looked great in the promos and absolutely looked terrible for me. Now some of that might be down to how I incorporated them. For my money the Daz HDRI products like Yosimite or DAZ Studio HDR Outdoor Environments. Those work flawlessly on load in DS and require no additional setup.
The downside of HDRI is that they aren’t very flexible. What you have is what you have. What if you need to create and alien world? Then something like TerraDome 3 Iray clearly the most customizable option.
I use HDRIs from DimensionTheory, mostly, both the natural skies ones and the color lighting (lightprobe). The color lighting is AMAZING. One of them is in FastGrab now: http://www.daz3d.com/iradiance-light-probe-hdr-lighting-for-iray I did not expect much, but I use them much more than the Skies products, sometimes with the dome turned on, sometimes not. When I started I couldn't imagine needing all three but the combinations of colors and shadows and light sources becomes so much more comprehensible once you use them for a while that the additional sets are just like... a larger vocabulary.
The natural skies from Flipmode are the best natural HDRIs I've found; they cast great shadows.
I don't know about using 'skydomes' in iray. I usually delete them because they usually block the HDRI or Sun-Sky lighting.
I've also started using the 'Sears' backdrop/scene lighting a ton recently. It varies a lot in speed, mostly depending on whether the lights are emissive surfaces or actual lights-- the ones that use facsimiles of real lights with emissive bulbs and reflectors and so on definitely take the longest, but the ones that use customized Daz lights are reasonably fast and they offer incredible control. Honestly I tend to use those without the backdrop even when I'm rendering outdoor scenes, because they make the characters pop more.
I do use TerraDome HDRI products sometimes, especially the nighttime ones.
Surprisingly, the old Millenium Environment facades can work really well as long as you're careful with your lighting.
But ultimately when it comes to speed you have to first figure out what you want. It sounds like you want to do outdoor renders, in which case the cheapest option is the Sun-Sky innate light generation. There's a product that can get you started understanding the system but pick a latitude/longitude and a time and date and you've got free blue sky and light generation, and all you need are some scene sets from PC+ and fastgrab.
OHHHHHMAn. I just read this article (it even mentions DimensionTheory) but it also says, you can't show the ground? And the far points are blurred????
I never heard of this.
http://basic3dtraining.com/truth-ds-iray-hdri-lighting/
EXCERPT:
In order to get the shadows and everything to match, you need to have the character or your characters right in a specific spot “inside the sphere”, and everything needs to be scaled properly. You can only have the DAZ Studio camera at a specific height, so that it matches the background image height (at the time of the photo was taken), or else it will not match correctly. On the good side, any shadows do fall on the “ground”, although it’s not really there.
Iray handles all the “fake” shadow catching, and it looks great. But…
When using DOF (Depth Of Field, that blurry background / foreground), you can zoom in on the character(s) and get past some of the limitations with more camera freedom, since the background will be blurred, but that again limits how you can use this type of lighting, since you cannot show feet when using DOF. (The entire background gets blurred, including the ground). There are special HDRI images you can get for DAZ Studio Iray from Dimension Theory in the DAZ 3D store. I’ve checked these out and they are great right out of the box.
END EXCERPT
I intend to use an Easy Environment and for variety, use DimensionTheory's HDRI backdrop for lighting and well, the background.
Is this possible as a plan?
Oh Damn...those book covers are great. Unlucky Charm is clearly a next level piece of art. That's poster worthy.
Thank you! That was the very first book cover I created, and mostly a happy accident. I'm struggling to make the cover for my next book in the series (as well as finish writing the doggone book!)
Don't forget another method- creating backgrounds that are turned into HDRIs, right in DAZ. I think the new 360 panoramic settings can do this, along with Marshian's new Fish Eye Camera. I haven't explored that yet, but it looks very cool. You can literally build/render your own world and then stick your character in front of it.
You can use one HDRI to light the character and a separate one to render the background later. I used an HDRI to light Raj, the last picture I posted. The shadows are on, but everything else was transparent (ground, dome, etc.) Then I stuck the Dry Mud Desert render behind him in Photoshop. The lighting matched well enough, even though each was done in a different render engine. DOF would be a great tool here too- it hides a multitude of issues, both in DAZ and doing a similar effect in postwork.
Well... it can be done. Wether it is worth the trouble or not is of course another matter.
The image below is made with the water spring and my own skydome with a non-hdr texture as the background. Environment was set to 'Sun-Sky only', camera headlamp off and no other lightsources present. With the right settings, the skydome lets the light pass (I guess the best comparison is stained glass settings, but without the 'glass'). Playing with the sun settings can give sharper or softer shadows. (However, as this is done 'shooting against the sun' the environment is quite dark - as it would be with a 'reallife' photograph... (or else get an overexposed sky...
).) The big downside, render times are long to clear up most of the 'noise'...
And one more option, the most basic one: purchased backgrounds. This one is from Sveva (in her Rendo store.) The stars aligned and it turned out very well. I'll probably put a little more light on my character's face for the final render. (Click for bigger pic.)
Oh, I forgot to mention, on my book cover, Unlucky Charm, the lighting is from Dimension Theory's Iradiance Light Probes. They are AWESOME! Get them all if they're in Fast Grab. Worth every penny.
I've made my own HDRIs in DS. Here's one example from a while ago (long before the new cam was out). I scripted the rendering of tiles that were subsequently stitched to produce a much larger end result. Here's a small 8-bit version of the HDR, and a couple renders of characters lit using it (quick non-sensical tests):
I find that this approach has the advantage of helping to match the look of the characters with the look of the environment since they were both rendered in DS.
- Greg
Those are awesome, Greg! I need to learn how to do this, as I'm writing two very different series with different looks.
I do love Sveva's premade backgrounds, I have to say. I always feel a little like I'm cheating but here's an example of a couple in use.
http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/295081/
http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/238536/
I pulled the background into Daz as a 'backdrop' to help me with setting up the render, but what I imported into Photoshop was just the rendered models.
Nice. How did you get the character to match the background?
Ahhhhh some sort of shader methinks. Good stuff. Oh yeah, I can see you loving the Runtime DNA savings!
Now I see what you're doing with all those figures...it figures.
Thanks, Llynara - I was pleased with the results, too. It's worth keeping in mind that not only do these scenes render lightning fast when compared to rendering with the actual environment loaded, but the technique can also help your scene fit in the VRAM of your video card. At the time, I actually started looking in to doing this in an effort to help somebody that was having this very problem.
For this one, I rendered 22 2048x2048 frames and stitched them to produce the 60 million pixel file. I set each frame to stop after 50 iterations and ran the result through my firefly swatter, so it didn't take too long. Here's a link to the thread in case you're interested:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/102841/efficient-rendering-practices-iray/p1
- Greg
I may be biased, but Infinito is the best of the lot. It may take a bit more work to create the exact landscape you want but it is always worth it.
Kendall
I would actually love information on Infinito if you have it. Does it work?
I've been sort of keeping an ear out for Infinito 2. Not sure it will ever get made, but here's hoping. ;)
How do you make your own HDRI in DS? I have DS4.9.2.70.
But Infinito 1.1 is $14 for me right now.... I'll admit I have TerraDome 3 and I was disappointed by it-- specifically by how the morphs affect the whole landscape..But it's all anybody ever seems to talk about in terms of terrain generation so I sort of assumed Infiniton was past tense. But Kendall likes it....
I experimented a lot with Infinito, when it came up and liked it (even purchased Infinito twice - to please the creator).
I do not know, if it was fixed or not, but at the time I could not find the way to save populated ecosystems in it.
So, if I wanted to change anything with ecosystem at the later time, I just need to start everything from scratch,
because ecosystem was not saved with Infinito preset and it was not so funny any more to repeat placing objects on terrain again and again.
Basically, you need to do 2 things:
1. render out 32-bit file(s)
2. render out a full 360 degree panorama
The first is accomplished by rendering a beauty canvas. Esemy was kind enough to go into some detail about how to use canvases in DS in this thread:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/62101/relighting-with-iray-canvases/p1
I believe there is a new 360 degree camera available in the store now. I don't have it, but maybe somebody else has some info? As I mentioned before, what I did is render out 22 2048x2048 frames and stitched them together to create the panorama. This approach has the added benefit of effectively increasing the max render size.
- Greg
The latest DS/Iray update added a spherical setting to the camera (amongst other things) no purchase necessary. just select your camera go to lens > lens distortion type > spherical (also set your render size to something with a 2-1 ratio),
For me the real key to blending 3d with 2d be it backplates or hdris: you have to have some depth of field in your image. Any real world image was capured with a lens, its not going to have the crystal sharpness of cg all the way through. You stick it next to some crystal sharp cg and it creates a sharp division between what is real and what isn't, making what isnt feel even more fake. Depth of field can, quite literally, blur the line between what is real and what is cg.
(actually while we're at it you should probably always have some DOF in your image no mater what if you're going for anything close to photorealism)
This thread was very interesting to read through.
Has anyone used Terragen 4 professional to create an EXR with a Sphereical camera and then imported it to Iray?
I'm wondering if this would create some amazing renders...
Hello All,
I am new to Daz Studio and while I have enough characters with some good face / body morphing options in place and some good clothing selections. I am a bit lean when it comest to environments. I tired quickly of the beach setting that came with my Daz 3D 4.10 download and I bought an environment called "Dream Castle" (store sku# 5859) and I really liked that environment. It is chock full of photo ops. However, it doesn't come with a sky. I had to 'borrow' one from another package. And that was OK. However, what I want to do now is create a winter scene for Christmas. I have a snow covered Gazebo that I am going to use and also a Christmas tree. However I do not have a decent environment for it. So after reading up on some environment packages it seems like most like Terradome 3 and it seems like it is very flexible. But after doing some more reading, I have heard that it is a resource hog and rendering times go up considerably. While I do have a higher end i7 machine, I do not have a graphics card. So I am worried that something intensive will slow things down.
I came across something else that I would like to ask about. How is the Iray Worlds Skydome package (SKU:23387)? From what I seen from the pictures, it looks like something I would want. There is somethihng for all four seasons and there are quite a few different settings. You can change the position and brightness of the sun as well. I am curious if anyone could give me some input on this package and how it compares to the ones above. Is it light on resources? Any information would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Hae you looked at https://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-winter-ii and, trhough ti needs soem work for iray, https://www.daz3d.com/easy-environment-winter ?
I saw them, but they are more expensive than Terradome 3. I didn't delve into their resource usage though.
Thanks,
Geo