Creating crowds (multiple characters)

bradassociates

There are a plethora of daz products that imply crowd scenes.  The Now-Crowd billboards offer a limited option in that the pre-rendered characters provide little ability for creative variance, and, are very specific to a very specific environment/scene.

I'm looking to populate scenes with auidences participants (auditoriums, meeting halls, stages, sport arenas etc),   The challenge is, of course, the drain on the GPU and rendering times.   The conclusion one draws is that these daz environments are not usuable because they cannot accommodate the audiences for which they are designed.

I believe one solution is to populate the audience, but designate many characters as invisible, render, then re-render with different characters being visible/invisible.  The separate renders can then be merged using a photo editor like Photoshop.   Has anyone done this?  Does it reduce the processing resource drain when characters are made invisible?

Laslty, if anyone has a recommendation as to how to create scenes with Daz products that have auditorium seats/bleachers, etc, please advise...otherwise, these products aren't worth it if the scenes always show an empty auditorium or gymnasium or......

 

felis

Have you looked at the Lorez figures in shop?

That is low resolution figures with simple textures, so much more ease on the load.

Furthermore you can instance them if it doesn't get too obvious.

kenshaw011267

Depending on how much detail you want on them it is also possible to use scene optimizer and set it to reduce the maps on the characters by 16. That won't let you do hundredsof people in an auditorium, withoutinstancing them,but if you want 10 to 15 it may work, depending on what else is in the scne.

bradassociates

@felis - thanks, was unaware of these products.  It makes sense - reminds me of when filming large scenes, producers would use high-end movie props for the close-ups, but for the ones far away from the camera, they'd be painted cardboard. 

@kenshaw - thanks, I was also unaware of this product.

I'll use both.  

I still have the question - is there a commensurate decrease in processing usage when rendering by making an element invisible versus deleting the character?  Does anyone know that answer?

 

felis

To my knowledge, if you in the scene tab hides an object (the eye icon) it should not be loaded when rendering.

kenshaw011267

I think that is correct. I've done it in the past without issue.

JD_Mortal

Ultimately, as is done in the industry, you will have to use "cards", and "clones", as your only real options. (Card = A simple plane with a rendering of a crowd of people on it. Clone = a duplicate of an object, with potential variations that could make them seem unique. Saves on scene geometry.)

Clones are getting more advanced now, but there is limited potential with clones in Daz. Cards are your most logical option. You pre-render groups of people sitting, standing, cheering, etc... Then place those cards around the stadium to form the distant crowds. You find low-poly models for side-lines individuals, along with cards, for slight added realism.

The best way to render crowds, as a foreground and/or backgrounds, is to use the focal-blur options. Most field-shot photographs are done with close-up and high-speed cameras that have a limited depth of field. Otherwise, they are done from the sidelines with a telephoto lens, which has a wide depth of field, but they are still far away from the detailed crowds. (Thus, cards will be fine still.)

You can use simple "Decimated", models. (There is a plugin called the "Decimator", which reduces polygon count of objects. As well as image-sizes, I believe.) Use the low-poly models for larger unique groups, to make your "Crowd Cards".

Lowest DIY method for semi-realistic crowds... Make 2D polygon-flats with simple colors. Head, Torso, Arms and Hips. Group them, clone them and drop them around. Rendering slices of the scene is also another alternative. Use the render-area tool and just render a segment to the canvas. Move the crowd and render again... and again... etc. Open all renderings in a paint program and replace each blank area with the new populated scenes. (Still a lot of work, but that is why they learn scripting and use clones. You can use the animation time-line to manage each sections positions. Then you can just switch to each key-frame to repeat the rendering process again.)

Paradigm

The compositing images method is really the best way for people who don't have infinite money 

scorpio

bradassociates said:

There are a plethora of daz products that imply crowd scenes.  The Now-Crowd billboards offer a limited option in that the pre-rendered characters provide little ability for creative variance, and, are very specific to a very specific environment/scene.

I'm looking to populate scenes with auidences participants (auditoriums, meeting halls, stages, sport arenas etc),   The challenge is, of course, the drain on the GPU and rendering times.   The conclusion one draws is that these daz environments are not usuable because they cannot accommodate the audiences for which they are designed.

I believe one solution is to populate the audience, but designate many characters as invisible, render, then re-render with different characters being visible/invisible.  The separate renders can then be merged using a photo editor like Photoshop.   Has anyone done this?  Does it reduce the processing resource drain when characters are made invisible?

Laslty, if anyone has a recommendation as to how to create scenes with Daz products that have auditorium seats/bleachers, etc, please advise...otherwise, these products aren't worth it if the scenes always show an empty auditorium or gymnasium or......

 

I've used the compositing method alot in the past when I had a really low end PC, still use it occasionally now as well, once you figure it out its pretty straight forwrd, but it does take some planning you need to think through what you are going to do before doing it.

nicstt

I've had 32  G8F in a scene, render on a 980ti; same textures, same hair on the all, then adjusted slight for some variation.

But the biggy was blurring the background, which is better in many ways anyway; the eye doesn't focus on blurred parts Depth Of field puts the render times up.