Please some help with environments used in Digitallab3D promo renders
Aldor64
Posts: 37
in The Commons
Hello,
Might be I'm wrong, but I think that HDRI-s are used in promo renders of many @Digitallab3D (https://www.daz3d.com/digitallab3d) products.
Particularly, might be someone can help me and identify products (and tell where I can find them) used in:
- http://www.daz3d.com/paris-living-room (HDRI ? of Paris);
- http://www.daz3d.com/boston-apartment-and-accessories (Boston);
- http://www.daz3d.com/dl-manhattan-loft (Manhattan)
Thanks!
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Do you own Paris Living Room? The ad copy makes it sound like the view from the window is part of the product, but I can't confirm for myself.
I think those are curved billboards, or images later placed in the background behind transparent portions of the render, not HDRI's. They always show the same buildings in the background, even when a promo image is shot from an entirely different corner of the room, but, the direction of the shadows cast by the furniture stays the same, meaning, the background image isn't the source of light coming from outside, because rotating a HDRI would mean a rotation of the light it emits.
I don't thinkthose are HDRI's; I think they are flat photos used as a backdrop.
It's why I stopped purchasing any environment that has a picturesque window view. The images used are never included or linked to and in my experience it's hard to find HDRIs that work well for these types of scenes.
is not in the file list
...I have several such room sets and I simply make my own backdrops for them.
The Boston Apartment uses pictures of Chicago for the view.
Yes, I own all of them (as well as other @Digitallab3D items), but no environmental images are included
; even no link to stock image (or something else) that was used.
PS. Just for example to my question, in the product https://www.daz3d.com/artist-hideout HDRI is used and included.
I totally agree with you, and this is the reason why I've asked for help.
PS. I'm definitely not a master of Daz, but I have certain experience (which I show in my gallery), and I also tried to create my own backdrops for out of the window views, and it does not ever work well together with lighting and perspective ;( (at least not to my taste).
PPS. I would also appreciate a link to good tutorial (if such exists) about such backdrop creation and matching to perspective and light. And of course I would appreciate any feedback from @Digitallab3D.
Thanks.
I am curious what problems you had: "and I also tried to create my own backdrops for out of the window views, and it does not ever work well together with lighting and perspective ;( (at least not to my taste)"
My own procedure is to
...here's a scene using a Stonemason set with nice large windows which I used geometry for to create the background.
HereI used a low resolution image I had of a plane primitive which I made emissive because there are no golden backgrounds:
Thank you very much for your help. I will try it again.
PS. My problem was that it did not look natural. I have few my previous renders with HDRI outdoor scenes (mountains, grass) and it looks ok, but when I tried urban scenes it was not very good. But I will try again as you suggested. Also, just on side note I spent few hours on Shutterstock and few other sites but did not find any similar backgrounds (taken from same view point as in discussed scenes). Most of them were taken or from ground or from rooftop but not from the middle of the building. Anyway, thanks a lot, will try again.
I tried Creative Commons and searched for Skyscraper skyline.... the other thing to do is to use a skyline and crop the image so you get closer to individual buildings. I would gaussian blur the image and decrease saturation since thigs that are far away are fuzzier and paler than things in focus.
It appears, at least to my eye, that the cityscapes were post processed into the images. I am basing this on the mirrors not showing the cityscapes.
The mirror in this image, https://gcdn.daz3d.com/p/81231/i/parislivingroom01daz3d.jpg shows the default horizon. This could be just an angle that is slipping past a billboard, but my eye is telling me otherwise. The reflection in the picture glass here, https://gcdn.daz3d.com/p/81231/i/parislivingroom02daz3d.jpg seems to show the default horizon too.
I don't see any obvious ones in the other two products, though the mirror in one of the Boston images shows a sliver of a blank window.
The reflections in most of the non-mirror surfaces on the other images seem a little too clean to be reflecting anything other than the default horizon.
Thank you, you are genius. I missed this point, yes, if I look in the window and compare with reflection in glass (on the left) - there are different and reflection shows the "real" horizon created by render
. Now it is understandable and problem solved, since in Photoshop I really can create a composite of any complexity (what I actually do in my photography work 
).
Thank you everyone for your help again. I think the topic is closed.
Thanks, happy to help. Not a genius though, just anal about the reflections after being burned in my own images in the past.
You can achieve a similar result by placing the image directly onto the window texture. Use a top coat to create the "glassy" quality. A little bit of illumination added to the texture will help create the "light from outside" look. It will never be as good as a good HDR, but will work in a pinch.
Thank you!
One last thing to keep in mind, then I will drop the subject... That window texture trick is not a be all / end all.
You're going to need a landscape photo that you can alter the perspective on. Photoshop (and I think Gimp) is good at providing this function, however I don't know if this was one of the nuked Adobe 3D functions.
The photo is going to need to be bigger than you need, so that you can facilitate the perspective warping AND you'll potentially need to change the perspective everytime you change the camera angle.
Lastly, and probably the biggest headache, you'll need to match the proportions of the glass surface. If you don't you can end up with a distorted texture.
This is all assuming that the "glass" part of the model is all one surface. If it isn't, then you'll have to be even more creative.This completely falls apart if the window surface is "repeating" (sorry, don't know what the right word is). You may be able to get around this by working with the tiling settings, but it would probably be a big headache.
There is no real good answer other than the HDR. Billboards have similar problems with perspectives (because there is no true "depth" to the image) as well as getting them to cover the entire view, including around corners and in reflections.
I already don't know how many times I should say thank you
.
Also, on closing note, I should admit, that I know very well how to create composite images in PS, because I came to 3D from professional Fine Art photography which uses such techniques a lot. Actually, your last post just turned all the topic back from where it was started, since I've asked about HDRI use as an environment to have "realistic" looks through windows. I definitely can achieve it in the postproduction (of course with headache and hours of work
), and match any background to internal view and no one will even ever think that is not true, however, I just was curious, how is it possible to do such task in one single Daz 3D scene by "wrapping", for example, Paris Living Room in Paris HDRI, and where I can find it (such HDRI). Also, as I mentioned before, I did combine in the past different products with Billboards and result was not very pleasing to my eyes, despite of my tries to change different settings and adjustments. Of course, I have many things to learn about use of such backdrops but looks like I just need to revert to my old ways, and simply add external views in postproduction. Btw, in this case I can even simulate reflections in internal mirrors, not a big deal 
.
Thank you again, have a very nice day!
HDRI's always have the problem that they are centered around the place where the camera (or the polished steel ball) was placed. So finding a mid-building height HDRI of (for example) Paris is basically impossible.
The best urban place I can imagine where such HDRIs might be made, would be Las Vegas, where big buildings in the middle of town are torn down and replaced with something new more often (but it's still rare for it to happen, even there!). During such an occasion, a HDR camera might be set up for a nice capture when the construction of the new building is only at about half its intended height. To people who actually produce HDRI images, I would strongly recommend to be on the look out for construction sites which reached only about 30%-50% of their intended height, in varied urban areas, to ask access and put their camera on a 15 ft pole on top of it.
I am convinced this would yield HDRI images that would instantly be in very high demand by all the people who need exterior lighting and background for their interior renders. Everybody with a proper camera can make a HDRI in a park or from the roof of a building. Very few people (none that I have seen) have or take the opportunity to make a HDRI where you'd see the area surrounding a building from a place where you'd actually be within that building, but without the building itself. Since I'm more into sci-fi, I have to render such HDRIs myself. But for contemporary renders, such HDRIs are definitely possible, but sadly never done.
Well said. I was just going to say something very similar, but you said it much better than I would.
There is also a matter of the scale of the HDR. Almost all HDRs are at "human" height and scale. Which can look odd when combined with an expansive scene like buildings.
That being said, I have a few thoughts that you could try. They could end up being too much work though.
First, the very basics of HDRs, if you already know this, skip this paragraph..
Under Render Settings, click on the image prompt under "Environment Map." This is where you put your HDR. Add it just like you would any image in a surface. Just make sure its an HDR file.
Make sure "Draw Dome" is set to Yes.
For most instances you want to turn off "Draw Ground."
"Dome Rotation" is where you "spin" the horizon of the HDR so that you have the right view.
"Environment Mode" should be "Dome and Scene" or "Dome Only." This allows the HDR to create light.
I usually keep "Dome Mode" as "Infinite Sphere." The other options have their uses, but I wouldn't suggest using them while experimenting.
Now, for the work around.
First I would say to use a bare sky HDR. My go to for projects like this is "Cloudscape Crreator" by Dimension Theory ( https://www.daz3d.com/cloudscape-creator-bundle ). This will let you pick out a clean sky with no clouds, then add clouds as you see fit. The clouds can be system intensive though... However all of DT's HDRs are great, "Skies of Economy" being my other go tos.
Next, I would populate the outside with billboards of buildings and city horizons. The beauty of this approach is, you can position the buildings and building scapes at varying positions. Then if you use DoF the buildings will blur at different rates.
Once you set something like this up, you can save it as a scene subset and use it for a variety of scenes. Easily swapping out the buildings, the sky, etc.
Honestly I don't mind... Typing these responses probably helps me as much as you. It forces me to articulate things that I do as habit, most of the time not thinking about it. The result being that it forces me to think and I often come up with thoughts that I wouldn't have come up with otherwise.