Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 9
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I tried out the Flock of Gulls using one of my images as a Backdrop. They aren't to bad looking close up. This is the full flock.
2017-09-20 21:22:57.833 Total Rendering Time: 11 minutes 39.50 seconds
I picked up the Reflections1 Iray PC product as my second item along with the new hair. It is nicer than the dark promos would lead you to believe. There are a few metadata errors, though, so of course I submitted a help request. (Sigh... another PC+ release, another bug report. They really need to try a little harder to get it right the first time. I see the same errors over and over, product after product, and I don't even buy very many of them.)
Here is a quick render in the Fantasy Interior. I used an Iray Ghost Light to brighten up the very very very dark interior. It's not an exciting image. I just wanted to see how the Reflections furniture update rendered.
Your image? That looks beautiful. The gulls look good, too, and you blended the two together nicely.
This is in the mega fastgrab: Billboard Nodes Plugin But i am so non-technical minded, I can't work out what it does or how to use it. Is it something good? I noticed @SereneNight has it.... what exactly would I do with it?
I think it is a good purchase. It is useful if you want to do renders of people in the backgrounds of your scenes. I like it and it is easy to use... the only downside is you really will want more billboard people and since its release there haven't been any expansions
Damn, I can't believe I missed seeing it's Olympia 7 skin! that's my all time fave for the G3 line. I'm ashamed of myself. LOL. I have V3digitimes iray converter for V4 and Genesis and I think Gen2 also, but not the G3 one. Must get that soon.
does it come with people, or do you have to make them yourself?
That's what I was wondering. Billboards are just images on planes, aren't they? So can we make our own billboards then use that to orient them with the camera?
Like, render your own people images and put them on the billboards, and use them when you want to populate a scene? Or something?
It is Achmelvich in the North of Scotland.
Yes. However, you "create" a new Billboard the same way you create a new camera, and then you apply your image. You'll also need a transmap for the cutout opacity. I bought the plugin last month when it was on sale, but I haven't had time to make any of my own images. I suspect there will be a learning curve. I'll report back here what I learn, if no one else beats me to it.
so that's making a transmap in photoshop (or other image editing program)? I have no idea at all how to do that LOL
You can make them by rendering with no background in Studio and saving as a 'png then the Alpha channel becomes transparent. No need for a cutout or transmap.
This was a test image I did. If you click on the image you will see the transparent background.
Another tip is to render the figure so that he is standing right at the bottom of the frame. This way when it is used any shadow will come from the bottom and not from part way up.
Okay, showing my stupidity here- is a transmap the same as having a transparent background? Edit- never mind, got that answer. That's what I had been doing, so just wanted to confirm.
I"m showing mine as well - this is beyond me. LOL.
If I wanted to do an image that had people in the background - like a city scene - would you render out people as png's and then put them on....something...a plane (which I don't quite get) and put them in your scene...to show a crowd in the background...and not need that billboard plugin?
Okay, I think I've got that part- you go up to "Create" primitive then choose a plane, then select it with the Surface Tool. In Surface you load your image on the plane (Diffuse channel IIRC). No, you wouldn't need the plugin, but what it does (which would save a lot of time) is always orient that plane with the camera so you aren't constantly turning it. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
Edit- except that doesn't seem right, because although your image is see through, the plane is still a solid object. So what Fishtales did is have just the image of the man, which is see-through background, and NOT put a plane which is solid and the square shape will show.
but if you have an image that is a png and has the transparent background, putting that on the plane...wouldn't it make the plane - so to speak - transparent so only the man image is showing?
I can't try it right now, maybe Fishtales can answer it. (In the middle of a long render, doing a series to test a product.)
No it doesn't work. I rendered out girl walking, saved as png, then loaded plane, and put the png in the diffuse colour. The plane background renders black. I'm doing somethin wrong but i can't work it out.
I see there's a lot of confusion on the billboard thing...
First, a "trans map" is the black and white image you plug into the Cutout Opacity parameter in the surface of your object. Where the image is black, your object is transparent; where it is white, your image is opaque.
Second, when you save your renders, one of the image formats you can choose is PNG. If the render does not have a background, and you save it as a PNG, the area without a background will be transparent. It is very easy to create a trans map from an image with a transparent background.
Third, you don't need the Billboard plugin to create and use billboards of people, animals, trees and plants, buildings, etc. You will, however, need to rotate them to face the camera. With the Billboard plugin, you create a New Billboard Node, from the Create menu, and apply your image to your new billboard. This billboard object will always face your selected camera. (The one you are viewing and rendering the scene through.)
Fourth, when using Iray to render an image for your billboards, set the Draw Ground option to Off to prevent rendering the subject's shadow.
To create a transmap from your image, open a copy in your image editor. (If using Photoshop, you can open the image and make a duplicate. Always save an untouched copy, just in case.) Create a new layer and fill it with black. Move this layer to the bottom. generate a layer mask for the image layer. On a new layer, fill the mask with white. Remove the original image layer so it won't be visible around the edges of your white layer. Flatten the image and save.
I tried that too, after reading Fishtale's comment above. My Billboard Node background was gray. I really think you need to create a trans map for the Cutout Opacity parameter, per my instruction above.
L'Adair, are you saying that we can create thems ourselves, and not have to worry about that plugin?
edit: OH!!!! god i'm an idiot. Of course I get the white silhouette - THAT'S the cutout opacity transmap thingy that you put in opacity when putting your original image on the plane. :sigh: Seriously, I'd be dangerous if my head wasn't screwed on.
So the other question now, is getting the right proportions of the plane, so it's not the 80ft woman walking on the streets
Thank you L'Adair!!!! that worked perfectly!!!
I'm a bit confused with the last steps here.... i have the png image of the girl walking, i make a new layer and filled it black and put that underneath. "Generate a layer mask for the image layer"..is where I'm lost. Using Photoshop, isn't that "new layer mask" at the bottom of the layer panel/section. And then in a new blank layer I fill it with white - but if I remove the original image of the girl, i just get a white silhouette.
Put the .png image into the Diffuse channel. Put the same image into the Cutout channel, go the the image editor and choose Grayscale from Alpha.
I'm not much of a user of billboards, but it seems that the point-them-at-the-camera thing could be done by this freebie script instead of buying a plug-in: https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjbborient
jakiblue If I'm correct, that plug-in keeps the billboard oriented with your camera. You don't HAVE to have it, but you'll constantly be having to move the billboard every time you move the camera. it has nothing to do with creating a billboard. (Again, someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
Personally I find the plugin and expansions useful enough to buy it but discovered that it was simply easier to render characters in the scene than spending time making billboard people. There are a lot of things to consider when rending people. What angle will you use and what lighting. Premade samplers do come with the set so you can sort of copy the ones made to see how they work. There are also shadows to consider.
if I had oodles of time I would make my own people to use again and again.
that said the existing expansions I use a lot especially for busy metropolitan scenes. But I want more. People in formal wear for example would be nice. And my only other beef is some of the people used in the premades are very distinctive like one is freak I think. I prefer more plain looking people who don't stand out.
But since I always depth of field scenes where I use billboards you don't really see the details much anyway
I just want to add that the billboards do come with a bunch of cool special effect presets. Its a nice little shortcut and while I have only had time to use it once, I am happy with the purchase. I didn't get it for the people in the background I got it for the special effects it comes with and also purchased the add on Billboards FX Master. For me, its a time saver and its really nice that it always faces the camera. I don't have to fiddle forever every time I change my point of view with the camera. Can I do all of this myself? Of course, but this cuts way down on my time spent moving things around and positioning stuff. And once you make your own billboards you can save them for future use as well.
Heavens, I've wasted an entire morning trying billboards instead of running the five errands I now have to do in the heat of the day.
Here's the original and the billboard side by side in a render (just for fun.) It was my first one, I need to do anti-aliasing on future ones. Didn't want to invest a lot of time in case it didn't work. You can see it's jagged. But ta-duh- I did it!
I also did different lighting so the same figure could be used in many different settings. These gals are slightly different.
Doing a billboard: (this is how I did it)
1. render your object and save as a png (transparent background)
2. color in the figure/object white (you can mask it and fill, or do it by hand.) Make sure your anti-aliasing is good or it will be jagged.
3. make a black square/rectangle the same size as your render.
4. import your white figure/object onto it, and export it out.
5. create>primitive>plane I made mine 5.5 feet tall, don't know if it accepted that .5 or only takes whole numbers?
6. Select your plane in the Scene pane.
7. Surface Selection tool (looks like 3 sheets of paper) select your plane. I Uber Based it so it would be Iray, don't know if you need to do that or not.
8. In Surface pane, with the plane selected- Put the png RENDER in the Base Color
9. Then put your white on black image in the Cutout Opacity
Bingo. Using Parameters, you can rotate and scale it.