Alpha Mask - Iray - How to?

Alien Alloy

Hello good people,

I come to you in dire need to some direction and help.
I am used to work in Poser and when I render something I also have the option to produce the Alpha Mask (the plain and solid white thingy) that is so darn usefull inside photoshop for selecting the figures without the need to do it by hand.
Granted that inside Poser I have a script that allows me to choose what I want to be alpha ( the whole figure, the clothing, but not the props or background for example), and I've read around in the forums that you could do something similar with the use of Canvas in Daz Studio.

I did try, followed some instruction, adding the canvas-alpha and adding to the node the 3-4 figures I want the white alpha to be created, but the result is always a nice blank picture.

Is there a way to do it simply, with a click or two or a procedure that do not requires to jumps through fire every time? Is it even possible?

 

Thanks in advance!

FenixPhoenix

There's two ways to do it that I know of and work for me.

1) I use this product: https://www.daz3d.com/linerender9000 to:

• Create outlines
• Create colored masks that I can use in photoshop to quickly select things. This part allows me give each part of the garment different colors.
• This can also give you a black PNG mask with the entire figure (but you'll need to hide the background). 

2) The other thing I sometimes do is render everything. Then if I need to have a mask for only the figure, I hide the background and render for only a couple of minutes (doesn't matter if it's grainy, because I just want the shape). Then I put it in photoshop on top of the previous render and select everything outside the isolated shape. Then I invert the selection. 

Alien Alloy

Gigi_FenixPhoenix said:

There's two ways to do it that I know of and work for me.

1) I use this product: https://www.daz3d.com/linerender9000 to:

• Create outlines
• Create colored masks that I can use in photoshop to quickly select things. This part allows me give each part of the garment different colors.
• This can also give you a black PNG mask with the entire figure (but you'll need to hide the background). 

2) The other thing I sometimes do is render everything. Then if I need to have a mask for only the figure, I hide the background and render for only a couple of minutes (doesn't matter if it's grainy, because I just want the shape). Then I put it in photoshop on top of the previous render and select everything outside the isolated shape. Then I invert the selection. 

This is incredibly laborious for something that should be in the damn system from the beginning.
Is it even possible that a simple thing like creating an ALPHA MASK by selecting what you want and what you don't want, is not an option in this damned program?

Your way is an possible work around, but still feels like jumping through fire for something that should be there for us, the end user, by default :(

FenixPhoenix

Alien Alloy said:

Gigi_FenixPhoenix said:

There's two ways to do it that I know of and work for me.

1) I use this product: https://www.daz3d.com/linerender9000 to:

• Create outlines
• Create colored masks that I can use in photoshop to quickly select things. This part allows me give each part of the garment different colors.
• This can also give you a black PNG mask with the entire figure (but you'll need to hide the background). 

2) The other thing I sometimes do is render everything. Then if I need to have a mask for only the figure, I hide the background and render for only a couple of minutes (doesn't matter if it's grainy, because I just want the shape). Then I put it in photoshop on top of the previous render and select everything outside the isolated shape. Then I invert the selection. 

This is incredibly laborious for something that should be in the damn system from the beginning.
Is it even possible that a simple thing like creating an ALPHA MASK by selecting what you want and what you don't want, is not an option in this damned program?

Your way is an possible work around, but still feels like jumping through fire for something that should be there for us, the end user, by default :(

If there's another way to do it, then I'm not familiar with it. I've gotten a lot of use from LR9000, but I know others have found the product complex and have been disappointed. The reason I find it excellent it because I can determine what I want in the mask and give it a color. There's another product which creates a mask similar (and lines) with the added benefit that it automatically gives everything a different color. https://www.daz3d.com/oso-toon-shader-for-iray

Though I haven't used this one all that much, it's still very powerful and yields some interesting stylistic results.

 

Alien Alloy

Gigi_FenixPhoenix said:

Alien Alloy said:

Gigi_FenixPhoenix said:

There's two ways to do it that I know of and work for me.

1) I use this product: https://www.daz3d.com/linerender9000 to:

• Create outlines
• Create colored masks that I can use in photoshop to quickly select things. This part allows me give each part of the garment different colors.
• This can also give you a black PNG mask with the entire figure (but you'll need to hide the background). 

2) The other thing I sometimes do is render everything. Then if I need to have a mask for only the figure, I hide the background and render for only a couple of minutes (doesn't matter if it's grainy, because I just want the shape). Then I put it in photoshop on top of the previous render and select everything outside the isolated shape. Then I invert the selection. 

This is incredibly laborious for something that should be in the damn system from the beginning.
Is it even possible that a simple thing like creating an ALPHA MASK by selecting what you want and what you don't want, is not an option in this damned program?

Your way is an possible work around, but still feels like jumping through fire for something that should be there for us, the end user, by default :(

If there's another way to do it, then I'm not familiar with it. I've gotten a lot of use from LR9000, but I know others have found the product complex and have been disappointed. The reason I find it excellent it because I can determine what I want in the mask and give it a color. There's another product which creates a mask similar (and lines) with the added benefit that it automatically gives everything a different color. https://www.daz3d.com/oso-toon-shader-for-iray

Though I haven't used this one all that much, it's still very powerful and yields some interesting stylistic results.

 

Oh I'm not debating on the good use of the script you suggest, I'm sure it works wonders, I'm just amazed by the fact that this should be an integrated function, cause it's pretty much integrated in every big render program that I've encountered so far.

barbult

Are you sure your canvas is blank? It is a 32bit EXR file. if you take it into Photoshp and adjust exposure -13, is it still blank?

MelanieL

If you are rendering with Iray, then I've a feeling that I read somewhere about getting an alpha channel by using Iray Canvases - it's somewhere in the render settings tab.

There are various threads (and I think a few videos) around that talk about using Canvases. Maybe start here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/73745/canvases-and-post-processing

(I have not used canvases myself, so maybe they won't give what you want, but it's worth a look maybe)

Alien Alloy

barbult said:

Are you sure your canvas is blank? It is a 32bit EXR file. if you take it into Photoshp and adjust exposure -13, is it still blank?

Positive sir :(

Unless I'm doing something wrong in the render process.

Alien Alloy

MelanieL said:

If you are rendering with Iray, then I've a feeling that I read somewhere about getting an alpha channel by using Iray Canvases - it's somewhere in the render settings tab.

There are various threads (and I think a few videos) around that talk about using Canvases. Maybe start here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/73745/canvases-and-post-processing

(I have not used canvases myself, so maybe they won't give what you want, but it's worth a look maybe)

I've been trying that as well, but the result is, always a black picture with no channels or anything else :(
I'll try to re-read it all, cause in the canvas menu you find the alpha option and you can select the nodes as well, which would be exactly what I wanted/need

andya_b341b7c5f5

I think the Alpha canvas should do it.  First image attached is a basic demo scene.  The cube is the object in the list for the alpha canvas.  The second image attached is the EXR generated exported from the GIMP as a JPEG because the EXR is 6Mb+.  I did not have to adjust the exposure at all. I am a bit surprised that there is that sort of reflected light around the cube, but it would be easy enough to adjust the levels to get rid of that.  For info, the lighting in the scene is just an HDRI, though I'm not sure why that would matter.

barbult

I'm not sure where you are going wrong. I created a Beauty Canvas and an Alpha Canvas. I selected the items I wanted in the alpha and created a node list from selected. I rendered and saved the render to a file (necessary to get the canvases saved). I opened the Alpha canvas in Photoshop and it looked perfect without any exposure adjustment.