Is there somewhere a tutorial for own HDRIs
Hurdy3D
Posts: 1,073
in The Commons
Hey,
I found nothing. Is there somewhere a tutorial which explains how to render an own scene in DAZ to a HDRI?
Is it enough just to use the spheric mode in the camera or are additional steps nessecery?
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You must render out a 32-bit beauty canvas to get the full dynamic range. Goto Render Settings Tab -> Advanced -> Canvases and check "Canvases", then click the plus sign to add a beauty canvas. DS will now create a new sub-directory where you tell it to render to which will contain the 32-bit EXR file (the equivalent of an HDRI).
Hope this helps.
- Greg
Hey Greg,
currently I would be happy if I would get an own HDRI done.
If I understand correctly I need Canvases only for the full dynamic strengh.
I have currently two issues:
1) If I am using canvsaes the rendered image is empty (I tried also to add some nodes)
2) If I render the image with the "spherical lens" camera setting ans save it as a png, the result is total deformed if I use this png as an environmap. I tried dom mode "infinity sphere" and "finet sphere"
Yes, but the dynamic range of a JPG/PNG isn't all that useful as far as lighting information goes when it comes to environmental image-based lighting.
Most likely, the image is not empty - it only needs to be tone-mapped (think set the exposure). 32-bit images are not tone-mapped (they contain information for a wide range of exposures). The beauty canvas will include all lights in the scene, which I'm guessing is what you want.
Maybe posting an example of both the map you created and a scene rendered using it would be useful so I can see what is going on?
Are you sure that what you are seeing is not just distortion that occurs with all HDRI? In general, try keeping your camera position at (0, camHeight, 0), where camHeight is the the height of the camera when the panorama was made. It should be noted that while using the ground option (with either an infinite or finite sphere) will allow you to use DOF, it will also cause more severe deformations if your camera is not positioned as previously mentioned.
My apologies if this doesn't seem clear, but this is a complex topic - hopefully my comments make some sense.
- Greg
There is a tutorial in the store for sale about how to make your own hdri from photos. It’s here somewhere.... maybe someone can point it out. I tried searching for it but could not locate it. Maybe someone else can.
You can turn normal photos to HDR in photoshop.
Or a document, for exemple white document with built in lightsources and you get white BG and lights in one
https://www.daz3d.com/use-free-photos-as-iray-hdri-and-backgrounds
I cannot help you with DS. I photographed over 300 HDRI panoramas and made 50 HDRI panoramas from Bryce renders. However, you have to master a few things. Rendering a spherical panorama. Keep in mind that size matters. The narrower the field of view of the camera and the bigger the final render of the scene you want to use the HDRI in, the bigger the HDRI must be. A spherical panorama is 360 degrees wide (and 180 degrees high). If the rendered HDRI panorama is 3600 pixels wide, there are 10 pixels per degree. If you render a scene with this HDRI and have a camera angle of view of 60 degrees, the maximal width of your render cannot exceed 600 pixels otherwise the backdrop will appear blurred. If you don't render the panorama as backdrop, size does not matter.
An HDRI is a high dynamic range image and a JPG saved as HDR or EXR does not make it an HDRI. Though they can make nice backdrops and give nice ambient light. To get high specular reflections (e.g. on a car) you need one or several bright light sources in the HDRI, the same is true if you you want one or several key lights that illuminate your scene and cast shadows.
To fake an HDRI you must render the panorama several times and fake aperture or shutter speed of the camera. You can do this by changing the lighting of the scene and the visual lights differently to fake that a visual light (e.g. the sun) is much brighter than the rest. I usually fake 2 f-stops per render and render the panorama 4 to 6 times.
I don't know how DS renders internally, Bryce does with 48 bit and even though I can save a render as 96 bit TIF or HDR, I save as 48 bit. To assemble the panoramas with different light settings you need a program. For Windows, there is the free Picturenaut. The rendered panoramas must have gamma 1, not the default 2.2. Once assembled, save it as HDR or EXR (or TIF), whatever DS loads.
I hope this doesn't discourage you. To fake an HDRI panorama for image based light (IBL) is a challenge if you want to do it right. Of course, rendering a panorama and save it as EXR is an easier way but what's in the EXR is a LDRI (low dynamic range image) - or perhaps a DRI (dynamic range increased) depending with how many bits DS renders
This is not true. When rendering out a beauty canvas from DS, the result will be an HDRI.
- Greg
Thanks Greg. I'm cerain you know DS very much better than I do and I definitely don't argue with your remark. That's why I added "depending with how many bits DS renders". To be sure, one could measure the pixel values in the rendered files.
Bryce generates hdri
theres a bryce tutorial in this
Thank you for all the answers... but I pushed the HDRI project back. I just wanted to improve my render times and I managed a 40% speed improvement through some scene optimizations .
This was a great tutorial and creating HDRIs from Free photos and matching lighting/shadow strategies has really allowed me to expand my scenes and decrease render times. As of right now it is 40% off.