Textures, Shaders, HDRIs, and More-how to...

wildbillnash

I found a site of that has free HDRIs and textures but the site assumes you already know what to do since there's no 'how to' option.  So, I have a few questions.

1.  What are HDRIs and is there an tutorial on how to use them?

2.  Are Textures and Shaders the same thing?  If not, how do you use textures?  Is there a tutorial for working with them?

Thanks in advance for any help on the subjects.

L'Adair

HDRIs, High Dynamic Range Images, are used by Daz Studio for lighting in Iray. If you purchase HDRI lighting from a vendor on the Daz site, the product will include presets, so you only need to double-click on the preset to apply the settings, much like you might double-click on the eye color preset of a character you have loaded.

To use an HDRI you've obtained on sites that provide them for free, you will need to manually apply the HDRI:

1. Save the free HDRI to a location on your hard drive.
   • I recommend you create your own Textures folder under My Library with an HDRI subfolder. For example, in the default location, the path would look something like this: C:\Users\wildbillnash\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\Runtime\textures\wildbillnash\HDRI
2. Open Daz Studio.
3. Open the Render Settings pane(tab).
4. There are three tabs across the top of this pane: Presets, Editor and Advanced. Select Editor if it is not already highlighted.
5. In the left column, scroll down to the last entry, Environment, and select.
6. In the right column, the first parameter is Environment Mode, there are four options:
   • Dome and Scene: This will use the Dome settings found in the Environment section of the Render Settings, and also allow lights you add using the Create menu.
   • Dome Only: This will only use the Dome settings found in the Environment section of the Render Settings, ignoring any lights you add using the Create menu.
   • Sun-Sky Only: This will only use the Sun-Sky settings found in the Environment section of the Render Settings, (but will use the Sun Dial Set, if loaded,) ignoring any lights you add using the Create menu.
   • Scene Only: This will only use lights you add using the Create menu.
   • Mesh lights, objects made emissive in the material settings will not be affected by the Environment Mode.
7. Select either Dome and Scene or Dome Only.
8. Locate the parameter, Environment Map.
9. Click on the Image icon on the far left of the parameter and select Browse.
10. Browse to the location of your new HDRI image, double-click on the HDRI image to select.
11. To use your new image as a background, as well as for lighting, locate the Draw Dome parameter and make sure it is set to On.

That's the basics of using an HDRI for lighting. There are quite a few other parameters, and I recommend you try them out with a test scene, but for the most part, the only other settings you will use regularly are Dome Rotation, Ground Position Mode, and Draw Ground.

Textures and shaders are not the same things.

"Textures" are materials, which use "texture" maps in a variety of parameters. When you apply "textures" to an object, those textures can apply different settings to multiple material zones. If you load a G8F base figure into the scene and decide you want to use different materials, you can locate the presets for any G8F character and double-clicking on the preset(s) will apply those materials, as long as the G8F is selected in the scene first. Materials are also dependent on Material Zone names. Using a preset from one product on another product might apply materials if one or more of the Material Zones have the same name, but the chances are the textures will not cover the item correctly.

Shaders are a set of parameters that can be applied to any material zone. I'm no expert on creating them, but I do know vendors have made some very cool effects by creating custom shaders. From what I have seen using shaders, they can be quite simple, highly complex, or anything in between. The one thing they all have in common is, you must select the object in the scene, and then you must select, in the Surfaces > Editor, the material zones you want to apply the shaders to. Othewise, the shader will not be applied.

I hope you find this bit of information helpful.

wildbillnash

Thanks, L'Adair.  A lot to learn.  I'm going to play around with it.

But what I saw for HDRI were scenes, like a panoramic picture.  In fact, I read you can create one with a camera (not sure how, though).  The image onscreen looks warped but somehow when you add it to the scene it "warps" into place (I think).  Here's a screen image of the site.

Sven Dullah

wildbillnash said:

Thanks, L'Adair.  A lot to learn.  I'm going to play around with it.

But what I saw for HDRI were scenes, like a panoramic picture.  In fact, I read you can create one with a camera (not sure how, though).  The image onscreen looks warped but somehow when you add it to the scene it "warps" into place (I think).  Here's a screen image of the site.

HDRI images use spherical mapping, hence the warping. The IRay environment is a virtual sphere around which the HDRI is wrapped.

L'Adair

As Sven says, those HDRIs are intended to be used on spherical objects. In Daz Studio, we use them in the Environment Map, which simulates a sphere, so there is no distortion of the image when you have Draw Dome set to On.

You can actually use any image in Environment Map channel, but unless it's an HDRI, you won't get proper lighting. And if it isn't "spherical", the image will be distorted with Draw Dome On. (There are a couple of "finite box" setting in the Dome Mode parameter drop-down, but I personally haven't seen any box HDRIs yet.)

 

MimicMolly

Is there a way to save the HDRI settings as presets? To avoid having to manually load everything up again.

Richard Haseltine

MimicMolly said:

Is there a way to save the HDRI settings as presets? To avoid having to manually load everything up again.

Render Presets

L'Adair

MimicMolly said:

Is there a way to save the HDRI settings as presets? To avoid having to manually load everything up again.

To expand on what Richard said:

1. In the main menu, click on File
2. Scroll down to and select Save As
3. In the fly out menu, scrool down to and select Render Settings Preset…
4. Browse to a location you'll can easily find, inside of "My Library" (I have a folder named Presets with subfolders for things like Render Settings, poses, materials, etc.)
5. Name your preset and save.

If you've saved the preset inside of My Library, you can easily find it from the Content Library.

1. Open the Content Library Pane(Tab)
2. In the left column, double-click on Daz Studio Formats to expand
3. Double-click on My Library to expand
4. Continue to drill-down the folders in My Library to reach the location of your preset.
5. Select the folder your preset is in. The icon for the preset will show in the right column
6. Double-click on preset icon to load the save settings. (As you would with presets from purchased products.)

As you can see, it's really pretty easy once you know the steps.