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HDR DDS Cubemap (SpaceEngine PRO) to DAZ3D?

Ryselle-RyssaRyselle-Ryssa Posts: 147
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Hi!

I'm actually looking at https://store.steampowered.com/app/1026970/SpaceEngine_PRO/, planning to buy it. But since 70+$ is a word, I will ask you first.

The program states it can provide "Unlimited resolution for exporting skyboxes, including with HDR DDS cubemap format" (https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1026970/ss_b43c09bc2447a8f7792a922c7bd1403b19bd8505.jpg?t=1567494844). If I could use this in DAZ, it would be a game-changer for a Star-Trek project I actually work on... If...

So the question is: Can DAZ3D use these maps?

Best wishes

Ryselle

Comments

  • PaintboxPaintbox Posts: 1,633
    edited March 2020

    I believe you need the equirectangular option, but not entirely sure. Thats the one hdri's use. Maybe someone can chip in who knows for sure.

    it has a demo / personal edition, does it output these?

    Post edited by Paintbox on
  • TomDowdTomDowd Posts: 198

    Doesn't look like it does. Here's a render of a cube map applied to the Environment, and within it a cube primative with a cube map applied to it just in case that worked...

    Nope to both. (Though it does kinda look like a Christopher Nolan film...) Maybe somebody else has the trick?

    TD

    Cubes In Space.png
    1280 x 720 - 682K
  • PaintboxPaintbox Posts: 1,633
    TomDowd said:

    Doesn't look like it does. Here's a render of a cube map applied to the Environment, and within it a cube primative with a cube map applied to it just in case that worked...

    Nope to both. (Though it does kinda look like a Christopher Nolan film...) Maybe somebody else has the trick?

    TD

    the steam page mentions two other outputs, one of them equirectangular, try that.

     

  • Ryselle-RyssaRyselle-Ryssa Posts: 147
    Paintbox said:

    I believe you need the equirectangular option, but not entirely sure. Thats the one hdri's use. Maybe someone can chip in who knows for sure.

    it has a demo / personal edition, does it output these?

    Thank you for your reply :-)

    The problem is: There is no demo. To test it out, I would need to spend 70+$... And I don't want to spend that amouth of money for something that will eventually work ;-) Before that, I would blow it out on the March Madness sale cheeky

     

    TomDowd said:

    Doesn't look like it does. Here's a render of a cube map applied to the Environment, and within it a cube primative with a cube map applied to it just in case that worked...

    Nope to both. (Though it does kinda look like a Christopher Nolan film...) Maybe somebody else has the trick?

    TD

    Thank you for your answer :-) Do you have SpaceEngine?

  • Jason GalterioJason Galterio Posts: 2,562

    I have refrained from commenting, because I don't know if these comments are revelent, but here goes...

    A lot of the early "Easy Environments" by Flipmode use a "Skybox" which is very similar to what you are attempting. Essentially a huge cube around the scene with textures applied to it. I loved how some of these looked in the pre-Iray days, so I spent many hours trying to get them to work in Iray.

    Every method I tried produced less than stellar results.

    I tried stitching the textures together in Photoshop and applying them to the "Sky" in the Iray render parameters, using different set ups to correlate the different between the "box" mode and the "globe" mode. I used a Photoshop plug in to make the "box" mode into the "globe" appearance. (Pardon the layman's terms, I don't have DS available to check the real terms.)

    These failed because the textures aren't really HDRI files so DS didn't know where the illumination was coming from.

    I then tried using a skydome and applying the remade textures to those, applying transluceny and such so that the underlying HDRI file would provide the lumination behind the skydome. For various reasons, this failed as well. Each render just kept looking artifical.

    The last thing I tried was bringing the Easy Environment Skybox in as is and applying the transluceny to it. This worked...  sort of. Because of the cube nature, the seams and corners were visible.

    I finally gave up because it didn't seem like it was ever going to work.

  • 3Ddreamer3Ddreamer Posts: 1,312

    Flipmode has a method on this own webpage on converting his Skyboxes to Iray, I've used them a few times and had no issues.

    I'm at work just now so I can't dig out the URL, but if you find Flipmode's Easy Environment thread it will be in there.

  • Jason GalterioJason Galterio Posts: 2,562
    3Ddreamer said:

    Flipmode has a method on this own webpage on converting his Skyboxes to Iray, I've used them a few times and had no issues.

    I'm at work just now so I can't dig out the URL, but if you find Flipmode's Easy Environment thread it will be in there.

    Thanks for that. I will take a look. Last time I tried to do this was over a year ago, admittedly.

  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,774
    Ryselle-Ryssa said:

    Hi!

    I'm actually looking at https://store.steampowered.com/app/1026970/SpaceEngine_PRO/, planning to buy it. But since 70+$ is a word, I will ask you first.

    The program states it can provide "Unlimited resolution for exporting skyboxes, including with HDR DDS cubemap format" (https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1026970/ss_b43c09bc2447a8f7792a922c7bd1403b19bd8505.jpg?t=1567494844). If I could use this in DAZ, it would be a game-changer for a Star-Trek project I actually work on... If...

    So the question is: Can DAZ3D use these maps?

    Best wishes

    Ryselle

    Steam has a refund policy just like DAZ

  • Ryselle-RyssaRyselle-Ryssa Posts: 147
    edited March 2020

    So, I gave it a try... and it works smiley

    The program can display equirectangular and its window-mode can do resolutions up to 16k. Screenshots can either be made in dds (which is an HDR-format of nvidia as far as I understand), tif (32bit) and png (not 32 bit ;-)). It also can be set to a render solution of 4096, meaning one can get a decent looking 4 - 8k HDR out of it.

    The skycube export isn't useful, since the output isn't interpreted well by DAZ studio, but the screenshots of the program are useable :-)

    Perhaps, in the future, there will be more export options, but until then, I'm satisfied yes

     

    Update:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/392896/tutorial-hdri-from-spaceengine-to-daz

    The_Fleet.png
    2000 x 2000 - 2M
    Post edited by Ryselle-Ryssa on
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