See-through windows urban background views
mlominy
Posts: 223
I do a lot of indoor scenes and most interiors I use have windows.
Is there any tuto or products that allow having urban/city background views (with streets and buildings). Most of the HDRIs I have just give the impression my room is located in an open field... :-(
Post edited by mlominy on
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Hi, I'm still very much new to Iray but I know what you mean, and have come up with a few options.
I haven't found any good HDRIs for this purpose, but that makes sense---HDRIs seem to be best for outdoor scenes, and I think what you're looking for is something for an indoor scene that happens to show an outdoor, urban environment. So one quick/easy option is to use a backdrop like this one and then use depth of focus to sort of blur it out. The city scapes backdrop works in much the same way, if you don't need an urban backdrop at street level. These don't have the level of realism close to an HDRI, but with clever use of lighting and camera settings, you can make a convincing backdrop that doesn't distract from your indoor scenes.
Another option to consider is just making the windows opaque. Add a shader that isn't transparent to the glass surface. If that is passable, this also reduces the load on rendering compared to using backdrops or actual objects. I've also used blinds, drapes, and other coverings to keep the realism of the indoor scene but not make it obvious that there's nothing outside those windows!
Finally, you can consider getting objects that are actually building exteriors. I don't have this one yet (Collective3d's Neighborhood Block) but pretty much anything by Collective3d, Stonemason, and some others I can't remember are incredible and useful. But be mindful that those objects are really detailed and can make rendering very extended or impossible if you don't have a pretty good set-up.
Typically for this sort of thing I just look for a desktop wallpaper that has the sort of city view I want to have. Then I render with a transparent backgound (don't select anything in the Environment tab for the background) and I use GIMP (or another image editor of your choice) to layer my rendered image over the city background.
With this method, however, the outdoor background will be on focus, even if the surrounding window is not, which makes things appear un-natural... The best would be to render with the image wallpaer inside DAZ itself.
No, I run a gaussian blur against the background layer to put it as out of focus as I need it to be.
I use a home made cylinder @100m x 30m, used Geometry editor to remove top and bottom also inverted remaining polygons. Apply 360 panorama photo set to 2 vertical tiles. Resize to suit. See image Left has no - DOF Right has inset shows setup.