Where is the sky texture in this promo
OK, so I like the image used in the promo for the "Long Stretch of Deserted Road" product, which I'll link here:
https://www.daz3d.com/1stb-long-stretch-of-deserted-road
So I bought that, loaded it up, saw that the terrain is included but the sky is not. Happily the PA linked the product he used, which (as far as I can tell) is this one:
https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio-iray-hdr-outdoor-environments
So I have both the terrain and the sky, but where is the sky asset used in the promo?
I am going into the Environment tab, selecting Type: Backdrop, Browse, and then Runtime>Textures>DimensionTheory>IRAY HDRs. There are five files available there but none are the ones used in the promo. I'm guessing I'm doing something incorrectly, this is my first time doing an outdoor scene.
Comments
It's "DTHDR-SunsetA-Background" I believe - selected from the "Render Settings" in Smart Content. I've never tried to use an HDRI via the Environment pane so not sure how it would work from there.
As SofaCitizen says, you can apply it from Render-Settings. Open the DAZ Studio Iray HDR Outdoor Environments. Double click the DTHDR-SunsetA-Background file and it will apply in your scene without changing anything else.
To manually apply HDRis, you don't use the Environment tab, you use the environment section under the Render Settings tab (confusing, I know). There you click the image in Environment Map then browse to the location of the HDRi. If you use the default DAZ content library, then it is under <drive>\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Textures\DimensionTheory\IrayHDRs. Once you do that, you need to turn Draw Dome on and potentially adjust other settings until you get the look you want.
Either way you apply it, the image will be there, but will only show up in the render or if you set your viewport to Iray.
Yes, that did the trick, thank you both.
I don't know what that Environment tab in the corner is good for, the Render Settings tab is much easier.
There may be other uses for it but I believe the main one is just to put a fixed background or solid colour behind the rendered items in the scene. For most people this isn't too useful as it's probably more convenient to do the overlay in an image editor, however it's probably just there because it's easy to add and doesn't really need any updates/maintenance.
Adding the HDRI in the environment provides more more functionality as it can provide light & reflections and also be rotated and modified in other ways.
I very occasionally use the environment tab to put a .jpg image as a background for scenes where I just need something in a window when I can't find an appropriate HDRi and don't feel like doing postwork. I suppose it is also good if someone wants to render with a solid background color.
Not sure if you know about this, but if you like using HDRIs there are tons of free ones available at Polyhaven (https://polyhaven.com/hdris).