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What do you mean by "set". Also, Iray environment settings is Dome and Scene. I like to render my portrait pics as PNG's so there is no background, sometimes I do a bit of postwork in PS. I dont monkey with the environment too much cause then it ends up saving with a backgound, and I dont know what I did to make that happen, lol. See, there is sooo much for me to learn still in DS. I only really started using it in January. I was a die hard Poser user all the way for like 10-12+ years, but I totally love DS now.
NM this one ;)
As in the scene/environment. Set like a photo shoot. All quiet on set! ;)
The problem with physically-based renders is that they are, well, realistic. And you get weird effects if you don't put them in a realistic environment with lighting.
Now, mind you, even a simple background can provide some basic fuzzy 'environment' for stuff to work with. If you use Photoshop, I highly recommend playing with canvasses -- you can create a nice Beauty render (regular), distance maps, material ID or node maps (essentially, mask renders by object), and other stuff. All 32 bit. Woot.
OK, I will look into that as well. I finally got the shield and other metals to look like I wanted. Bought Travelers Iray metal set yesterday, or maybe that was this morning, heh. Used that and the Mec4D set. Still so much to learn! Here's the finished pic after some postwork in PS.
Jeallra you certianly know your way around colours...with more patience I see you doing great things with DS
Thank you very much! I'm having so much fun with DS.
So I should always render in a "set"? I could use say a floor and a backdrop and just load a background onto the backdrop, like I used to do in Poser. The transparent background confuses me in DS. And I should be playing around with the environment too? Sadly, you lost me ;) "If you use Photoshop, I highly recommend playing with canvasses -- you can create a nice Beauty render (regular), distance maps, material ID or node maps (essentially, mask renders by object), and other stuff. All 32 bit. Woot."
I would consider canvases to be an advanced technique and I wouldn't recommend that a person new to Daz jump into those immediately. You have enough to learn already! But that might be because I've never used them myself yet, and so they seem intimidating to me at this point.
You don't have to have a "set" for your render. One advantage of having a set is that it it gives something in the scene to be reflected in your shiny objects. It can also cast and receive realistic shadows. However, if you want a transparent background so that you can composite your render as a layer in photoshop, don't save it as a JPEG file. Saving as PNG will preserve the transparency.
If you have reflective surfaces, what would they be reflecting? Generally, lighting in Iray is realistic. So you need a scene like you could actually have... now, the default HDRI can provide an environment. Or a simple room. Or a box with a pattern on it. ... whatever you want. ;)
Iray Canvasses are under 'Advanced' tab in Render Settings. If you click it, it opens up the option. Then you can add canvasses. These are extra rendered output files, placed in Render Library under it's own folder (WHATEVER_YOUR_RENDER_IS_NAMED+_CANVASSES).
The default canvass is 'beauty,' which is an exr, a 32 bit version of your render. You can open it in Photoshop and then do Image > Adjustments > HDRI tone mapping to tweak how it appears.
But there are other canvasses that can be handy, like distance (or depth, not sure what the difference is) which provides a 'distance from camera' graymap. This is fantastically useful for haze/focus and other masking effects.
There's also material ID canvas, which maps each object based on material ID color (iray uber setting). I've found this kind of limited in use, because it doesn't take into account any transparency maps.
There's a node canvas thing, which apparently renders just specific items you've designated. I haven't played with this yet, but it's obviously HUGELY useful in compositing images.
I am with barbult on this Canvases are easy enough once you understand the complexities but for a newcomer to DS it is a bit out there. Walk before running I say.
But if there is a say background my figures won't get saved with a transparent back so that I can add things in a scene in PS behind my character. I do save everything as a png already btw, took me a bit a research to figure that out lol. Don't know why I never posted in the forums before, everyone is so helpful!
Cool, I never saw that tab when I was in advanced settings, or I never paid attention before. That might be too complex for me yet lol. So I was thinking of getting the Substance Painter pack, I've always wanted to do my own textures. Although thats quite a complex suite of apps, I might just better limit myself to learning DS first.
Thanks again everyone for all the input. Its so helpful!
I do wish we could "like" posts here heh.
Another thing to consider if you use an HDRi's i think its the reference map? either that or the env. map?(always get them confused) one of them creates a scene with all the reflections of the HDRI but with no dome so the background will be blank. You could play with that a bit i think
Daniel
Thank you, I will look at that!
I almost NEVER render full sets. If there's a background you want to comp into the scene with Photoshop that's perfectly fine, You can use an HDRi for lighting and/or reflections, and turn Draw Dome off so you get the transparent background. If you don't want the ground shadows that you can get with certain HDR images, turn those off as well in the render tab.
In reviewing your art, I think you'd find it more difficult to achieve your look by doing one-pass renders with combined subject and background. You can still render the background in 3D (as opposed to using 2D elements, such as that created with brushes or painting), but do it separately. Apply whatever effects you want -- like the painterly or fantasy components -- and comp to your heart's content.
For HDR images that you select into the Iray Environment Map, there are many to choose from, including paid and free. I'd start with the free and experiment. Just do a Google search for 'free hdri maps' and find ones that give the lighting tonality and reflections you think might be useful.
You really don't need to use canvases unless A) you're looking to composite with several of the alternative light path expression techniques Iray offers, or B) you're doing node-based rendering where you render just specific objects, and combine them later. This can be handy for a painterly look, because you can apply different filters or actions to these separate renders, and then combine the results. Here's an example of node-based renders that were done to allow for comping in various marketing messages on a t-shirt model.
Thank you for the info!