Urban hdri from upper floors
Dolbomir
Posts: 73
So pretty much every single HDRI of urban city-scape i can think of seems to be from the ground perspective. I get that a 360 view from a higher floor would be impossible due to obstruction by the building one is on the higher than ground floor of... but ... does this exist?
I googled "urban hdri" and "urban hdri from upper floors" and variants of that for non-ground, higher, sky-view, etc. Most of the results are utterly polluted by "make your own damn HDRI" type entries :/
...does that not exist or something?
EDIT: in "product suggestions" because a) I'd like to see someone who knows what they're doing to make a HDRI of a higher-floor perspective of a cityscape... and b) more than one of google searches pointed to a thread that was moved to product suggestions and had no responses :/
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Found some on the likes of hdrlabs... but given how much higher quality some of the HDRI producs here are... I want to keep this. Get a dang drone and shoot some 360 degree Cityscapes in your usual high quality hdri ways. I, for one, am likely to buy that... especially if I can have same in various times of day.
It's something I've been looking for as well. I'd even find computer generated ones acceptable for use really, though that might be because of how I'd want to use them: as both a lightsource AND background image for indoor/rooftop shots. Since the main focus of my image would be what's indoors or on the rooftop itself, I could adjust focal length and diaphragm of the camera to my hearts content to make the background sharper or more blurred.
I see many people making images from "top floors" using regular "background panels" behind the windows (or *shudder* windows textured with background images..). And to be honest, the results are generally jarring. Buildings in the background that look like they're about to fall over, fisheye view through a single narrow window, horizonlines that just don't compute right with the rest of the image. I've seen a lot of bad examples, even on promotion images here at Daz, I'm afraid..
There are "cityblocks" products here and at several other places, which can give awesome realistic backgrounds. The only problem with those: they're quite a bit more taxing on my computer, and all that just to see some rooftops in the background. HDRI's of such backgrounds would be an ideal go-to solution.
Yeah, I know the feeling, I placed some of those cityblocks cluster-of-buildings props outside a window for one of my renders, and the render took ages. I'd definitely love to see some engineared HDRis of citiscapes as seen from up in the air, too... both modern times citiscapes and futuristic ones of various stripes, maybe Victorian era and/or Steampunk citiscapes, maybe even ancient GrecoRoman ones, or maybe even cartoon-styled citscapes. Could also do with some neat, curved-wall backgrounds with buildings that look more futuristic or more ancient-times, too, in the vein of this one here (I've bought some others like that, including wilderness ones instead of citiscapes, and used them).
I agree that some quality high rise HDRIs are very much needed. Everytime I see an apt addon that is higher than one floor and doesn't included the backgroud you see in the promos I skip it completely since I know I have nothing for the outside other than sky and clouds
There are actually some (free and not free) hdri views from rooftops out there, but everything I found is poorer quality than what some of the procuders here have.
I have tried Cityscapes too, and it *does* seem to increase the render time for me as well (then again my PC is getting old :D). One problem I ran into the ones I have is that they're actually a bit *short* for rooftop or balcony shots unless the camera angle is really level to the balcony/rooftop.
...also nomad-ads_8ecd56922e's idea of expanding that into various types of cities is awesome too :O (makes for a good series of products that can be bundled and such)
there is a one I use a lot but it's not a full 360, still is useful for looking through windows as long as the join is off camera.
I need to find a link.
Alll I have to go on is Vancouver.png and thats not showing any that resemble the one I have from years ago
In Daz Studio, click on the Environment tab (usually docked on left side, next to Scene tab). Then under "Background", load your .jpg file. This picture will fill up the viewport's background. You can then load a room, and you'll see the skyline out the window.
Ironic that I just posted on the topic because I didn't see this thread but totally agree.. Need night time HDRI's with rootop views of the city.
1. You'd get a distorted background from projecting a flat skyline image on a sphere
2. Skyline images are generally taken fom too great a distance for the purpose of creating an image centered inbetween them
3. Shadows on a skyline image all point in one direction (correct), however, wrapping that image around a sphere causes all shadows on the image to point in a different direction.
4. Skyline images are generally taken from ground level, which means the angle of the buildings and place of the horizon won't look right for a rooftop shot.
4. A HDRI comes with the added benefit that it functions as a lightsource, casting the correct light onto the scene while everything on the HDRI itself will also show correct light and shading. So light and shading between HDRI and props, figures, etcetera will be consistent.
Overall, a skyline image may look fine at first glance, but it just doesn't compare in either quality or functionality to a HDRI.
not HDRi Carrara spherical renders but for window shots I am sure sufficient
https://sharecg.com/v/64485/gallery/6/Texture/Spherical-Dystopia-night-with-clouds
https://sharecg.com/v/51352/gallery/6/Texture/Dystopia-Spherical-background-night-image-map
https://sharecg.com/v/51297/gallery/6/Texture/Dystopia-Spherical-background-image-map
Yus, thank you! Even if they're not HDRI, it's already a vast improvement over regular flat 2D textures.
Static background .jpegs are good for window fillers. I would think most of the time, you're not going to stick your camera straight out the window for all to see, but instead render your room from an angle.
As for lighting, you can pick any other HDRI environment, and allow the light to shine through while hiding the HDRI background. I think this isn't a big deal for interiors, because you're not interacting with the environment.
Like for an outside HDRI, you could be walking on the beach, or sitting on a park bench, so it's more important to match up lighting with environment. But inside a room, not so much.
An environment backdrop (on the Environment tab pane, not an environment map in Iray render settings or uberenvironment) is not projected onto a sphere, it fills the viewport as a static image. It follows your camera/view, so you have to align the scene properly to get a similar perspective. The proportions are not preserved, but stretched to fit, so you have to resize your aspect frame to match the original aspect ratio.
9 out of 10 times when people use a flat background image to represent the outside of an interior shot, I see it. Maybe you don't notice, or find it acceptable, but I do notice. On others' works, but even more on things I render myself. So when I notice,then it's a big deal.
There are tricks to cover up the lack of a proper exterior, but the better ones are hiding the window altogether by (sometimes even volumetrically) floodlighting from the outside or, for night time renders, either making the windows highly reflective or covered by curtains. But quite often, I want a proper looking exterior instead of these cover-ups. And if a flaw is noticable to me, then that is a big deal to me. Same category of "unacceptable" as hairs poking through hats (which is why I rarely use hats, except when they're designed with or for a specific hair product) and feet floating above the ground (I easily spend 20 minutes on micro-posing and repositioning a figure to get the feet and any other bodyparts placed right on surfaces they collide with).
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Skyline_from_an_office_building_window.jpg
HDRI lighting comes from another source.
As long as the background is taken from an elevated viewpoint, I think it looks acceptable.
A static image has limited camera angles, but I'm sure you can get creative and flip the image horizontally if you want to view it from the opposite angle.
Wow, that actually would be cool, maybe from a skyscraper ceiling! :D
I tend to use the cityscapes a fair amount. Theyare curved, so work for me outside windows. https://www.daz3d.com/cityscapes-backdrops
It looks like they're using a static background here:
https://www.daz3d.com/px-rooftop
It would be interesting to see a real HDRI environment of a rooftop, but I'm guessing it wouldn't have a spectacular view.
flat images and cityscapes work well (often with additional tweaks) for backgrounds outside a window... but not for roof or balcony shots in my experience.
If one makes a set of images at different angles (say, a comic or a "photo" set), they really get wonky :D
Hence the wish for more HDRI variety for this concept :3
...just realized this is now a dead thread, sorry x.x