Pictures with lot of content

Experimenter

I have a problem with a lot of content in one picture. Let me explain; I want a picture like a photoshot of a beach, with people running, playing, lieing in the sun, swiming and so on. With different beach props, boats and other sea related items like a lighthouse. I have a very new graphiccard in my computer so techincal is not the problem.

I think I have to much content in one picture but I do not have an idea to reduce the amount of content without change my idea of the picture.

Is there a solution inside DAZ Studio? Maybe 2.5D is a way but I do not know how to use it. On the other hand I do not know if 2.5D works with Iray. What I mean is when I made a plane there would be a shadow not from the picture on the plane but from the plane itself.

Thank you for your help

Manfred

Knittingmommy

One way to do something like this is to render parts of you scene and then composite everything in a 2D program like Gimp or Photoshop.  You have two ways of doing it.  Canvases in which you can set up layers and tell each layer what to render.  Or, literally, render several times with just the portions your computer can handle for any one scene.  Not quite clear if you are having a memory problem or if you are referring to some other type of problem.  I would suggest canvases in Iray if your computer can handle the render.

@TabascoJack has a great tutorial on canvases here and here.  The first is part of a larger tutorial but good info on the canvases.  There are a few other threads on the forum on using canvases but those are the two I happen to have stickied for quick access.

I have no idea what the 2.5D even references.

 

Experimenter

Thank you for your answer. I think I have a memory problem. Everytime I will render a big scene with lot of content DAZ Studio ends and said and wanted to send a bug report about a early ending of the program.

I tried the part rendering but I got two problems. When I render a separat item or people I have a monocolor backround which left a rim around the objekt in the 2D program. Second when I render the item within the scene I placed it on a plane and made the next render. There is a shadow of the plane. It did not look natural.

I read about the 2.5D in an animation forum. It is from an early 3D games like Doom. It means the animation of a figure is placed on a plane that moved inside the 3D space. Instead of animate figure moves around in a 3D space a simple plane moves in a 3D space and the plane is the animated figure.

Knittingmommy

Interesting about the 2.5D stuff.  I'll have to do some research on that.  I'm not sure how you have your short set up or how you are using the planes.  Screenshots would help.  

Usually, when I render in parts, I use the spot render tool.  You can select just a section of what is in your camera frame to render to a new window, then while keeping the exact same setup, select another section and so on.  Then, composite in a 2D program.  Otherwise, I use canvases.  I don't move objects in and out of the scene as that is almost impossible to match up and put back together later unless you are saving everything as a transparent with nothing in the background and doing the background separately, but then that kind of messes up your shadows which is why canvases is the best way to go for this type of problem.

Greybro

1. compose your environment scene with lighting.
2. create your render camera and lock it down. Never even touch this camera until you are ready to render and then only switch to it in the dropdown camera view so as not to move it accidentally.
3. Save the file as 4 variations for the 4 quadrants of the screen. ie Scene-L1, Scene L2, Scene L3, Scene L4. Scene R1, Scene R2, Scene R3, Scene R4.
4.  Fill the first quadrant or part of a quadrant with figures. Best to keep your figure groups small, say no more than 4 or 5 humanoids or animals. Render this composition. Delete everything but the figures and lights, ie delete the environment and render these figures with the dome set to not render so as to provide a shape for all figures in the scene.
5. In Photoshop or the layered editor of your choice pull in both the full render and the cutout version of the render. Ctrl + left clock the Cutoutlay, then switch the solod full render layer and press Crtl + C to copy. This will give you a clean, properly lit version of yourt figures to composition over your back ground render.
6. Complete this process as many times as need, composition the figures over your scene background. In this way memory is not an issue. Just be carefull to include things like shadows or manually paint them back in. 

Greybro

Check out this thread for more on how I go about a big multi-figure render.

 

Knittingmommy

That's a cool way to do it that I didn't think about.

Experimenter

I tried the canvas rendering in DAZ.

It worked with out problems. But when I save the picture I got the full picture with the objects, buildings and other things I did not selected and the backround. I tried a single canvas render with the figur only and nothing else. The result was a black backround. I saved the picture and loaded into Gimp. I added black to transparancy but the figure became nearly invisible and looked like a ghost.

What can I do to get the selected item without backround as a ready to use layer/picture?

Thank you for your help.

 

Richard Haseltine

You are opening the.exr file?

Experimenter

I tried it but the answer is everytime

"Could not open it, unknown file typ"

Richard Haseltine

Well, the .exr is the one with the extra colour depth so you won't get any benfit (in this situation) from using Canvasses if you can't sue the .exr. I thought Gimp handles the format, though - how current is your version?

Experimenter

Version number 2.8.22

I thought this is the latest number

Experimenter

Sorry I found out I had an old version which could not read EXR files. But now I have the next problem. When I load the EXR file the figure is plane white. Only when I reduce the opacity I can see a little bit of the skin.

What is wrong now?

Richard Haseltine

You probably need to tone map the image, I don't know how that is done in Gimp.

Experimenter

I do not find the "tone map" in Gimp. What does that mean or what shoul I do

Richard Haseltine

Often called something like Levels, Equalisation, or Curves.

Experimenter

I found the function but it does not work. I can change the plane white to another plane color. No details or shapes visible. To make it sure I read the tutorial again and did all the same as in it. Even I add an additional light source for a better visility. But it is the same result. Could it be possible I made something wrong by the settings in DAZ by the canvas rendering or any other settings?

Could it be possible, that I have to load both the exr and the jpg file into Gimp and had to do a "layer cut out" with the plain from the exr file?

Serene Night

You can reduce the texture size especially of distant objects and characters to conserve space.

Richard Haseltine

The jpg won't have the extra colour information. Does Gimp have a command like HDR Toning?

Experimenter

I hope I understood the canvas technic right; I creat different layers of with only the things I want in this layer. Then I can use this layer like a sticker and put it on the backround where it should be. Is this right?

I have made a few example pictures of my problem with the canvas rendering.

The first picture shows the real picture after the normal rendering

The second shows the settings I used for canvas rendering

The thired picture shows the exr file in Gimp. As you can see the silutte is only the one of the figure. No clothes, no hair are in this picture. I do not have a picture of the checked things which should be rendered but I can asure you all clothe, figure and hair were checked.

I have the same problems when the figure is on the center or on the far end.

Worlds_Edge

https://youtu.be/xEe2r5m7Fto.  This is a link to a tutorial on using canvass rendering. It might help you with how to do it. The post work is in photoshop but if you see the functions used there you might be able to translate them to gimp. 

Experimenter

Thank you all for your help.

Thru the video I found the mistake. I do not know why but the rendering did not work correctly and the settings did not work. After a new installation of DAZ everything was there and now it work well.