Can I export a skydome from Bryce to DAZ 3D?

RexRed

Can I export a skydome from Bryce to DAZ 3D|? If so, how do I do it?

 

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

Gordig

You'd probably be better off asking this in the dedicated Bryce forum, located just slightly below this one.

Chohole

you can move the thread pver yourself,    click on the little gear icon at the right of your first post, next to the star.  THen click on edit.  On that screen look to the left,  and you can change category,  then click on save comment.

RexRed

 

Gordig said:

You'd probably be better off asking this in the dedicated Bryce forum, located just slightly below this one.

I am working in DAZ Studio and I need more info on the DAZ skydome than I do on Bryce.

My scene is in DAZ... 

My next question will be, how do I get a starfield in DAZ? :)

RexRed

Chohole said:

you can move the thread pver yourself,    click on the little gear icon at the right of your first post, next to the star.  THen click on edit.  On that screen look to the left,  and you can change category,  then click on save comment.

Thanks for teaching me how to move this thread Chohole.

 

mindsong

I have/use the great 'spherical mapper' product, that lets you generate that full-frame 360 2x1 spherical image using a virtual lens in bryce that's placed in front of the active bryce camera and grouped with it to move around as a unit in your scene.

You can 'cheat' it a bit using only the built-in Bryce 360 render option, that generates a cylinder image of your scene, but can sometimes be mapped onto a sphere/dome without the distortion being too much of a problem (the distorion *will* happen on the top and bottom of the sphere/dome, but in a scene with stars or clear blue-sky, or ... it may not be an issue for your scenario).

Note that the max width of a Bryce image is 4000pixels, unless you render directly to a file. I'm not sure what that max is off the top of my head.

Many folks have pushed through the resolution problem by rendering 6 x 4K+ square views (up/down/left/right, etc.) to map inside a huge cube instead of a dome for notably better background image resolution.

If you go to DAZ Studio, IRAY (HDRI) light won't be able to go through the cube, but the cube can be made/mapped to be emmisive and augmented with traditional lights to generate the desired scene with some persistence.

Bryce can also be used to generate/export full dome 'medium dynamic range' (not quite 'high' dynamic range) images (of skies, w/out scene elements like mountains or oceans or terra-scapes). These can be used as both light and background. Our local Bryce hero 'horo' can chime in and direct you to his great tutorials (PDFs, examples) on doing this.

Bottom line, yes, it can be done, it is often done, it takes a bit of fiddling to get around a few Bryce-isms, and if your background needs can work with the mentioned limitations (e.g. the cameras can work around the bryce shortcomings), it's a powerful little tool.

Others here can certainly share their experiences and wisdom too. I like and recommend the spherical mapper tool mentioned above, and there's lots of help available for using it.

--ms

Horo

If you have Bryce 7.1 Pro, you'll find (wherever you've installed Bryce) Bryce > Content > Tutorials > Horo Wernli four means to create a panorama from your scene without the need of the Spherical Mapper (though it makes things much easier). Any rendered Bryce scene can be exported as 96-bit TIF, or HDRI, provided you export the images immediately after the render is finished - that is, don't do anything before you exported the image. On my website are many PDFs: Bryce & 3D CG Documents > Mine > IBL-HDRI.

Now remember, that an exported render can be in an HDR format but is not actually a high dynamic range image. Bryce renders with 16-bit per colour, which is just better than 8-bit per colour. If you want real light from the HDRI, you have to create several renders and adjust the lights for each render differently (thus emulate multiple photographs with different f-stops or exposure times) and the assemble the images to a true (faked) HDRI using an application that can do this. I recommend the free Picturenaut. I'm not sure whether Daz Studio Iray loads 96-bit TIFs (3DS does) or HDRI. If it only loads EXR, you'll have to convert the TIF or HDR file.

Note that the size of the spherical HDRI is important if you want it appear as backdrop. As far as light is concerned, a 512 x 256 or even smaller one is as good as a 16,000 x 8,000. The size you need can be calculatetd: horizontally there are 360°. If the camera horizontal FoV is 90°, a fourth of the panorama is visible. If your render is 1000 pixel wide, the HDRI width must be at least 4000 pixels. If camera FoV is 45°, the HDRI must be 8000 pixels wide - and if the final render is to be 2000 px wide, the HDRI must be 8 x 2000 = 16,000 pixel wide.

mindsong

Thanks for the details Horo,

I know the Bryce image size limitations are discussed in another thread(s), and that there are some clever tricks for creating mega-images using camera setting and location and postwork image melding tricks, but just to add the image size limit info to this thread for curious dome rendering folks, what are the general image rendering size limitations in Bryce?

--ms

Horo

The limitation is 4000 pixels wide, the height can be more. A portrait render could be 4000 x 6000 pixels, for example. I've never tested render to disk.

 

Fishtales

I did some a while ago. They were 4000x2000 which is the 2:1 ratio for the Iray Dome.

Here are some of them.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2195206/#Comment_2195206