Realistic beach environment
evacyn
Posts: 989
in The Commons
I have a project that requires a beach and oddly it's one of the only assets I've never bought. Can anyone recommend something that's more on the realistic side? I was thinking HDRI as a fallback, but I'd prefer an actual set.
Thanks!
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I've used this two and it's quite good with the right lighting.
And any of the Ultra HDIray beach stuff looks good.... but limited because it's only an image.
There is Bikini Islands too.
For one of my first renders in DAZ Studio I used this: https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio-iray-hdr-outdoor-environments
There's also this one, although it's more of an island than just a beach:
https://www.daz3d.com/summer-island
Airport Island has several beaches, but it's a rather resource intensive product, so it's not my usual 'go to'.
Not sure if this has the best beaches in the Airport Island product set, but it's one that I've mixed and matched with other 'beach' products for set decoration and such:
https://www.daz3d.com/airport-island-villa-park
For beaches, though, I like several of the free beach related HDRIs over at HDRI Haven. Sometimes you can sneak a 'ground plane' primitive in there with some sand shaders applied to it and get it to blend reasonably well if you don't mind tinkering a bit. This helps bring the ground a bit more 'in focus' if that makes sense. I'll do this (add a plane primitive for the ground) if the sand under the feet in the HDRI that I'm using is looking a little too fuzzy, and then 'blend' the edges of the plane with the HDRI in Photoshop using the clone stamp tool or some such....
HDRI Haven has a number of other interesting free HDRIs as well, so it's a good site to keep tabs on, as they add new HDRIs regularly. You aren't looking for HDRIs ATM, but it's worth a mention anyways.
There is this one product that allows you to put in foot paths and tire tracks into a ground plane, but I can't think of the name of it off of the top of my head, and it requires a bit of fiddling depending on what you are trying to achieve. It also works for snow, etc...
There's always 'Day at the Beach' which should have been included for free with Daz Studio when you installed it, not sure if it's still included these days, but it's not the most impressive set in Daz land, at least as far as beaches go...
There is also 3D Photo Scenes by Dreamlight. I used it in this image
Ultrascenery has an add-on that might work for you Ecologies Vol 2. I have never done a closeup so I don't know how realistic it looks.
I usually use that one: https://www.daz3d.com/my-beach I think it looks rather realistic, with a couple of daytime presets for a quick render, too.
I own most of the beaches in the store and to be honest they really lack at the waterline area. Most just focus too much on the plants and huts, and grass, that the important bit, the waves and water just look weak.
I would probably use an hdri
And of course you can use a geometry beach, delete the skydome and use an HDRI for the lighting. I'm sure lots of people do this. Totally agree with SN above that the shoreline is a problem, both with HDRI and beach sets.
The promos of this look pretty good. I haven't used it yet. It's not a whole beach, but could robbly be combined with a larger set.
https://www.daz3d.com/seaside-walkway-vignette
I have the vignette... And I found it disappointing. Personally it is a bit large and memory intensive for a vignette. Also, up close, I thought the textures weren't great. None of the promos show how it looks really close. I tried to retexture it but the grass looked unrealistic.
I'd give the Airport Island - Villa Park another vote. The entire Airpoprrt Island set has great beaches provided that your computer than handle the resources.
I have rendered Nerd's Waves on the Beach in iray
it's now sold elsewhere
I've used it and it tiles well but does have Moire Patterns after the 1st tile but not too bad. You can hide props on the other tiles it you want as they wind up being spaced close together.
The big problem was the surf (water) was rectangles in places from the angles I rendered from.
See links:
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/1084307 (bottom right near ankle)
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/1088862 (Moire pattern)
I'll expand on Serene Night's critique:
1) The sand grain is a bit too large but I didn't find it too distracting really. Some beaches can look that way (I'm thinking parts of the Florida panhandle in the USA).
2) The grass, I suppose it's sea oats, is too uniform and too green. I've only been to beaches with sea oats and a few other beach plants. Maybe some parts of the world has other types of beach grass? Overall, while I would of liked sea oats the included grass included wasn't bad.
3) I think the sand dunes were skimpy but probably realistic for the real area they were modeled from. I think this beach was modeled based on the Baltic Sea beaches of Northern Germany.
4) That side walk. Looks too big for scale and maybe it is typical of northern European beaches. I would of expected wood plank boardwalks. The scale of the beach land is quite good though.
5) As I said, the sea breaking on the shore has some sort of modeling problem - to was a rectanglar volume in a couple places that is repeated if you tile.
6) Those sort of beach chairs is either old fashioned or something in northern Europe. I've never seen them in southeast USA or any other other the few beaches I've been too. Still it's nice to learn about those sorts of things.
I would definately buy the set again. It's my favorite for generic usefulness.
Be aware that some of the HDRI beach scenes sold here appear to be beaches photographed during winter, when there are no green leaves on the trees, no people on the beach (which is a good thing), sand that looks like wet dark dirt from a construction site absolutely covered with deep distracting tire tred indentations and footprints, and a generally cold colour to the atmosphere. So look closely at the promo images.
You can create foam and splashes at the water line in photoshop that look totally real.
There's a beach called Paralia Beach, at that other webstore, that I haven't used, but from the promo pictures and the Gallery, it looks like it has some interesting and realistic details.
I got me Andrey Pestryakov's Tropical Lagoon a cheap a while ago and quite happy with the options it offers.
I need to agree. I am a bit underwhelmed by that vigniette. I have seen better things on DAZ less resource intense. I did a quick render to test....
The vignette beach is similar to ones in cape cod. If you don't use the palm type trees. The beach chairs are old timey retro but I like them.
Thanks again, everyone! I'll start out with a few of the HDRIs to see what I can put together, but a few of the sets listed look like good options (since an HDRI will have some limitations).
I'm starting using Tropical Lagoon but it comes without sky. When I loaded HDRI Sky high Clouds to get a sky the HDRI lights took over the TRopical Lagoon. How can I put in a sky which doesn't have its own lights - I want to use TRopical Lagoon lights. I'm still very much a beginner - would welcome advice please. Thank you, Alex
Hi Serena, if you're finding the vignette too big, how many MB does it have actually? I'm thinking of getting it because I like the Baltic look about it, but my PC is none too great, resource-wise, so it would be real helpful to know. Thanks and cheers!
Tina
It's not that huge. I CPU rendered this scene linked below in less than 6 hours (less than 4 I think) and I CPU render. I even used two instances of it & hid all the lifeguard, surfing and other things.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/6236581/#Comment_6236581
...I kitbashed this using First Bastion's Rolling Plains with the dune texture, the water plane from Sescapes along with various odds & ends to litter the foreground a bit
Thank you guys, and really nice renders you've done there! Could you still give me the zip file size though? That would be great.
219 megabytes which is pretty average small by today's standards.