Pre-packaged scenes and environments a la Bryce in DAZ

rnollman

What I am looking for is content from DAZ that includes entire scenes with sky, terrains, grass, clouds that can be used as a base to which I can add actors and props. I do not want to have to fool around with lighting. Bryce is easy to use in this way because you can apply an enviroment (cloudy day with hazy sun, for example) to an existing scene.

I see all kinds of lighting packages and am unclear about how they work.

I also want to buy products like the Diner products that have interiors and exteriors that are shown in the ads, but I am not clear about whether or not the lighting shown in the add comes with the package or you have to create it yourself in DAZ.

When I buy a package with a bunch of buildings, does it come with lighting packages for different types of day or even one standard daylight scene?

Lighting always seems a bit tricky to manage with DAZ (unlike Bryce). I understand the basics of creating lighting for an indoor scene, but how do you create an outdoor scene? Bryce has a whole "lab" devoted to creating day and night environments that adjust the sun and the moon and clouds and so on. How do you do it with DAZ?

sriesch

This isn't going to answer your entire question, nor quite in the way you want, but to address one or two pieces of it:

You need not worry about spending much time fooling around with lighting just to get daylight in DAZ Studio. It can be as simple as adding a single distant light to simulate the sun and a single !UberEnvironment2 Base.duf for overall ambient lighting (and setting a single quality setting to high.) Only takes a few seconds once you know how, and we'd be happy to step you through it.

(Of course one might also want to adjust the colors of the two lights slightly near sunrise/sunset or at night, but in Bryce you would probably have needed to adjust the sky color slightly near sunrise/sunset and at night anyway so that's about the same in my opinion.)

Alternatively there are a variety of preset light products out there that one can use so you'd only need one double-click instead of three double-clicks to get an lighting environment ("DAZ Dimension Lights 1" and 2 jump to mind, there are others), and there are products that have skydomes, although I'm not very familiar with them yet; perhaps somebody else can suggest a "cloudy day with hazy sun" skydome and light combo example product for you. I'm not sure how many complete scenes that include terrains and grass are available though.

sriesch

Some random pre-packaged scene products:
http://www.daz3d.com/echoes-of-andromeda
http://www.daz3d.com/sea-scapes

While this will not give you ONLY prepackaged scene products, maybe search the store for "environment" and see what pops up, and do some research from there. Although I don't remember their names, I know there are a bunch of others.

Another thing you weren't looking for but could consider: It is possible to create a skydome for use in DAZ Studio from your Bryce scene if you know how. I purchased http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-pro-spherical-mapper to save myself a little bit of work, although I haven't gotten around to using it much yet beyond an initial test to verify it works as I wanted. Once I decide what resolution of skydomes I think would be best and have some free processor time, I plan to start building a library of DAZ Studio skydomes ported over from the Bryce presets. You'll need to commit yourself to learning how to use this tool though.

rnollman

It seems that skydomes are the best equivalent for Bryce environment presets for the sky. I found a product called Ocean Wide that includes several skydomes. I guess the best thing to do would be to purchase it and try it out. Where is the best information I can get on what skydomes are and how they work?

sriesch

At it's most basic level, a skydome is just a big sphere with a picture on it. however I think it can be more; somebody else will have to supply you with more detailed information because I'm unfamiliar with it, but look up ?HDRI? ?IBL? and see if it applies to DAZ Studio.

In the case of OceanWide (which I totally forgot about, I'm glad you found it), I see MidDay.duf, is actually a skydome sphere plus 10 lights.

SGCBearcub

Have you checked out Flipmode's Easy Environment series yet? It's really fantastic and includes a terrain, a skybox and lighting.

The concept of the skybox vs a skydome allows for these amazing panoramic shots. His FM Nightbuilder is also a fantastic product to have.

icprncss

rnollman said:

What I am looking for is content from DAZ that includes entire scenes with sky, terrains, grass, clouds that can be used as a base to which I can add actors and props. I do not want to have to fool around with lighting. Bryce is easy to use in this way because you can apply an enviroment (cloudy day with hazy sun, for example) to an existing scene.

I see all kinds of lighting packages and am unclear about how they work.

I also want to buy products like the Diner products that have interiors and exteriors that are shown in the ads, but I am not clear about whether or not the lighting shown in the add comes with the package or you have to create it yourself in DAZ.

When I buy a package with a bunch of buildings, does it come with lighting packages for different types of day or even one standard daylight scene?

Lighting always seems a bit tricky to manage with DAZ (unlike Bryce). I understand the basics of creating lighting for an indoor scene, but how do you create an outdoor scene? Bryce has a whole "lab" devoted to creating day and night environments that adjust the sun and the moon and clouds and so on. How do you do it with DAZ?

Check out Estevez's Powerful Atmosphere line for Bryce. These aren't as complete as what you want but will offer a good base.

Lighting packages for what application? Most light sets are pretty much just that. Sets of lighting presets. You set up your scene. Chose the light set you want, apply the presets and go from there. Some users will use light sets as is out of the box, others will use the presets as a starting point and go from there. There is not right or wrong. There is not one way of doing things.

Before you purchase a product, read the product page. If lights are included, it will be listed on the product page. If they are not listed, chances are, the set does not come with it's own light set. Some vendors create lights, some don't. Poser lights do not, in general, work in DS and vice versa.

Think of DS as more like a photo studio and Bryce like a world building app. They have some similarities but some pretty big differences. Given the fact that Bryce's main function is to create environments, not having an entire lab dedicated to lights and another to sky creation would kind of defeat the purpose.

How you light and indoor or outdoor scene in DS is up to the user. DS comes with a comprehensive set of lighting tools and there are even more available from 3rd party vendors. Have you looked at the tutorials under Help?

3dTox

I like AoA's advanced lights. For a sun effect I tend to use a yellowish distant light at 60-70% and a bluish ambient light at 30-40% to get a decent sun effect. It also works well if you make the distant a more orange color and ambient a darker blue for a sunset.

cecilia.robinson

I would use a skydome. There is something called WorldBall available for free at ShareCG. It has many, many expansions and associated uberlights.