Lightdome Pro R

Peter Wade

Does anyone know anything about this? I didn't find the description on the store page very useful.

I used to have Lightdome Pro (or it might have been Lightdome Pro 2) but this was never updated to work with Studio 4. Is Lightdome Pro R similar to this?

What description there is goes on a lot about Photoshop. Do you need Photoshop to use this?

evilded777

I second this request for more information.

Frankly, I wish the product had simply been fixed to work in Studio 4.... I do not like my money going down the drain.

adamr001

It's completely different than the original LDP. It basically renders layers to photoshop and includes a bunch of photoshop "Actions" (think Macros" to manipulate those layers.

Szark

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIkjDLiHE3M

Szark

and

Lindsey said:

I'd direct your questions to the LDP-R vendor support thread: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/26593/

Peter Wade

Thank you adamr001 for the info and Szark for the link.

Since I don't have photoshop this is no use to me. Like evilded777 I really wish they would update the old Lightdome to work with Studio 4.6. It is really annoying when you buy a good product and then buy sets of additional skies to use with it but you have to throw it away because the developer can't be bothered to update it.

Lissa_xyz

adamr001 said:

It's completely different than the original LDP. It basically renders layers to photoshop and includes a bunch of photoshop "Actions" (think Macros" to manipulate those layers.

So it's just another Photoshop bridge with actions?

Peter Wade

Vaskania said:

adamr001 said:

It's completely different than the original LDP. It basically renders layers to photoshop and includes a bunch of photoshop "Actions" (think Macros" to manipulate those layers.

So it's just another Photoshop bridge with actions?

Looks like it. I watched the first part of the tutorial, it has a skydome, backgrounds, lights and a special camera which I think is a Daz Studio plugin. The special camera renders a set of layers as separate images, then you have to use some sort of photoshop script or plugin to load the images and combine them in photoshop. When I found you need photoshop I stopped watching.

Jaderail

Photoshop is NOT required to use the BASE lights and SkyDomes. You can still do standard renders and replace the Base lighting with any lighting you prefer to use with the loaded Sky. I've tested it With CloudNine (Lighting only) And Both of my Lantios light sets, it also works with Custom built Uber Enviro Lights that do not load a map.

Peter Wade

Jaderail said:

Photoshop is NOT required to use the BASE lights and SkyDomes. You can still do standard renders and replace the Base lighting with any lighting you prefer to use with the loaded Sky. I've tested it With CloudNine (Lighting only) And Both of my Lantios light sets, it also works with Custom built Uber Enviro Lights that do not load a map.

Dreamlight are heavily promoting this as a photoshop add-on. There was a brief mention in the tutorial saying you can do what they call a "preview render" which I suppose means you can use it as just a Daz Studio only product but it sounds as if they are actively playing down that feature.

Lissa_xyz

Buying this just to use the dome and lights with Daz Studio's internal renderer for a single image is pointless. This is aimed at people who postwork due to the LDP-R rendering script rending out multiple passes so you can postwork it and edit the lighting. You do NOT need Photoshop to open the images, but you will be doing manually what all of the included PS actions do for you.

Jaderail

Peter Wade said:

Jaderail said:

Photoshop is NOT required to use the BASE lights and SkyDomes. You can still do standard renders and replace the Base lighting with any lighting you prefer to use with the loaded Sky. I've tested it With CloudNine (Lighting only) And Both of my Lantios light sets, it also works with Custom built Uber Enviro Lights that do not load a map.

Dreamlight are heavily promoting this as a photoshop add-on. There was a brief mention in the tutorial saying you can do what they call a "preview render" which I suppose means you can use it as just a Daz Studio only product but it sounds as if they are actively playing down that feature.I never said it was worth it as a single pass render plugin. I just said it does work. I'm not happy with it at all, and I do use PS CS6. Even that is not enough to Wow me with what it can do.

coren

I have mixed feelings about this too.
I think im just gona end up using skydomes from this.
I did follow instruction video and some things turned out
difrent and i allso put together a quick scene to test it out.

http://i.imgur.com/BoVfMig.jpg

Im not quite happy with the results

Joe Cotter

DS doesn't have a built in compositor like in Blender as shown in this example by Andrew Price. There are many efficiencies in using post composition and it is common in other 3D packages. This product is the closest DS has for this type of functionality. There are good reasons for this type of work process.

I haven't picked up this yet or put it through it's paces, but I have looked at the videos and it does look interesting, especially if as Waldemeer said in his thread that he plans on further automating it so that it can batch images for animation, as this is one area it lacks over built in compositors. It is not the same as a built in compositor, but it looks simpler with the basic functionality.