Show Us Your Bryce Renders Part 10

Slepalex

Rashad Carter said:

So if I'm understanding the issue at hand is the level of blurring of the clouds?  And whether that blurring is caused by atmospheric effects or by compression of the image?

While that question is of interest to me, the main issue in my view is the total mismatch between the blurring of the Hdri and the sharpness of the rendered content in many of our HDRI background included renders, regardless of the actual resolution of the backdrop.

The standard assumption with an HDRI is that the HDRI is not in any way the focus of the final image, but that there is some target object that is expected to be rendered with a fair degree of sharpness. The background by contrast being less important, is assumed to be blurred.

When an hdri is being used on a very small target object like a single car, or a chair, toy, plate of food, or something like that, it is easy enough to reconcile the blurred background with the sharp target. But when Hdri are used for full landscapes that have both foreground and midground information, it can be much harder to weave an HDRI backdrop with a fixed amount of blurring seamlessly into the scene. This is where I can agree with SlepALex, in that the Dome and Fill lights do a more natural job of providing sufficient light from all sides as well as allowing for lots of control in the light lab compared to an HDRI. But the benefit of an Hdri is that you dont have to waste the years rendering clouds directly in Bryce. If nothing else, the HDRI can be a major time saver even if they are tricky to set up visually.

Attending to this mismatch of sharpness can send us down several roads. Considering how rarely we use DOF in Bryce, extremely high resolution HDRI are often more important than in other applications where DOF is faster to render.  The mismatch can be solved either way, by increasing the sharpness of the HDRi or by finding ways of blurring the rendered content. With small taget object, its much easier. But with landscapes, not so much. Again, I think Bryce, due to its limitations, tends to encourage us to lean toward higher resolution backdrops so we can avoid neededing to employ DOF to average the foreground into the background seamlessly.

On the issue of atmospheric effects causing blurring. I always assumed unconsciously that there was a certain amout of attenuation of sunlight due to atmospheric turbidity, and that it should affect the appearance of items such as clouds as well. Making them dimmer, and but also more blurred... that is when viewed without some sort of corrective lens. But I'd expect these effects closer to the horizon, not as much in higher altitudes where the sky is much thinner thus providing less air to disperse light.

I think the particular case with the high altitude clouds in the cold environment, the atmosphere would be on the thinner side and likely tend toward more sharpness. However, that is not to say the actual sky itself wasnt blurrier in the original photo session as I think it unlikely these sky images were taken in Arctic conditions, most likely the climate near Horo is temperate and closer to sea level, so the air is probably much thicker than it would be if taken in actual mountan conditions.

One thing is for sure...we really have come a long way that we are discussing things in this level of detail. Gosh, I miss the days when we did this sort of thing all the time.

Fun, fun!!

Rashad, I agree with almost everything. Here we are not talking about the depth of field. In these landscapes DOF has no meaning at all, and in particular it is not achievable, and no needed. When distant objects are at a distance of several kilometers and clouds at the same distance, then what is the depth of field?
If Macro, then that is another matter. It is simply the result of imperfections in the optics. This underline some fans DOF in 3D.

Rashad Carter

Slepalex said:

Horo said:

 

Horo said:

Slepalex - sorry, I think we are not talking about the same. No problem.

In general, I see little sense for experienced users to use as a background HDRI map for Bryce. In Bryce enough opportunities to do without it. Is the atmosphere, there is procedural clouds, there is a three-dimensional cloud. Another thing DAZ Studio. There's none of that. But when you look at some renderings of naked girls and HDRI as a backdrop, there is a feeling of falsity. It's like that make the background in Photoshop. Less costs and the result is obvious!

Many years ago I came to the exact same conclusion with my own work, it was the main reason I pushed for the Dome and Fill Lights to be added to Bryce 7 even though we already had HDRI since Bryce 6. The wrong HDRI can ruin the effect of the scene in my opinion. I just felt it too much of a task to search and find the perfect Hdri for every situation, when I could just rig and render the perfect situation right out of Bryce if we would have had more global Illumination options. Before Domes I was forced to use Whitesphere HDRI to provide even indirect light from all directions, a total waste of the potential of an Hdri. Luckily we got the Domes and Fills, so we don't have to rely on Hdri exclusively.

But I also have very little personal experience with building HDRI from photographs I've taken, so I tend to have very little attachment to any particular Hdri. However, if I had actually imaged these environments with my own camera, built up the f-stops and assembled an Hdri that reminds me of the specific feeling I had when I first took the photo, I would certainly try to recreate that in a CG environment at some point. Since most of us cannot make our own Hdri of good quality, it makes sense we don't come to rely on them too much. But for an artist with the skill to construct them as needed to the desired quality, I can see no reason not to use them.

Often commission work arrives as an email with an image that's suppoed to be used as a light source and as a backdrop. So it's good to have developed some skill with working with HDRI for those occassions. Gotta get paid.

Rashad Carter

Slepalex said:

Rashad Carter said:

So if I'm understanding the issue at hand is the level of blurring of the clouds?  And whether that blurring is caused by atmospheric effects or by compression of the image?

While that question is of interest to me, the main issue in my view is the total mismatch between the blurring of the Hdri and the sharpness of the rendered content in many of our HDRI background included renders, regardless of the actual resolution of the backdrop.

The standard assumption with an HDRI is that the HDRI is not in any way the focus of the final image, but that there is some target object that is expected to be rendered with a fair degree of sharpness. The background by contrast being less important, is assumed to be blurred.

When an hdri is being used on a very small target object like a single car, or a chair, toy, plate of food, or something like that, it is easy enough to reconcile the blurred background with the sharp target. But when Hdri are used for full landscapes that have both foreground and midground information, it can be much harder to weave an HDRI backdrop with a fixed amount of blurring seamlessly into the scene. This is where I can agree with SlepALex, in that the Dome and Fill lights do a more natural job of providing sufficient light from all sides as well as allowing for lots of control in the light lab compared to an HDRI. But the benefit of an Hdri is that you dont have to waste the years rendering clouds directly in Bryce. If nothing else, the HDRI can be a major time saver even if they are tricky to set up visually.

Attending to this mismatch of sharpness can send us down several roads. Considering how rarely we use DOF in Bryce, extremely high resolution HDRI are often more important than in other applications where DOF is faster to render.  The mismatch can be solved either way, by increasing the sharpness of the HDRi or by finding ways of blurring the rendered content. With small taget object, its much easier. But with landscapes, not so much. Again, I think Bryce, due to its limitations, tends to encourage us to lean toward higher resolution backdrops so we can avoid neededing to employ DOF to average the foreground into the background seamlessly.

On the issue of atmospheric effects causing blurring. I always assumed unconsciously that there was a certain amout of attenuation of sunlight due to atmospheric turbidity, and that it should affect the appearance of items such as clouds as well. Making them dimmer, and but also more blurred... that is when viewed without some sort of corrective lens. But I'd expect these effects closer to the horizon, not as much in higher altitudes where the sky is much thinner thus providing less air to disperse light.

I think the particular case with the high altitude clouds in the cold environment, the atmosphere would be on the thinner side and likely tend toward more sharpness. However, that is not to say the actual sky itself wasnt blurrier in the original photo session as I think it unlikely these sky images were taken in Arctic conditions, most likely the climate near Horo is temperate and closer to sea level, so the air is probably much thicker than it would be if taken in actual mountan conditions.

One thing is for sure...we really have come a long way that we are discussing things in this level of detail. Gosh, I miss the days when we did this sort of thing all the time.

Fun, fun!!

Rashad, I agree with almost everything. Here we are not talking about the depth of field. In these landscapes DOF has no meaning at all, and in particular it is not achievable, and no needed. When distant objects are at a distance of several kilometers and clouds at the same distance, then what is the depth of field?
If Macro, then that is another matter. It is simply the result of imperfections in the optics. This underline some fans DOF in 3D.

I think we are in agreement. Perhaps approaching the same ideals from different directions. But I will attempt to further clarify my position and how this all relates to DOF.  When the average user sees a blurred image such as an HDRI backdrop they are most likely going to assume it has been blurred by DOF, not by compression, because the average layman doesn't have the vocabulary to even consider such things. So while compression or other quality issue may be the cause, the result from the final viewer's perspective is something akin to DOF, even if it wasnt intended to be. And yes, DOF is almost never appropriate for large scale environements, which is why the blurry clouds are somewhat problematic in this Artic landscape, but only for those with extremely keenly developed eyes such as yourself.

Most people just see pretty clouds...they don't notice on a conscious level that the shadows might be falling in the wrong direction, or that the clouds might be slightly blurred. But they do notice these things unconsciously, which is why they can tell you the image is fake even if they cannot articulate exactly why.

Horo

Slepalex - I am talking about clouds that can be blurred due to atmospheric effects. You seem to be saying that an HDRI is mostly useless. This is a discussion I do not embark on. Neither would I discuss which brand of brush a painter must use, or whether Bryce is better than Carrara or Studio. We have many tools in Bryce so that the artist can chose the one he/she likes best and suits their artwork best. The result of an artwork is what counts, not the means how it was accomplished. If the artist considers his/her artwork a success, it is a success, no matter what others say.

Below is a Bryce render with the same settings as above using the original HDRI. The mountains are sharp, the clouds are not. That is the point I want to make, nothing else.

Rashad - glad to see you drop in, nothing to add to your observation. Blurred backdrops can also help to focus on the main object.

c-ram

What a debate! Something I don't want to get deep in, but I just want to agree with Horo : bryce have got a large tools palette and each one of this tool have got its advantage and default. However you'll never see Hdri backdrop in my renders because my pictures are too wide to take advantage of this technique.

Just a kind word to Dave, I don't want to miss it : your effort in making a slepalex/c-ram landscape pays off!! It has really got a wonderful painted effect and the hdri background is providing a nice result to me. You could try to had more vegetation in another try. The file size of my last picture I'm working on is about 1,2 gb.. woops!..

c-ram

I forgot a thing : Horo, is this really a Bryce picture you've shown us? If yes this is brilliant!! I though it was a photo!!

Slepalex

Horo said:

Slepalex - I am talking about clouds that can be blurred due to atmospheric effects. You seem to be saying that an HDRI is mostly useless. This is a discussion I do not embark on. Neither would I discuss which brand of brush a painter must use, or whether Bryce is better than Carrara or Studio. We have many tools in Bryce so that the artist can chose the one he/she likes best and suits their artwork best. The result of an artwork is what counts, not the means how it was accomplished. If the artist considers his/her artwork a success, it is a success, no matter what others say.

Below is a Bryce render with the same settings as above using the original HDRI. The mountains are sharp, the clouds are not. That is the point I want to make, nothing else.

Rashad - glad to see you drop in, nothing to add to your observation. Blurred backdrops can also help to focus on the main object.

 

Horo, originally was talked of Dave's work. There are my words 
(http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1984086/#Comment_1984086):
The only ... are clouds on a billboard. We immediately see that this photomanipulation! Or take the image (HDRI) high-resolution, or use a volumetric clouds.
And now compare your render and Dave's render. There is a difference?
____

Then the conversation turned to the advantages and disadvantages of HDRI map for Bryce. Once again, in a nutshell. I have two weeks to climb mountains, I do dozens of shots, then converts them to the appropriate programs in the HDRI-map and insert in Bryce. Since HDRI-map has a super-high resolution, and in the scene I have a million objects and polygons, then Bryce crashes. Therefore, I delete some of the objects from the scene due to the fact only, to load HDRI. So I did it. As a result, it appears that the direction of the light in the scene I need more than the HDRI. Again, I climb into the mountains, now at sunset, and do dozens of pictures. And so on. How do you find such a prospect?
Oh yes! You can take a couple of tens (or hundreds) other people HDRI and choose the one you need. And what about the high-resolution and more memory? Is not it easier to take your picture or from the Internet with clouds, and load as billboard? All the same memory and disk space consumed less, and the result is even better. As a global illumination can be used Bryce Sky HDRI or Sphere Dome Light, as well as the sun. In this case you do not have problems with the direction of light in the HDRI.
____

In any case, both options seem alien and false. Besides, there is nothing easier than two clicks to insert someone else's image in the scene. And then where the creativity of the author? But that is another topic...

Peter Fulford

c-ram said:

Horo, is this really a Bryce picture you've shown us? If yes this is brilliant!! I though it was a photo!!

It's both. In his earlier post Horo rendered his photo of the clouds in Bryce and showed us the result(s). Here, he's rendered the same photo - with the whole Alpine scene visible, showing sharp mountains and foreground with the blurry clouds (rather nicely illustrating his point).

Horo is a Vulcan. He does not lie, but he tells the truth with the same skill with which he plays three dimensional chess.

.

c-ram

Peter Fulford said:

c-ram said:

Horo, is this really a Bryce picture you've shown us? If yes this is brilliant!! I though it was a photo!!

It's both. In his earlier post Horo rendered his photo of the clouds in Bryce and showed us the result(s). Here, he's rendered the same photo - with the whole Alpine scene visible, showing sharp mountains and foreground with the blurry clouds (rather nicely illustrating his point).

Horo is a Vulcan. He does not lie, but he tells the truth with the same skill with which he plays three dimensional chess.

.

Aye, you're right, Horo is one of my master. There's so much skill in his hands that I though this really was a bryce render from him. That's a brillant demonstration and like you write : he nicely illustrated the point about sharp and blurry.

Jamahoney

So natural, but so simple-a -scene - Horo - a master at work.

As to the others.,...excellent contributions also...continue to explore/share/impress - so wonderful to see the range of expertise that will be a learning curve for ALL

Jay

Horo

c-ram - thank you Marco. The image is the part of the full size HDRI loaded (16080 x 8040), tone-mapped and rendered in Bryce to show that it is sharp but the clouds are naturally blurred. I would be hard pressed to create such a scene in Bryce.

 

Slepalex

This is the second option. Thanks for useful tips and remarks of Dave Savage and other users of Bryce.

***********

Lighthouse 2

Bryce 7 Pro, Wings 3D. Render Premium 16 rpp. Time 4:52:20.
Lighting: the sun (shadows of clouds included), Sphere Dome Light, Spotlight.
Modeling: Bryce, Wings 3D.

Peter Fulford

By the way, Horo, when I called you a Vulcan (fictitious Star Trek alien), that was meant as a humourous compliment.

Just wanted to make that clear, as the thread has been a little scratchy.

Horo

Peter - don't worry, I got it.

Slepalex - Lighthouse 2 looks very nice.

mermaid010

Thanks Horo and Hansmar. I realized the light was a bit strong in the foreground and re-rendered it this weekend, using different materials and sky,

Slepalex – awesome stunning renders, I love all of them.

Vivien – Thanks. Wow beautiful render.

Dave- another great render

C-ram – I enjoyed working with you in Making of my next scene, but we never got to see your completed work. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/54051/making-of-my-next-scene-how-i-work-with-bryce

Everyone’s so helpful and shared files with me, I really appreciate that. It also made me realize my own limitations, so I enjoy using Bryce without getting frustrated, but at the same time inspired by all the beautiful artwork to try a bit harder. Thanks All.

The winter scene re-rendered

 

Rashad Carter

Horo said:

Peter - don't worry, I got it.

Slepalex - Lighthouse 2 looks very nice.

A Vulvan who comprehends humor? That's just not logical.

Peter Fulford

Rashad Carter said:

Horo said:

Peter - don't worry, I got it.

Slepalex - Lighthouse 2 looks very nice.

A Vulvan who comprehends humor? That's just not logical.

Vulvan? You're such a typocal freudian perve, Rashad.

I was worried that Horo was miffed. With an "i".

:mrgreen:

.

Horo

Vulvan reminds me of Len. 

Dave Savage

Just to add another thought to the blurry sky discussion. If I had my camera set up on it's tripod to capture a great landscape and my aperture was as closed as it would go (to get best DoF). My shutter speed may fall below my optimum focal length. On a day where there is high altitude strong wind, the clouds would be moving fast enough to blur due to the shutter speed being a split second too long. :)

Horo

Mermaid - indeed much improved.

Dave - in fact, I had to trow away many panos I made because the cloud looked like volumetrics in Bryce rendered with a very low quality setting: layers. The problem with making HDRI is you have to take a couple of shots at different shutter speeds and if you have moving targets you can pack your equipment and go home. You may have wind around the ground level you notice, but if it is calm and have wind higer up, you only notice when you merge the exposures. That is the time when you delete everything because it's worthless. The bright side is that you were outdoors for a couple of hours.

Hansmar

OK, I'm not going to discuss the technical issues of the blurred clouds, because I can't. Whatever caused it, it did not really look good to me as an artist. Nevertheless, I am happy that the major technical people among us can shed some light on it.

SlepAlex: I like your lighthouse renders. 

Mermaid: OK, now the foreground is, unfortunately, too dark (sorry!) And the difference between polar bear and snowman on the one hand and snow on the ground on the other hand is too large. If you up the diffusion of the ground a bit and lower that of snowman and polar bear, they may get closer together and the whole thing could look much better.

Rashad Carter

Peter Fulford said:

Rashad Carter said:

Horo said:

Peter - don't worry, I got it.

Slepalex - Lighthouse 2 looks very nice.

A Vulvan who comprehends humor? That's just not logical.

Vulvan? You're such a typocal freudian perve, Rashad.

I was worried that Horo was miffed. With an "i".

:mrgreen:

.

If only there was a technology to help bad typers avoid these mistakes of "vulvanic" proportions...like a spelling checker. Maybe Christmas 2017.

I do apologize if by any means I might have offended anyone.

Why is the letter V located near the letter C on keyboards anyhow? Why does the alphabet have any more than 10 letters in it? I mean, it can't be my own fault.

Rashad Carter

Horo said:

Mermaid - indeed much improved.

Dave - in fact, I had to trow away many panos I made because the cloud looked like volumetrics in Bryce rendered with a very low quality setting: layers. The problem with making HDRI is you have to take a couple of shots at different shutter speeds and if you have moving targets you can pack your equipment and go home. You may have wind around the ground level you notice, but if it is calm and have wind higer up, you only notice when you merge the exposures. That is the time when you delete everything because it's worthless. The bright side is that you were outdoors for a couple of hours.

Actually Horo, I've continued to mull over this issue since we began talking and what you mention above makes good sense. It also speaks to the point SlepAlex was making in assuming the clouds appearing blurrier than they possibly would have to a real life naked eye viewer. Because while the original full HDRI does demonstrate a blurriness to the clouds that the mountains do not have, we must also keep in mind that the clouds were indeed moving in relation to the camera while the mountains remained stationary in relation to the camera. Thus the clouds experience a "frame dragging effect" (not as violent as those around the event horizon, but still) with the clouds in relation to the camera, so the clouds have been captured in more than one position, automatically making them appear more blurred than the mountains. If the hdri had been captured in a single frame, the clouds would have resolved much more sharply.

And further, considering how high above sea level we you must have been when capturing these images, the atmosphere looks quite thick, almost like there is another diffuse low hanging cloud partially obscuring the main cloud just above. This also supports SlepAlex's observation. Because when we see the hdri as a sky backdrop only in a render it can be difficult to discern that the sky isn't a perfectly clear sky with cumulus puffs contrasting highly with the sky background. Instead the sky is a bit overcast so we are looking through one cloud to see another, making the main clouds again seem dimmer and blurrier than if the sky had been otherwise clear.

In that sense I can see that both of you have valid observations on this. issue. Of course, there's no single correct answer.

Horo

Rashad - thank you for your comment. Remember it started with this observation: "The only ... are clouds on a billboard. We immediately see that this photomanipulation!". Meanwhile, we're far away from this. It doesn't make sense to continue. In fact, I shouldn't have bothered to comment on the initial remark. My mistake.

mermaid010

Horo - thanks

Hansmar - don't be sorry, I really appreciate your comments and suggestions. Thanks I will give it another shot.

c-ram

Trying to get closer to reality, here's a new test with speedtree and megascans models. The ground is using a photogrammetric from sketchfab. There's absolutely no transparency on leaves. Final render at 3000 x 4500 pixels.

Horo

c-ram - Beautiful render, looks very realistic.

mermaid010

c-ram - wow another awesome render, love it.

c-ram

Thank you Horo and Mermaid! Just P.M me if you want me to send you the render at full size.

I don't want to create a new topic in the forum but I need help on a trick. I know that David allready answer the question on the subject but I just can't remember and find the link here.

I'd like to create soft shadow from an invisible object in one of my scene so, if anyone of you can remember the way to do this and help me, I 'll be glad.

Thanks in advance!

mermaid010

c-ram - I think you are looking for this tutorial