How does Basic Depth Map Maker for Daz Studio do with transparency?
avmorgan
Posts: 216
This tool has been at the top of my wishlist since it came out. The stated features cover many of the things I've wished the Depth canvases would do, but the one thing Iray does better than the AoA Volume camera is transparencies. I have not been able to dig up anything about how the Basic Depth Map Maker for Daz Studio does with transparancy. Does anyone happen to know?
Post edited by avmorgan on
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I use 3DL simple fog-cams to make haze that is not true volumetric, but renders in seconds, or at the most, minutes. Never had any transparency issues. For volumetrics I use a shadermixer network, which will take time to render out. This product intrigues me, but if it uses OpenGl I can't see how it could handle multiple transparent layers? Not to mention fog reacting to light and shadows?
Well, I guess I'll just have to buy it and do some testing. My end goal was to create billboards with normals based on object depth maps, so they respond to the lighting, and the ability to isolate the objects is half of what I need. Since things like trees are the most likely subjects, it won't work if the depth map does not do the cutout opacity of the leaves right.
It seems like it might just do the job! I picked it up today and tested it on a character with transmapped hair, and it looks okay... but that might just be a good hair asset. On a closer look, the eyelashes reveal the expected result: they are only there as geometry. The alpha seems to have been ignored. Makes since, given how the script created bare .obj's for the process. I suppose I can switch to fibermesh eyelashes. It's not a complete loss, and I was able to take advantage of some decent discounts.
I'll experiment more later. The scene I created for this test was lost due to a crash once the script was finished and I tried to start a normal render to go with it. Just a bit concerning.
So my second test confirmed it. Basic Depth Map Maker does not work with alphas. Also, it crashed DS on me again. I'll submit a ticket for the latter and recommend that they add a note to the store page about the alpha issue. I can see that being an issue for a lot of people like it was for me.
In any case, I still have my backup plan; a way to create object level depth maps that respect transparencies. It's a bit more convoluted and there is still an issue with banding in the depth gradient that makes it harded to generate good normals.
https://youtu.be/tQ8uY8SAkcg
Tks a lot for this info! Could still be a useful tool for some scenarios, wishlisted for now. I'm thinking 3DL simple fog is still the better option for me...
*nod, nod*
You're welcome. I figured someone ought to do it and I'd pretty much made up my mind to get it no matter what. It does 2 of the 3 things I need most, so why not?
...meanwhile, I made a quick and rushed test using a simple fog pass on a scene I'm working on, it rendered in 2min 7sec with 20x20 pixelsamples, using DoF on the camera. If, and when, I get the BDM, I'll drop my findings here.
Thank you for testing the tool and reporting the transparency map problems.
I take it that is a fog camera (kinda like AoA's Volume Camera)? Either all the leaves in your scene are geometric or you have something for 3DL that isn't ruined by transparencies. If the latter, where can I get it?
You're welcome. I get a lot of help from the forums, so I'm just paying a little back.
Yes I used a shader mixer cam, probably very similar to the AoA cam, and you're right, I used no transparency maps here, so it was kind of a bad example;) I just happened to work on that scene so thought I'd post some results here. And I avoid opacity maps as the plague, to be honest. Rendertimes growing exponentially etc. but can't recall getting artefacts, just very long rendertimes. I might post some tests with opacity maps, eventually:)
Yeah, that sort of thing happens. I try to make plant asset with leaf shaped transparencies to minimize the cutout opacity to just around the edges. I havent made too many of them though. If you learn anything good, do let me know.
So here's a scene with only transmapped vegetation, along with a couple of simple fog depthmaps of various visibility. The base render took a long time (couple of hours) as I knew it would, but the depth passes render in 1min 36sec. I also rendered out at UHD resolution, which took 5min45sec to complete.
And no, I don't "have something" for 3DL, I just follow a strict linear workflow and things usually pan out ok
. But obviously 3DL is struggling with cutout opacity, compared to IRay, in terms of rendertimes.
15000m visibility (used above)
5000m
1500m
15000m Ultra
The maps posted here are just 8b jpeg:s, I use 16b png: for final editing...
I'd have to do some testing to confirm AoA Volume Camera's performance, but I can't complain about the quality of your results. I see no obvious 'leaf planes' so what you are doing might work for my backdrop billboard rendering. I think I've seen the camera on a third-party site that's listed as a 'Simple Fog Camera' so I'll test it out sometime. Thanks!
there is one really dumb way to do this
replace all the diffuse channels with black or white, the background the opposite
slice it with a plane parallel to the camera at intervals in progressively more saturated or unsaturated shades of grey
invert and layer them all using screen in an image editor
there could be a way to script this
If I'm not mistaken, that's exactly what the SM fog brick does. It creates an "infinite" number of procedural planes heading the camera, with transparency values according to max distance etc. And, since it ignores shadows and raytracing, it's very fast. The real trouble begins when you need it to take light and shadows into account
. (Meaning rendering out true volume passes usually takes hours for me)
The BDM still sits in my wishlist, and I'll eventually grab it.
maybe if it used Filament, oops not for Mac
I guess the openGL no good for transparency
That is literally what I tried in Iray. I made a YouTube clip of that process:
I didn't think of this myself BTW
stole it from some Carrara forumite who suggested it a decade ago but we have a depth pass at least in C8
maybe there wasn't in Carrara 5
I got the idea from a few filters I worked on for Filter Forge, building up a heightmap from perlin noise or shape primatives using Thresholds and building up a gradient using a Loop.