Using Easy Environments in Reality -- is it possible?
K T Ong
Posts: 486
Hi, fellas. Recently got Flipmode's Easy Environments ~ Top of the World. Gorgeous set; just loved it. A problem, though: the skybox with its panoramic mountain scenes just won't show up when I try using Reality to render scenes created with this set. Tried all sorts of tricks. No luck.
Now what I've learned is that Reality does use something called IBL (Image Based Lighting), where photo images of real places are put together seamlessly -- just like the images comprising the skyboxes in the 'Easy Environments' series -- into ready-to-use stage sets which furthermore illuminate your scene with light generated from the images so that it really feels as if the scene is 'there'. Thus an IBL set showing a sunset will light up your scene with a ruddy red-orange tint.
My question here is: could you use the images comprising an 'Easy Environment' skybox -- the six images that form the Top, Bottom, North, East, South and West -- to create an IBL set for use in Reality? If so, how? Does Reality itself already provide the means for doing so? If not, what software or plugin do you use? How do you use it? (I checked out the appropriate sections of the HDR Labs website which is supposed to be the HQ of the whole IBL thing, but couldn't figure out much.) Or maybe you don't need this whole IBL thing at all to use the 'Easy Environments' in Reality? If so, again, how?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Comments
Here's what I said in another thread...
Turn it into a light emitter, then adjust on-the-fly in Luxrender ...mostly a case of turning light strength down so it's strong enough to be seen but not strong enough to look like it's actually a light - then use mesh lights to light the actual scene inside the skybox.hope it helps ;)
That's one of the tricks I tried at first, and apparently it didn't work out. Then after reading your post I decided to try it again. It turned out I had to adjust the power and efficiency of the mesh lights to full maximum :ahhh: with 'gain' being also adjusted to 100 before I could finally begin to see the skybox at all in my render.
The mountains didn't look sharp and clear, but gave the appearance of being blurred because of being out of focus due to distance. Ah, well, guess you can't have everything...
Thanks for the help anyway, pal!
ok, something's not happening right... I'll see if I can knock one out in the next few minutes (uh oh, there I go again!)
Just making sure the "obvious" bits are being done the same way...
First up, sharp or blurred is a matter of how the camera is set up i.e. must be using depth of field - so just for this exercise, turn DoF off.
Open the Reality interface as usual via the DAZ Studio render menu -
In the materials tab, select skybox surfaces, right click & select "Convert To Light"... they will disappear from the materials list, as they are now mesh lights and therefore listed under the lights tab.
Start render in usual way, this will bring up the Luxrender interface.
Once scene has finished loading and rendering has started, make sure the Tone Mapping is set to Linear, and click on the "estimate settings" button. This should bring the scene levels fairly close to something worth using.
Open the light groups tab and manually adjust to suit.
The attached images show my settings for test render using Skybox1 from Top of the World...
Oh, here's one I did using a skybox from Road To Hell... nudity warning - * NSFW * http://fav.me/d5xx056 * NSFW *
I applied a bit of DoF to the camera so that the glow would bleed a bit more, as it's supposed to be the burning embers of hell - or some similar place where I grew up :lol: :lol: :lol:
And this one uses Top of the World with an additional mesh light added to add extra highlight to vehicle... http://fav.me/d601tll
That's odd... I never turned DoF on in the first place... :ohh:
Just a couple things (for now). Did you ever use a sun in any of your renders above? (I did, and I suspect that might have been the culprit.) And did you set your scene type to 'exterior'? (I didn't at first.)
I reserve my thoughts on whatever place it was where you grew up, by the way. :)
And here's the render I did with the (unexpectedly) blurred skybox...
Aha, I never use a sun along with skybox. It would be a bit like sitting in a windowless room - it will still be dark even if the sun is shining outside. That would explain why everything had to be turned up to "eleven" :)
Just "thinking out loud" so to speak, but maybe if the skybox meshlight has been boosted so much, the definition will bleed over, giving it a blurred look... I might be wrong, just trying to guess what might cause it.
I pretty much always use the interior setting.
As usual, there's more than one way to skin a cat, so to get a strong lightsource for sun, there are several we could do:
* If sun light being used, position it somewhere behind the camera, we can simply be selective about the skybox mat zones we keep visible - so long as they're not visible in the frame, they can be made invisible in the surfaces tab, and the sun will shine on the scene like normal.
* Add additional mesh light inside the skybox to provide light source for highlights/dominant shadows - adjust light colour to a pale yellow during render to add warmth.
* Attaching a Light Portal to the skybox might also work, but I've never tried it (I prefer the additional mesh light option instead)
* If you don't mind a wee bit of postwork, render background separate to models in scene. Then do a second render of just the models without the background (obviously with lights set up to fit with background). Save this render as an alpha via the Export To Image in the file menu of the Luxrender interface.
File - Export To Image - (make sure 'Output Alpha Channel' is already ticked) - save as Tonemapped Low Dynamic Range Image
Once you have both renders, import to image editing program, layer one on top of the other, tweak to suit, and bish bash bosh, job done :coolsmile:
There are probably some other ways I haven't thought of, but I reckon the above are the most practical.
Hope that helps ;-)
That did occur to me, actually. Think that's what I'll try. ;-) Might render just the skybox in 3DLight, then the models using Lux.
I guess sometimes you just have to settle for second best...
I had this very same issue... and your posts were really helpful, Jabba!
Your method worked perfectly for me. I mean the first, simplest method, without sun. The skybox looks perfect in my Lux render, not blurry at all. Thank you! :-)
cool, no worries... glad someone found it useful :)
Hi guys
Sorry I didn`t contribute anything here, unfortunately I know nothing about Reality and Luxrender.
I just thought I`d add how the skyboxes are set up in Daz Studio, who knows, maybe that helps for Reality/Lux as well.
Basicly there`s just two relevant things:
-Ambience set to max ( and Diffuse to zero, but that`s a DS specific thing).
Full ambience kinda takes lighting & shadows out of the equation, just what you want on a skybox. Lux/Reality must have a setting for it?
-"Cast shadows" off. Daz Studio handles this on the object, some other tools through material settings.
Allows you to properly use a sun without sitting in a windowless room, to quote Jabba ;)
That`s all I got ... ignore if useless ;)
No worries, it basically boils down to the differences between the 3Delight built into DS that can bend/break the laws of nature, and Luxrender that mostly cannot break the laws of physics/nature (I suppose why it's called a physically based renderer).
So you put a box into a Luxrender scene, it will cast/receive shadows - making a surface invisible is like virtually cutting it out of object - apart from that, most things act pretty much the same as if you were setting up a photo shoot in real life (and photography experience makes using Reality a breeze because the settings are set up using camera.
I would imagine there is some way to convert skybox using some sort of code but that is beyond me. (There are Reality skydomes after all, but Reality dome doesn't work in Luxus so presumably each route to Luxrender uses incompatible code.)
So my workaround is simply to convert non-Reality skybox to a light, which I suppose could be considered the Reality equivalent of turning up the ambience ;)
Personally, I'd also love to be able to use a shadowcatcher in Luxrender, but the developers are quite stubborn in rejecting ideas that bend the laws of physics/nature (skydomes presumably being the exception to their own rule)... so I'll happily switch between 3Delight and Luxrender based on what tool suits my purposes for the result I want to achieve.
Here goes one of my first renders using the Top Of The World skybox with Reality-Lux. Following Jabba's advice, I converted the skybox materials to lights and turned gain to 4.00. I also added some mesh lights with gain set to 1.00 or lower. I'm quite happy with the result.
Thanks again, Jabba! :-)
nice one, but might get a chill standing there in bare feet for too long, hehehe
...for future reference, might be worth reducing gloss level on the rock surface underfoot - maybe something between 5000 and 6000 for a more natural dry look (or simply convert to a matte surface - this would help to speed up render time, but perhaps at the expense of 'feeling' organic).
In all fairness, the texture of the rock surface close to the camera looks quite blurred also as if on lower quality - have you set Reality to collect textures? If so, depending on the size of your scene and the texture scale selected, that could explain the blurriness...
Just making sure the "obvious" bits are being done the same way...
First up, sharp or blurred is a matter of how the camera is set up i.e. must be using depth of field - so just for this exercise, turn DoF off.
Open the Reality interface as usual via the DAZ Studio render menu -
In the materials tab, select skybox surfaces, right click & select "Convert To Light"... they will disappear from the materials list, as they are now mesh lights and therefore listed under the lights tab.
Start render in usual way, this will bring up the Luxrender interface.
Once scene has finished loading and rendering has started, make sure the Tone Mapping is set to Linear, and click on the "estimate settings" button. This should bring the scene levels fairly close to something worth using.
Open the light groups tab and manually adjust to suit.
The attached images show my settings for test render using Skybox1 from Top of the World...
Jabba, THANKS!!!! You rock. I've pissed away countless hours with this problem, most of the answers were way 'over my head''. Thank you very much.
Darn it. When I finished my renders using Jabba's advice, everything was blurred slightly, not 'useable'. I notice their are some suggestions for this blur remediation, I will try them. I did not have DOF turned on in either Daz or Reality.
I was excited to finally get proper lighting with Reality in Daz, and yes, the lighting is perfect. But it is blurred.