NYC HDRIs, possibly?
john_antkowiak
Posts: 334
Hi. I don't know if @Mec4D is still doing her wonderful work, and I can't be the only one to think of this. But I haven't been to these fora in quite a long time, so I thought I'd ask. Is anyone talking about doing any NYC HDRIs while the streets are empty? This goes for all the other major cities too. Seems like a no-brainer, but one never knows ))
Thanks, and have a great day --
John A.
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Mec4D hasn't been around in awhile, so I doubt we'll see any new products from her. I agree though, it would be cool to get some HDRI work done with the lockdowns going on.
At your services sir !
straight from NYC, just a small example of what I am working on right now over 6000 pictures was taken ,once in a lifetime opportunity , however it was weird and kreeps me out without people
The new HDRI are so much better, no more blue shadows so it match well in iray the ground shadows . 11000x5500 , 60 Megapixels each
The snap shots bellow are tonemapped so the saturation is greater , I have the most major locations from Harlem, Manhattan, Center Park, Downtown and Businesses District, plus Bear Mountains NJ, Eagle Rock Reservations for the Into the woods shots, very cool
Cath
You know when I was in quarantine the only thing was on my mind the HDRI , I was waiting for the good weather and the day when I finished shotting the Downtown the protest started and almost all location was closed , they literally walking behind me when I was shotting so I was running in front , I made 20 miles on my feet that day. It would be impossible to make any HDRI with all the tourists and people on a normal day, I wish I could visit other cities but sadly was not possible
These images are fabulous and I am looking forward to seeing your new HDRI's in the store, especially the John Wick one as I am a huge fan!
Thanks! Yeah! Continental Hotel NYC
neutral territory for members of the criminal underworld lol I almost forgot to shot it, my hubby reminded me in the last moment before we left the business district , glad he did
That is an awesome picture of Keanu!
knew I recognized the Mec4d ... don't use a lot of hdrs but the PBS shader sets 1-4 are pretty much my go to sets and I could probably pull most of the others out of the library
These HDRIs look great. You have not lost your touch.
So glad you are back! Those HDRIs are wonderful and I will be grabbing them for my runtime not only to use, but also because you have documented a very unique period of history. Bless you.
Thank you so much guys,
I study Iray behaviors with real photo HDRI Environments for too long, I know what is possible and what is not by now.
There is no camera in the world or it's setting that can proper capture HDRI for Iray on a sunny day with proper sun light and shadows.
I use computer attached to my Nikon D800E to rewrite the camera settings and create custom brackets for the HDRI to match Iray needs. Plus on that 2 x ND filters for additional 6 stops above 1/8000 sec shutter speed for total 20 EV stops
what ending in making of 80 x 180 degree pictures for one HDRI on a sunny day, where you need only 36x180 degree pictures for a cloudy day , Iray will not produce any sunlight and shadows from HDRI if the sun is not totally isolated in pictures from any kind of ambient light but the sun itself , what ends in 40 steps HDRI vs 9-4 steps for a cloudy day. That is a big waste of resource and time but there is no other way, to make it easy to understand , when you have a a sunny day, you need actually making one HDRI for the ambient light and one HDRI for the sun light and put them all together in one HDRI so iray can read it proper. Iray is nothing else but digital virtual camera, and the HDRI need all the information of the real world full light conditions , it is logic but not as simple as most people think.
wanna see how the real little spot of sun in HDRI looks like when shot with this settings ? at the fastest shutter speed? quiet interesting , I used 300mm lens to capture it in close up to see it in real size since in HDRI it is too small due to 8mm lens at 60 megapixels
I am still hunting the moon for the HDRI but too difficult to make , it's moving too fast on the sky for HDRI environment
and the small white spot is the sun in the final HDRI for iray at 60 megapixel environment at -20 EV steps
Here previews from the nature , 7 Lakes NY, Bear Mountain NY and Eagle rock reservation NJ , just couple of examples , I also have not finished yet nature woods HDRI for rendering for small animals than 4 feet with different point view than than a grown humans , so you can render kids', hobbits, deers , raccoons or rabbits, also working on micro HDRI environment for very small figures like mouse, spiders and other stuf, it is going to be very interesting and unique as never before.
example bellow are tone mapped partial snap shots and saturated compared to the original HDRI for iray where you can control it as you like.
I am going to do also some tutorial video how proper tone mapping your renders after rendering so you don't miss the blue sky in your renders and can get as much of light from it as needed
After months of listening to the governors of New York, New Jersey and a host of others, I am amazed that I know those place names, but don't know what they look like. Till now. Fantastic.
Thank you, my favorites spots for spring and fall
One thing that I would like to see with HDRIs are shots that show the same location at different times of day. For example a cityscape that can be used as a backdrop for an apartment scene that has both day and night views, or a skyline that shows the same kind of thing but from the water. Or a nature scene that has a daytime view and a nightime view that has stars and the moon that could be used for camping backdrops. So many fantastic HDRIs have a day or a night image but not both.
I made this time HDRI from different angles of locations , not just from one side. I was hopping for the night shots of the city but unfortunately for my case I was not allowed to enter the locations before 9 am and night, it was shut down due to protests, and I lost my opportunity to shot it without people . It is impossible to shot HDRI in NYC without cars and people , you dealing with over 8 million people in a city that don't stay still or sleep lol
Regarding my nature locations, I have no access for the night shot , they are closed after 6pm , and some of them are too dangerous at night , wild animals , snakes and crazy people .I plan a trip to the West after summer in the fall , so I will have better chances for everything I want.
Also I will give you a nice tip, working with HDRI in iray is amazing , you can create any day or night time using proper HDRI as I produce . All you need is using Tone Mapping, turning the city or nature into dawn or night, and the sun into a moon. with couple of slides. That is the power of true HDRI , only fake one have no option like that. I am going to show you couple examples of that .
and regarding stars, we don't have stars in East coast , too much light pollution . There is only one choice, or the moon or the stars .
I am hopping next full moon give me a chance to capture it in HDRI, not easy task as it moving too fast in the sky , but maybe I find solution , I am going to try until I succeed . Too long exposure making the stars and moon looking like a strip of fireworks. So when I am done finishing shutting the last position the first shot with moon is somewhere else what is impossible to track and stich into panorama without ghosting effect .or I will have to use 4 cameras at the same time but then I will lose the pivot again so not a solution .
I will be back in a moment with the examples for you
Here simple example of what you can make , no need night or day shots of HDRI as it already have all light information 24h of it straight from DS without postwork
and even a star on the sky ... it is called the SUN lol j/k , but let pretend it is the moon in this case
everything is possible, light & magic
There's also the handy Iray HDRI Reshade product that helps with that kind of thing. It doesn't light up windows in a cityscape, but it's fine for nature scenes, and the occasional cabin window can always be lit up in post.
More on that in this thread https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/419881/
Thanks for the replies Mec4D and Sevrin. I don't know anything about tone mapping so I will have to try and find some tutorials on it. And that HDRI Reshade product looks very interesting too.It might be a useful tool as well.
However if you do end up making some night and day cityscape HDRIs available I would definitely find them useful for backdrops for apartment scenes etc. As Sevrin says, building window lights will be an issue using the other methods that have been mentioned. Tone mapping and/or the Reshade product will work for nature scenes.
You give me just a wonderful idea, I am going to include additional light presets for 3 different light conditions so it will be easy to choice from the library without any adjustment .
Also preparing tutorial video so you can learn something new on the way, it is worth it, as it will give you more tools to achieve what you looking for .
Very exciting news and tips, Catherine - a million thank-yous (and a few upcoming purchases lol)!
You more than welcome John, and as they saying , (a few upcoming purchases late) be careful what you wish for lol but seriously , I said to myself , if I don't do it, I will never forgive myself to the end of my days . Once in a lifetime opportunity , the time square was closed to public at that time but the cops don't mind to get me out of the lens vision for a second and so at Rockefeller Plaza , it was amazing experiences to have the places just to myself for a moment without living soul walking in front of the camera . Surreal ! I realized that NYC is nothing without their people, almost scary .
Cath
Thank you very much MEC4D. I look forward to this.
These look wonderful. I'm working mostly in Poser these days. It would be nice to have a set up for Poser as well so I don't have to bash my head against the wall to get it to look right! LOL So wonderful to see your back. Glad your safe and healthy and still happily married. Covid is forcing so many of us to change our directions in life. i'm now working solely out of my apt (hair and art) and I'm a homebody / introvert so being on my own has been just fine for me! LOL
XOXO
Richard
Well, I don;t think you need much to setup in Poser, the new HDRI are set up by default, with the correct exposure so not adjusting needed and should works fine as it works fine in Octane and other apps
I don't have the last Poser version so can't do it , you may test it out if you want when I am ready !
Covid or not I have everything at home to be happy , too many dramas in the world, give me headache ! stopped watching the news and focus on work ! the best therapy
xoxox
I don't watch the news at all hon. I do find the occasional report on Facebook and check that out making sure it's not "FAKE NEWS" lol. Not had allot of luck with HDR's in Poser so far. Seem to have to jump through hoops to get it to look right. Poser figures seems to be smaller than other figures in the 3D uiniverse so an HDR at normal size looks HUGE next to a Poser figure! It's funny but it's annoying! LOL
I did not know that, that is weird , all my normal HDRI are for people from 4ft to 6ft as the point of view (not scale) you should work more with the camera and focal as that may do the trick here other way make no sense for. Poser to use HDRI , I wonder if Poser can produce sun light from HDRI if not then it is fake IBL as before , you make me wanna try and see , maybe I get the update soon
I believe that can be achieved via Superfly, not sure if Firefly can do that. Might be faked via Firefly. I do have images that are LIT from an HDR so I know it works but as I mentioned, the background renders HUGE compared to the size of thie figure! It's really weird looking. I'll have to check out the camera and see if that does indeed fix it. I was trying to fix it where it's plugged in in the Material room and just cut the X & Y down to half which you can't really scroll up and down only sideways or you get a repeating of the HDR image.
It may works, the worse are orthographic camera ,cameras like that are not good for HDRI environments , try to use more of a Cameras with 35mm and 21mm focal point , it will push it away, and you can zoom in the figures , wrong focal point is the number 1 issue why HDRI appears huge and out of focus
the standard DS camera is a Portrait camera lens (when they going to change it ) it is 65mm , with that camera you only have DOF in real life , everything below 35mm are good for HDRI , anything above need DOF to be activated , as it is in a real world lenses. When people try to render indoor scenes with 13F, it take forever and very low light shows up , in real life you will need to open the lens for at last 30sec with this setting to get dissent lighting
Thanks so much Cath. Yesterday got busy with clients coming to my apt for hair stuff. Then a friend dropped by and chatted with me.... LOL Thanks for the camera advice. VERY much appreciated. I'll for sure check it out this morning! After coffee! LOL
You welcome, I hope it fix your issues , that's only the way I guess , make sure your HDRI are at last 11000x5500 pixels , that is the middle for proper set , lower than that can create different appearance.
what version of Poser you use? I am curious to check it out as I may add some options for the future products to make it works straight from the box .