I'm looking for some 'semi-domes'.

jontaylor99

Hi guys...

Can anyone tell me where I can find any 'semi domes' please ? The kind of thing I mean is like the skydome type background things but I want the type that kind of have the roof part missing so that light doesnt get blocked out (if that makes any sense?

 

Thanks.... Jon T.

frank0314

I don't know of any. Most people just set their lights up inside the dome.

Tobor

Inifity Cove 3, over on RDNA, is a large and morphable "cyclorama" type of backdrop. It morphs in one plane -- think of the old Cinemascope curved screen. It also comes with a morphable terrain, though that's easy enough to do with D-Formers. You'd want tomething like this if you're using the Iray environment or sun-sky; neither penetrades a fully enclosing mesh dome.

If you have a CAD or mesh modeling tool, you could also take a standard skydome and slice off a side. If you don't have one of those, a DAZ sphere primitive, sliced in half at the equator, and then again to make a partial half hemisphere, ought to do the trick. You might not need a full 180 degree half-dome -- just 60-90 degrees may be enough for most shots.

mjc1016

Or use the Geometry Editor tool and hide/remove faces...and you can do it on a texture 'dome' and see what you are cutting out.

jontaylor99

frank0314 said:

I don't know of any. Most people just set their lights up inside the dome.

I'm using iRay Frank and getting domes to work is proving a nightmare. In fact, I'm really starting to hate domes....haha

 

jontaylor99

Tobor said:

Inifity Cove 3, over on RDNA, is a large and morphable "cyclorama" type of backdrop. It morphs in one plane -- think of the old Cinemascope curved screen. It also comes with a morphable terrain, though that's easy enough to do with D-Formers. You'd want tomething like this if you're using the Iray environment or sun-sky; neither penetrades a fully enclosing mesh dome.

If you have a CAD or mesh modeling tool, you could also take a standard skydome and slice off a side. If you don't have one of those, a DAZ sphere primitive, sliced in half at the equator, and then again to make a partial half hemisphere, ought to do the trick. You might not need a full 180 degree half-dome -- just 60-90 degrees may be enough for most shots.

Thanks Tobor, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I don't have anything like CAD or any meshing tools and I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing with them if I had, so for now I'm trying to stick with stuff I can use ( in a fashion ).

jontaylor99

mjc1016 said:

Or use the Geometry Editor tool and hide/remove faces...and you can do it on a texture 'dome' and see what you are cutting out.

Thanks for that mjc, I'm not really sure what you mean yet but I'll look in to it next time I boot up DAZ.

vwrangler

jontaylor99 said:

Tobor said:

Inifity Cove 3, over on RDNA, is a large and morphable "cyclorama" type of backdrop. It morphs in one plane -- think of the old Cinemascope curved screen. It also comes with a morphable terrain, though that's easy enough to do with D-Formers. You'd want tomething like this if you're using the Iray environment or sun-sky; neither penetrades a fully enclosing mesh dome.

If you have a CAD or mesh modeling tool, you could also take a standard skydome and slice off a side. If you don't have one of those, a DAZ sphere primitive, sliced in half at the equator, and then again to make a partial half hemisphere, ought to do the trick. You might not need a full 180 degree half-dome -- just 60-90 degrees may be enough for most shots.

Thanks Tobor, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I don't have anything like CAD or any meshing tools and I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing with them if I had, so for now I'm trying to stick with stuff I can use ( in a fashion ).

Infinity Cove isn't going to address the issue you're having with Iray and skydomes. Unless you both light the cove fairly strongly AND turn it into an emissive itself. it winds up blocking light and casting its own shadows in a way that you really don't want. I found that out the hard way when I tried to use Outoftouch's Render Spots backdrops, which are just a floor and a back, much like Infinity Cove.

 

 

mjc1016

I'm using City Limits, so I'm not sure where it will be if it isn't along the top, in the other layouts....

(It's the orange-yellow tool).

Select it, then select the dome/sphere in the Scene pane.  Then zoom out (use the 'center camera' tool) and select parts of the sphere/dome and right click.  Geometry Visibility > Hide Selected Polygons.

Tobor

vwrangler said:

Infinity Cove isn't going to address the issue you're having with Iray and skydomes. Unless you both light the cove fairly strongly AND turn it into an emissive itself. it winds up blocking light and casting its own shadows in a way that you really don't want. I found that out the hard way when I tried to use Outoftouch's Render Spots backdrops, which are just a floor and a back, much like Infinity Cove.

I use it quite extesively, and don't have these problems, or need to do anything special with the light. Infinity cove is fairly large, and designed to be placed much farther away than the typical backdrop. As long as use a decent HDR in the Iray Environment dome, there's plenty of light. Light from the HDR will only cast a shadow if it's fairly low in the horizon. If the cove is placed far enough back, scene objects shouldn't cast a shadow. The image on the surface gets adequate indirect light from the Iray environment, so neither an emissive setting nor specialized lighting is required.

One problem that can occur is if you use an image that has the wrong gamma. It can turn out too bright or with shifted colors. You also need to be careful about the curvature, if you use it. Both can be corrected in Photoshop.

If I have some time this weekend I will post some examples of how this works. I use it for city scapes, skylines, sunsets, and other scenes.

WendyLuvsCatz

can you map your textures on a cylinder maybe and make the top transparent? or remove it with the geometry editor.

alternatively make the texture an emitter or add it to the opacity channel too for a seethrough skydome, fiddle with a copy in GIMP or photoshop to get the opacity you want ie sky bits totally transparent clouds semitransparent

Tobor

Mjc's suggestion of taking an existing skydome, which is already UV mapped, and hiding polygons seems to be the most straight forward approach. I just tried it with Terra Dome, taking out the full front face, and it worked very well. You can use the H and V tile offset to position the image you're using.

I applied the default Iray Uber surface, and dialed off any glossiness. The channel inputs accept HDRs as well -- they won't light the scene, but many are already spherically projected and scale properly on the dome.

Depending on the lighting for the scene, and whether you're using the Iray dome, you may need ot bring in some additional lights. I found I didn't need any -- the "Ruins" HDR environment provided enough indirect illumination, and I already had augmented the scene with a couple of soft spots. You can also increase the environment intensity if the dome blocks too much, and/or remove more polygons. All you need is enough for the camera view.