How do I get an outdoor sky when using an HDRI with the dome turned off? (Solved)
paulawp (marahzen)
Posts: 1,394
This is an exceedingly stupid question which comes from the fact that I normally use sun-sky for practically everything outdoors. To this day - three years after I first started learning Daz - I'm a bit unclear about HDRI lighting sets, which I use occasionally on what is largely a random-click-til-I-like-it basis.
I see some HDRI light sets, like the numerous Orestes skies, literally populate the Environment Map with what is obviously a sky, and Draw Dome is turned on. Voila, sky. No mystery there.
Many HDRI light sets, though, seem to have HDRIs which are estoteric blobs of white or color on black, which wouldn't produce a sky, even if Draw Dome is on. So if by chance you had something you liked but wanted to make an outdoor scene, what can you do to preserve the lighting effect but also have a generic sky in the background?
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If you save the image as a png and Dome=OFF, you still light the foreground of your scene and subject, but you will have a transparent bg, and you can add any similar sky image to your render as a background layer in post.
OK, I can try that - though I generally avoid postwork.
It's funny you would jump right in and answer because the question is prompted by testing your "Highland Lakeside Cabin and Dock" that I picked up recently. The G9s that I'm using for this weekend's round of new stuff testing haven't really been outside in their latest form so I was trying to figure out how to get the lighting I had created them under ... outside.
I've had mixed luck using these - they come as HDRI lighting, but also a photostudio style backdrop. I've had mixed, but mostly good results from these. Use with, or without, the included HDRI lights. But the backdrop will fill your scene.
MountainScapes Backdrops
You can see a lot more here under ImagineX's catalog.
I recently actually had an instance where I tried to use the default HDRI in a scene with Draw Dome turned ON, when I needed to render a couple of camera angles where a large window was visible behind it all... and realized that with the default HDRI being all blurry and stuff... the view out the window now looked more like one of those abstract, blurry-graphics screensavers than an actual view out the window.... I deliberated about switching to the higher-rez, alternate version of that HDRI that actually had the same location in it as the Daz default HDRI (a ruined castle, and stuff).... but then instead elected to plop a background-plane prop out there which had buildings in it, then continue with that for the rest of the render-set.
Just tried what barbult suggested and it works.
I have never even looked at that "Environment" pane. There are so many parts of Daz that even after ... years! ... I have never even clicked on.
Is this higher-rez version provided with Daz Studio ?
To followup on @barbult's post,
Some many parts … so little time. However, I was aware of the Environment pane and have used in often in my dabbling/hobbyist explorations. Any image can be applied to the Environment pane's Backdrop simply by loading the Backdrop and then browsing for the desired image file to apply to its Background channel. Attached is a quickly thrown together render of a room interior and a cloud image applied to a backdrop. I used the Sun-Sky Only Environment mode in Render Settings
All of the items in the scene older Daz Studio and Poser products but they render nicely in Iray.
The Daz3D Backdrop Tutorial at YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiJLIzvrREc) can show your more.
I use it a lot to have a sky with nice clouds when rendering UltraScenery with the sun-sky render preset that comes with UltraScenery (and UltraScenery2). I rendered a scene with lots of VDB clouds (and only that) from various sun-sky directions, times, and camera focal lengths, and I saved the renders for use as backdrops. They work great! Here is one as an example. Feel free to use it. It is 16x9 aspect ratio, which I use most of the time for UltraScenery. If you want a different aspect ratio for your render, I recommend cropping the one I attached rather than letting the Environment pane squish it to fit your aspect ratio.
That looks really good, @barbult ! May I enquire: which VDB Cloud product did you use?
I used and positioned individual VDB clouds from Cloudscape Creator Volumetric Clouds Bundle. It was a lot of work, which was part of why I created the images for quick and easy reuse. The other reason is that VDB clouds in that quantity take a lot of time and resources to render, making it difficult to use them in a large scene that is already resource intensive.
Yeah, pretty sure its included with Daz Studio. I forget where, and I can't find it at the moment. Very likely the HDRI has Ruins in the name, though, like the blurry, lower-rez original version that is usuallly set to draw dome Off..
Have tested the concept of using Environment pane and while I don't have a prepared backdrop at hand, I see how easy it would be to do this. Thanks! Marking this one "solved".
Chances are you are thinking about DAZ Studio Iray HDR Outdoor Environments from Daz Originals/Dimension Theory. It came packaged with Daz Studio 4.x Pro (SKU 13176). One of its render settings is DTHDR-RuinsB-Background.
Yeah, that appears to be it. Apparently the default, blurry-and-usually-draw-dome-is-off version is named DTHDR-RuinsB-500.hdr, but Ill be danged if I can find the location of that other one in the Content Library tonight. 0o
(Edit: Stares more minutely at that screengrab above.) Oh, I was looking in the wrong pane. o0
Ah, thank you. I have the original Cloudscape Creator set but not the VDB one exactly because I didn't think my system could cope. I'll wishlist it for my new PC (when I eventually get one!)
I don't see why you couldn't use the original cloudscape bundle (or any other cloudy sky product) and render a scene to use as a backdrop file. There was nothing magic about using VDB clouds. Maybe they look nicer??? Any photograph, image file, or rendered scene can be used in the Environment pane as a backdrop. Give it a try with whatever you have.
I think the VDB ones do look somewhat improved, but I can see what I come up with using the prop ones.