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Hmmm, thats an interesting idea Ben, thanks. Basically cutting a hole in the skydome so that the sun can peep through.
After a few preliminary runs I can see a few problems. As you say, this wouldn't work if the camera was facing even vaguely against the sun, which would rule out a whole raft of camera angles. Also, the sunlight will illuminate your figures and props correctly but not the interior of the skydome itself, so you'd have to fudge that with emissive surfaces again, which takes you back to the problems I mentioned before with colour bleed and the light not looking natural etc.
You can see that whats happening in the last image you posted is that the sunlight is casting a shadow higher up on the interior of the half-dome. This would look very dodgy indeed on an outdoors scene.
Its worth investigating though... might play around with it a bit.
Hey I am with you I would love to use sky domes as I used a lot.
A good quality HDRI's like Dimension Theory's latest series of Pro HDRI set are excellent in casting a shadow or just providing ambient light in the shade that is part of the HDRI (Image). The beauty of this technology is that A you can have a high quality real background and at the same time providing lighting information embedded in the HDRI format for which the render engine is equipped to extrapolate the light information and use the calculations to create the realistic light that the HDRI represents. This image http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/61190 uses a HDRI from http://www.daz3d.com/hdr-prosets-yosemite-pack-two All I did was load the HDRI in tot he Iray Environment render setting channel and rotated the dome. But in the right position is would cast nice realistic shadows so omitting the need for an additional light source as the sun. :) Yes more expense but I am been using HDRI's for a few years now and the work involved making said HDRI's can be time consuming but in this case it is a case of you get what you pay for. I do have used free HDRI's as this one shows http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/62572 . For HDRI the higher resolution the better. But low res HDRI can be used if you what a blur background or just render on a black background and save as TIFF or PNG to preserve the alpha (transparent background) for overlaying on to a background in Photoshop or GIMP etc.
1. Select your skydome and frame it so that you see whole dome in your viewport.
2. Activate Geometry Editor (Tools - Geometry Editor)
3. Click with right mouse button anywhere in your viewport to get a menu and from menu select Selection Mode - Marquee Selection (thats "bounding box" selection)
4. Click and drag selection around the parts of skydome you wish to hide in order to let the sunlight inside the dome (pic1). Basically, you can select everything that wont be visible in your rendered picture. If you wish to make multiple selections, CTRL + drag adds to selection, ALT + drag removes from selection.
5. After you have selected desired parts click with right mouse button in the viewport to get a menu and select Geometry Visibility - Hide Selected Polygon(s) (pic2).
6. Select some other tool to exit the geometry editor
And you have parts of skydome you need for the picture and sunlight. Ofc, for example when your background and sunlight is coming from the same direction your visible parts of the dome will make shadows, so it might not be perfect for all situations.
Oh, and if you save the scene, your hiding the parts wont be saved, so you will have to hide it again when you reload the scene.
Alternatively Create>New Iray Section Plane Node and position it to cut off the part of the dome you don't want, as long as it doesn't also cut elements you do want.
I was REALLY pleasantly surprised by how well a 2d backdrop worked in Iray.
Check out http://ladyanddragon.thecomicseries.com
That's a simple wall behind the figures, set no gloss and emitting with the image enough so it doesn't look dingy/shadowed.
And while it might not hold up to a huge render, I think it ended up rather nice.
Yeah, I think I'm going to have to forget about skydomes and ground planes and give HDRIs a try instead. I've been almost purchasing the Yosemite packs for a while now and considering its not that much of an investment and you've managed to create some awesome images with them I'll probably give them a go.
I've always avoided them before because, being quite detailed static background images, it feels like you'd only be able to use each one once in a comic-book sense. What do I mean by this? I mean that if I set a scene using a woodland HDRI, for instance, and then use that same HDRI to make another scene somewhere else its going to be the case of - "hey, all those trees are identical to the ones they just passed by earlier". I would feel like I'd need a new HDRI for every single scene I made. Whereas with your usual Daz environments like 'Land of the Ice Cold Sun' you can set another scene somewhere else on the ground plane and it will look like a different location in the same world.
They don't feel very customizable at all, is what I'm saying.
Am I making any sense? Probably not...
Yes I do agree that HDRI's are limiting in the sense of keeping things different but you can use one HDRI in different ways with different camera angle making them a lot more versatile as you may think (this does depend on what you think. LOL) But example I may use the same one next time with the camera looking upward in to the sky. Or a small portion of the HDRI is visible behind a building that take more camera space up but giving you some quality lighting. I am biased I do like HDRI's for all sorts of renders. Then using DOF you aren't going to see the background in full focus giving you more variations. But I must stress these are my opinions of my liking HDRI. If no sky or vivid reflections are required then the Sun/Sky looks promising.
There are plenty of HDRs out there that are pretty much just sky shots...little or no 'clutter' on the horizon.
And most of the images that are on the various skydome products probably started life as HDRs. They were most likely tonemapped to make smaller packages for download.
Maybe some of the vendors will make the 'originals' available?
Well me for one - Iray is slower for me than 3Delight; and not all of us care for photorealism and to be perfectly frank some of the renders I've seen come out of Iray are far from realistic in any way. I also can't see Daz or the PA's going through the very large backlog of content and updating it.
Second that- I have no intention of using iray (and I know many others who aren't going to, either) and to say that the vendors are all going to have to cater to iray because everyone is going to use it- ("Who's going to buy all that...unless it's updated?") is assuming all of us are jumping on the bandwagon. I'm not doing that because I also second that many of the renders don't impress me as being any better than 3DL. The motorcyles and vehicles are better though IMO. As people get more experienced with iray, that might change- but that will also change as people learn more about 3DL.
I think Iray is a cool addition esp. for those lucky enough to have the right video card. For me I could only just use CPU and I got the CPU capacity warnings during renders more often than with 3Delight or Poser renders. But the render toggle in DAZ Studio is easy to switch. My guess is DAZ set the default to Iray in the beta to encourage experimentation but they will set the default back to 3Delight for the final version to avoid confusion with the majority of users who are not early adopters.
My real concern for the future is that as Iray becomes more popular DAZ PAs may provide 3Delight, Iray materials, but even less often include Poser materials in their products. I hope not.
I would guess that most PAs switiching over to Iray would be inevitable. If someone hands you the keys to a brand new Ferrari and says "you can still drive your old Citroen Saxo if you want to as well" I can't see that many people going back to the Saxo. From the majority of promo images its fairly clear that most PAs are concerned with realistic looking images to better sell their products, so the logical thing for them to do would be to start working with Iray instead.
Just look at DAZneyland - the promo images were rendered in Iray.
Apparently in interactive render mode, cast shadows - off on the skydomes works the same as in 3delight, light goes through the dome. So, perhaps combining 2 renders, one interactive just skydome background and second photoreal with all the rest, would look ok.
I was lucky enough to have some credit left on my amazon store card so was able to prepare for Iray :) (nVidia is my gfx card of choice anyway) Now I just need to upgrade my processor.
Anyways, I have a very strong feeling we will see more and more new products come out with 2 sets of textures (or at least Iray compatible textures that will work in 3Delight) since, plugins aside, the 2 main render engines that everyone will have no matter what will be 3Delight and Iray. It would be foolish for vendors not to support both as they would be alienating potential customers.
I also have a feeling that most of the vendors will go back and update sets to be Iray compatible as they are notified of problems. We all don't own every product up to date, so there are still plenty of potential customers for older products and the reason above applies to this as well. Also, from the posts I've read from vendors here on the forums, they are pretty nice and more than happy to update products when someone discovers an issue.
Does anyone know how to apply the Iray emissive shader to a surface and still retain the surface textures? I tried the ctrl + click method and selecting 'ignore' but that doesn't work - in every case the surface texture is replaced by a pure white.
Edit: Oh hang on, think I see what the problem is - nevermind :)
I've tried searching for HDRIs in the Daz store and most (with the exception of the Yosemite packs) say they are only compatible with Bryce 7 Pro. Is that right - do I have to buy Bryce as well to use these?
[quote author="tl155180" date="1428051342
...
Just look at DAZneyland - the promo images were rendered in Iray.
I find that an interesting comment considering DAZneyland was an April fools product. :-)
If PA's and Daz are going to update their old catalogues then don't expect any new products for quite a while, its not an instant fix, the PA's will have to learn the new settings etc it would be quicker to learn yourself and then alter the products yourself. I really feel you may be expecting too much. Having said that I know that some PA's will update their products, but don't expect all to do so. Iray is a wonderful addition to DS but its not the be all and end all of the situation.
I've tried searching for HDRIs in the Daz store and most (with the exception of the Yosemite packs) say they are only compatible with Bryce 7 Pro. Is that right - do I have to buy Bryce as well to use these?Bryce is another rendering program so no you don't need to buy Bryce in order for them to work in Daz Studio. It is just informing customer what they can be used in as opposed what is needed. :)
Searching for HDRI in the DAZ 3D store does indeed bring up mostly Bryce products. Maybe that is because it is mainly Bryce vendors that release products which are labelled as HDRI, you may need to use a different search term
Well I haven't bought any other HDRI pack than Dimension Theory's ones. Some other products don't have true HDRI's rather than low res Tiff's you use for Uber Environment 2 when it couldn't read native HDRI so personally I would stay away from them. And when it comes to DT's HDRI sets I only got Yosemite as I couldn't afford any of the others. Any sets that states HDRI format and 100 mb in size for each HDRI will work well in Iray to give good light and make for a good rendered background. As said before low res ones can work up to a point.
Thanks Pete :)
I find that an interesting comment considering DAZneyland was an April fools product. :-)
If PA's and Daz are going to update their old catalogues then don't expect any new products for quite a while, its not an instant fix, the PA's will have to learn the new settings etc it would be quicker to learn yourself and then alter the products yourself. I really feel you may be expecting too much. Having said that I know that some PA's will update their products, but don't expect all to do so. Iray is a wonderful addition to DS but its not the be all and end all of the situation.
I wasn't saying that I expect PAs to update their back catalogues. In fact, earlier in this thread I stated the opposite - that I think that would be highly unlikely given the amount of work involved and the limited money they'd make from it. I was saying that I expect that a lot of them will eventually switch over to making products designed more for Iray than for 3Delight 'in the future'.
For me Iray is now the be all and end all of Daz. I, personally, can see a clear improvement in lighting from 3Delight up to Iray. I appreciate thats not going to be the case for everyone, but if Daz and PAs want more of my money in the future then thats the only way they'll get it.
Searching for HDRI in the DAZ 3D store does indeed bring up mostly Bryce products. Maybe that is because it is mainly Bryce vendors that release products which are labelled as HDRI, you may need to use a different search term
Thanks chohole. Hmmm other search terms for HDRIs... any suggestions? :)
Searching for HDRI in the DAZ 3D store does indeed bring up mostly Bryce products. Maybe that is because it is mainly Bryce vendors that release products which are labelled as HDRI, you may need to use a different search term
Thanks chohole. Hmmm other search terms for HDRIs... any suggestions? :)
Sorry I can't help there. I actually only ever render in Bryce :red: Well that's not quite true, I do have a go occasionally in Carrara, but I am still a pure novice with that.
well for me I would go for any or all the HDR Pro sets by http://www.daz3d.com/dimensiontheory. Skies of Economy looks good, I might get that one myself soon. Yes the HDRI are on the bottom end in terms of resolution but his render look good. As far as I know DT is the main man when it comes to HDRI's but I stress this is just my opinion of my tastes and value for money.
Yeah, thats mostly where I've been drawn to as well. Although I do only sci-fi / fantasy images, so I can't have anything that has structures or people in the background (unless they're sci-fi structures) which rules out a few of his packs unfortunately. Think I'll definitely get the Yosemite ones though, cos theres a lot I could use there.
Edit: Plus I stayed in Yosemite National Park once and it was great :)
Iray is really cool, but it has wiped out about two thirds of my wishlist lol
Second that- I have no intention of using iray (and I know many others who aren't going to, either) and to say that the vendors are all going to have to cater to iray because everyone is going to use it- ("Who's going to buy all that...unless it's updated?") is assuming all of us are jumping on the bandwagon. I'm not doing that because I also second that many of the renders don't impress me as being any better than 3DL. The motorcyles and vehicles are better though IMO. As people get more experienced with iray, that might change- but that will also change as people learn more about 3DL.
Third that - My thought, I have no intention on using IRay in the near future either. Many various powerful render engines out on the market, believe what makes IRay so fascinating is engine is free. With patience and taking time to learn any 3D software can produce outstanding results. I've seen impressive 3D renders from all render engines. But sad to say, I am not impressed at all with IRay human skin renders, maybe that will change in the future. So true, not all care about photorealistic renders, I've seen some gorgeous non photorealistic 3D art.
From what I've researched NVidia recommends 4GB ram V card minimum. Very expensive, so there is alway's a catch to every marketing maneuver :grrr:
Well, I'm happy to say that its looking like I was right. The new Callie 6 character has come out and, yep, Daz have started rendering a load of their promo images in Iray instead of 3Delight already. And Iray isn't even through beta yet! I must admit that I'm surprised they've started this so early, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the overall trend moves in this direction once development finishes. I'll be much more inclined to buy something in the future if I can see that it renders well in Iray before hand.
Obviously many of the PAs are still using 3Delight, presumably because Iray is still in development and they're being cautious.
Hopefully this means that Callie's textures etc are optimized for Iray (because if they had to tinker with them to do the Iray promo shots then that would be false advertising somewhat), but it doesn't actually state that anywhere. I hope they'll make this clear in future.
Interesting, the few I looked at have what appears to be only Iray renders, therefore its possible to presume that the mats are set up for rendering in Iray not 3Delight - gonna save me a bunch of money; I'm not buying something whose mats are optimised for something not out of beta and subject to change.
Yes, I had the same thoughts. Odd that they would choose to market the products using a render engine thats not finalised yet.
Unless, of course, the mats aren't optimized for Iray but they've tweaked them to look good anyway (which would be a bit dishonest, so I doubt thats the case). Or perhaps they just work well in both render engines off the bat. Some clarity would be nice. They could do with a new label for their products - something that says "Optimized for Iray" or "Optimized for Iray & 3Delight" ... something like that.
That's rather jumping to a conclusion. I agree it would have been useful to see some 3Delight renders in there, but their absence doesn't mean the product is Iray only - indeed, I'm pretty sure it isn't (for one thing, it doesn't list DS 4.8 as the minimum system requirement).
Hi Magix-101 Here
I rarely post on Daz Forums, ( for a few years in fact) but I have been an active PA here for many years.
I build a few environments "WorldBase-XT" plus add ons and many pieces of architecture as well.
I have been very interested in Iray in DS 4.8 Beta (I am quite familiar with with 3Delight and also Poser Firefly)
Even tho I am a total Noob with Iray... I have been able to get some amazing renders generally using Sun-Sky Only and sun time etc....
I have read and watched several tutorials over several days, so I am learning more and more.
But...seeing tl155180 posts about Skydomes...I have to agree, after days and days of experimentation I cannot get decent ground shadows with any kind of Skydome I have in my products present in the scene...which is hugely disappointing.
I planned to make some of my products into Iray versions, but the ones I most want to work on cant be done because of the Skydome limitations.
And I have tried everything...changing the main environment setup...and using the dome as an emitter with the proper luminance, distance values, emission color, 5600K WB etc...nothing works for me.... yet.
Also turning of the dome as an emitter and putting a sphere in the scene and activating it as a light emitter with the proper light throw, that can give nice results...but not when a dome is present...it totally screws up the ground shadows etc....
I realize its in beta, but to me one of the most important things in a physical based renderer is to be able to use it in a World Environment...(not just indoors) as far as I understand Nvidias Iray has been around for several years now...so I really hope this problem gets sorted out in DS.
Yes I know different renderers do different things and all that, but this renderer is capable of amazing things in environmental scenes, I can get results that the 3d Delight simply cannot get, but this renderer falls over cause of the 3rd party sky dome thing.
I intend to keep trying, however I am slowly running out of options, I just hope that somehow when it comes out of Beta this gets sorted out a bit.
I included an early render of Iray in one of my not totally finished setup scenes with Sun-Sky-Only and no dome...took about 20mins to render...not too bad time wise, and now I know more about it, I could get it better, but no dome can be used...sadly.
Just thinking, but...
I've used the setting "cast no shadow" on a building to allow sunlight through. Would that perhaps also be an option for getting the sunlight through the skydome structure, without having to hassle with other lights?