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It looks great! I'm off to download it now. Thanks!
Lake/river and jungle/forest backgrounds are the most likely for the next releases, although a golf course might jump the queue! And of course the nebulae/galaxies once I get confirmation that the source images are truly public domain.
I've had a request for a sports stadium - the sports field in the middle should be quite straightforward, but the surrounding stadium (and crowds of spectators!) may prove a challenge!
I've also had a request to automate the DAZ Studio WorldBall installation - I'm investigating free software for creating installers (this may be overkill, so I'm also considering batch files or anything else that might simplify the current rather confusing manual procedure - separate threads on this in the DAZ Developer Discussion and Renderosity Hardware/Technical forums if you have any suggestions)
...make sure it's a Footy stadium like Wembly in London or Maksimir in Zagreb.
How about down the park after skool? But cos we got less people than you bagsy we play downhill and have the giant levitating tree as our goalie!
Yep, almost there with the instanced trees in Bryce 7.1 Pro... I know why the one tree's levitating and can avoid that next time. So the forest/jungle sets are one step closer.
The local park's not exactly a sports stadium, but something along these lines (but better) might be useful for somebody? Pitch markings are easy (just an overlay for the terrain in Bryce) so cricket pitches, baseball diamonds, etc should be easy to do, and the method applies equally well to a stadium. Still haven't found any freebie stadium models, but I'm wondering about using a simple embankment and instanced billboards of people for a crowd???
Edit: just found a couple of freebie sports stadium blends at http://www.blendswap.com/tag/stadium...
More earthballs and skyballs. Thank you very much, they all look good.
It's taken a bit longer than expected, but it's here at last!
E15 Galaxies And Nebulae WorldBall Environment Set
- ShareCG - Galaxies And Nebulae WorldBall Environment Set
- uploading to Renderosity Freestuff soon
A background environment for your deep-space renders. Fourteen different galaxy/nebula images distributed rather unrealistically across an Earth-based starfield.
N.B. "Limited Use With Credits" - use the phrase "Original source images courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI", or something similar and you're fine!
A few hints on using this one:
1) You probably only want to have one of the galaxies/nebulae in your render - simply spin the WorldBall (or your camera) round to get the view you want (you'll have to render to see it though!)
2) You'll obvipously want to disable the 'WorldBall Ground' - see the ReadMe if you can't work out how to do that.
3) The 'WorldBall Sun' is switched off by default (intensity set to zero), and the 'WorldBall IBL' just gives a very dim grayish-purple global illumination. So you'll probably want to add some lights of your own (or adjust the 'WorldBall Sun' settings) to suit the render.
This 360deg azimuth / +-90deg elevation environment set consists of:
- A latitude/longitude mapped background image (4096x2048 JPG) - shown in promo, top
- An angular mapped light probe image (1024x1024 JPG) - shown in promo, bottom left
- A latitude/longitude mapped reflection image (1024x512 JPG) - not shown
(bottom right is a DAZ Studio 4 render using just this WorldBall environment for lighting and background, and two Klingon D7 Battle Cruisers -
Tex_Turbo's OBJ model, also free from ShareCG here http://www.sharecg.com/v/40476/browse/5/3D-Model/Klingon-D7-Battle-Crusier)
Intended primarily for use with the Simple Poser/DAZ Studio WorldBalls. See the Readme for the datablock to add to the WorldBallData.txt file.
Also suitable for use with anything else that uses latitude/longitude or angular mapped environment images.
(Source images are courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech for the background starfield, and courtesy NASA/STScI for the galaxy/nebula images - full details, including URLs and full credits for each source image, are in the readme)
Happy rendering!
Pete Williams (aka 3dcheapskate)
31st July 2013
And another, created in Terragen Classic...
E16 Cinderside - A Volcanic WorldBall environment set
Available from:
- ShareCG - Cinderside Volcanic WorldBall Environment Set
- Renderosity - Cinderside Volcanic WorldBall Environment Set
This 360deg azimuth / +-90deg elevation environment set consists of:
- A latitude/longitude mapped background image (4096x2048 JPG) - shown in promo, top
- An angular mapped light probe image (1024x1024 JPG) - shown in promo, bottom left
- A latitude/longitude mapped reflection image (1024x512 JPG) - not shown
(bottom right is a DAZ Studio 3 render using just this WorldBall environment for lighting and background - full-size render in my Art Gallery thread)
Intended primarily for use with the Simple Poser/DAZ Studio WorldBalls. See the Readme for the datablock to add to the WorldBallData.txt file.
Also suitable for use with anything else that uses latitude/longitude or angular mapped environment images.
(The Terragen Classic world and terrain files used to create the background set are included)
Happy rendering!
Pete Williams (aka 3dcheapskate)
4th August 2013
A Couple More Hints - How I Use The WorldBall
I'm no expert at photography, composition, lighting, or art. But I'm getting some fairly nice renders now, and this is how I go about it. Remember that my original goal with the WorldBall was to provide a quick and easy way to add a background to any scene - so I add the WorldBall almost as an afterthought!
Here are the general steps I use. No real detail - you should be able to work that out for yourself. I'll be adding annotated screenshots using DAZ Studio 3 to help a bit. But note that the same steps apply equally if you're using Poser (except with Poser 6 I can't find a way to see the background in the preview window. Poser 8/9 seem okay)
1) Set up a scene. I forget about lights at this stage, because I know the WorldBall should do that for me. I just concentrate on getting something that looks good from many different angles. This is what I spend the majority of time doing!
2) Once I've got the scene completely set up I add the WorldBall, using whatever environment best suits the scene.
- At this point everything goes very dark in the preview window (so dark that you can't really see anything).
- Also you can't see the background.
Those are the two major problems with the WorldBall!
So I get round that as follows...
3a) I add a temporary distant light - this lets me see things in the preview pane (N.B. this light must be turned OFF for any renders)
3b) I apply the WorldBall environment map texture image to the WorldBall diffuse colour channel - this lets me see the background in the preview pane, except in Poser 6 (N.B. disconnectf rom the diffuse channel for any renders or the background will be much too dark)
3c) I also temporararily disable the groundplane - this lets me see exactly what part of the background the figures will appear to be standing on (N.B. re-enable the ground for renders, otherwise you won't get the shadows)
4) Now that you can see the background in your preview (except in Poser 6) you can set up the field-of-view, position, etc of your render camera. Adjust as necessary until to you get your final render!
- If you want to rotate the WorldBall ensure that you parent the WorldBall Sun, IBL to it first! (the WorldBall Ground is up to you)
- Alternatively you could parent everything in your scene to the WorldBall Ground, and simply rotate that.
- IGNORE THE LIGHTING IN THE PREVIEW PANE! Remember it's mainly your temporary distant light.
- Remember to UNDO steps 3a, 3b, and 3c before each render.
- Remember to REDO steps 3a, 3b, and 3c if you want to make further adjustments
(I find that the undo/redo cycle is fairly painless in DAZ Studio - more irritating in Poser)
...If you already have a ground plane (say that comes with a scene set like Days of Cider) can this be used in conjunction with it so you can still have the panoramic background?
By all means. And since you won't need the WorldBall Ground to work as a shadowcatcher you can just delete it.
But....
I'd originally planned to include a simple morphing ground with the WorldBall, but put it aside because it was so problematic. I was initially using the corresponding Terragen 'down' renders from my original Terragen environments as the ground plane texture. It worked beautifully under some circumstances (most notably the bright, snowy sets). But most of the time it looked completely wrong - colours far too different from the background.
The reason?
The WorldBall background is applied to the ambient colour only (so that it won't be affected by scene lights, including the WorldBall Sun and IBL). If you apply the ground texture to ambient colour only on the ground plane/terrain (so you get a colour match with the background) it looks completely unrealistic. But if you apply it to diffuse colour only it looks completely different from the background (because it's lit by the IBL image, which changes the colour. Since the IBL for the snowy sets is almost completely white that explains why the snowy sets looked okay).
Yes, you can fiddle with things to get it acceptable - adjust IBL/Sun colours and intensites, apply the ground texture to both ambient and diffuse, etc. But if you move the camera 180° around it's all wrong again.
Best of luck!
Edit: of course, if your background image just has sky on it then you don't have to worry about matching the ground plane colours to the background. Sooo.... that's a good argument for using a SkyDome and a Terrain!
...thanks.
I'm actually using Blenworth Castle which has a fairly large and nicely detailed ground plane included. I basically need the IBL imagery along the horizon to be reflected on a large prop without having to actually set up a lot of scene items off camera. Had to do that once before and it really increases the size of the scene file in memory.
Definitely worth a try - I'd be interested to see the results.
I have all your WorldBall Environments and I LOVE using them! BIG THANK YOU!!!
Thanks polka dot. I've been having so much fun creating the environment sets themselves, posting entries in Renderosity Terragen Challenges, and tidying up and releasing a few old projects that I've only just got round to actually trying to use the WorldBall for a render. I'm absolutely stunned! Far, far better than I'd ever expected it to be, despite the limitations.I've posted my first real WorldBall render, 'You Watch My Back...' over at ShareCG along with three variants where I just swapped the environment set. I'm wondering about starting a WorldBall render thread over in the DAZ Art Studio forum...
I would appreciate a special thread for the WorldBall very much! I was lucky not to discover the WorldBall in it's early state when there were some issues with the Mac. Now I am using it with DS 4.6 on a Mac without any problems. For an old Brycie like me who is - I hope only temporarily - cut off from her favourite toy, your environments are a blessing. The space and the submarine environments were something I needed badly, so thanks again!! Now I'm off to sharecg to see your renders! :-)
Finally got a chance to snag a bunch of worldballs. Thank you for making these and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with 'em!
Cheers,
Kat
...so where does this need to be installed? I installed the base but cannot find it anywhere in the Runtime or Library trees.
Using Daz 4.6.
Kyoto Kid: My guess is that you were looking for DUF files? You won't find any since the DAZ Studio version of the WorldBall uses a DAZ Script (DSA) file in conjunction with a Poser Prop (PP2). DAZ Studio 3 can't use DUFs, and this solution works for DAZ Studio 3 and DAZ Studio 4.5 (and I think there's been feedback that it works fine in DS4.6 too). You'll find the relevant file here...
Your-DS-Content-Folder\Runtime\Libraries\Props\3DCheapskate\WorldBall\WorldBall Setup DS3,4.pp2
...and it'll have the icon shown in the first image below. But there'll be a little DAZ Script overlay icon in the top left corner (like the second attached image), indicating that when you click it'll run the associated DAZ script.
Hopefully that'll get you up-and-running. If not, let me know!
Poser/DAZ Studio WorldBall Render Gallery thread started over in the DAZ Art Studio forum.
P.S. Can you let me know where you installed the 'Studio 4 ShaderBuilder Light' stuff from the ZIP on a MAC? That's one piece of information that I couldn't find out and it may help others.
My pleasure - it's great that other people are finding them useful!
Just discovered a little problem - wondering if anybody else has noticed anything like this?
(see attached image - DAZ Studio 3 render, so I know it happens there)
I know what it is - the whole WorldBall is made of quads so it can use the environment map. But the quads in the very top and very bottom rows each have two identical vertices, or one zero-length side... or are triangles if you prefer! I knew this would cause some issues, but decided to ignore it, based on the fact that straight up/down renders would probably be unlikely...
Have you tried upping them to Sub-D or Smoothing in DS? Triangles are often times smoothed out and texture issues go away with one or both enabled.
...thanks, I'll give it a go again.
Poser/DAZ Studio WorldBall Render Gallery thread started over in the DAZ Art Studio forum.
...sweet, just subscribed.
The problem is that they're not real triangles, they're quads, so using Sub-D splits each problem-quad-masquerading-as-a-triangle into two nice quads and two new problem-quads-masquerading-as-triangles!
..or rather, it would do if it didn't also move the vertices. Since topographically the WorldBall's more akin to an uncapped cylinder than a sphere (it's really just an uncapped cylinder shrink-wrapped onto a sphere) Sub-D pulls the vertices from the very top/bottom of the sphere back down the sides and opens up a big hole at the top and bottom of the WorldBall!
(I don't think this problem shows up in Poser, although if anybody does get it please let me know. And 'Smooth Polys' don't seem to cause any adverse effects either)
Ah, sorry about that then. Yea, I remember loading up a sphere in ZBrush and running to that issue when texturing it so I just lopped off those verts on either side and used the "Fill Hole" tool and then "Merge Tri's" tool and that's what I used for the project.
No problem - I often overlook the most obvious things, so all suggestions are always appreciated!
P.S. (OFF-TOPIC) - did you ever resolve that normals issue with your Bruno texture ? http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/10047/#376479
I've created an HDR light for the Cinderside enviroment and uploaded it to ShareCG - Cinderside HDR Lights BETA. The upload contains two .hdr files - ones an angular map, the other's a lat/long map.
If you haven't used HDR before I wouldn't recommend going anywhere near this one yet! But if you're familiar with HDR then please have a play - but you'll be beta-testing! Feedback very, very much appreciated!
- The DAZ Studio WorldBall IBL wasn't set up to use HDR so it probably won't work - try using the UberEnvironment2? (Update: Works nicely with UE2 in DS4 - see post #91)
- I think more recent Poser versions can accept an HDR image for a Diffuse IBL light? (Update: Tested - works fine as a Poser 8/9 Diffuse IBL. Doesn't work in Poser 6. Can't check with Poser 7)
I've literally just finished creating it and started to play with it - so far just converting the .hdr file to a .tif in HDRShop v1 and plugging that into DAZ Studio 4's UberEnvironment2 (I'm not sure whether the the WorldBall IBL will take HDR images, so I want to start with something that I know should work!). I'm having some problems, but then I've never used UberEnvironment2 (although I just found this 'How to use UberEnvironment2 with your own HDR pictures ' RuntimeDNA thread and OmniFreaker's UberEnvironment2 wiki which help a lot)
No, not yet. I'm working diligently on finishing up the morphs for Genesis 01 that have been sitting around for like a year now. It's just time to get them done and released. I WANTED to release them with a really nice updated Bruno skin set but that's going to take me allot of time to develop so decided to get the morphs done then I'll get into skin. I'd love to keep at trying to do nice skin in ZBrush. I had some examples but lost those on a backup disk that died on me. SO will need to start over on that one.
Using HDR Lighting With The Poser WorldBall
I know absolutely nothing about actually using HDR lights in Poser or DAZ Studio, so I'm learning as I go. I found this 'Poser Pro Image Based Lighting' tutorial at SmithMicro.
Since the WorldBall IBL for Poser is just a Poser Diffuse IBL I just tried plugging the E16Cinderside-AM1024-HDR.hdr (from the Cinderside HDR BETA I just uploaded) directly into the WorldBall IBL set IBL intensity to 180% and IBL contrast to 0.5 (as per the tutorial) and checked the AO box. Also turned the WorldBall Sun off (intensity to 0%) so only the IBL is lighting the scene.
Poser 8/9 - it works! Looks a bit dark (P9 screenshot + renders attached), but I guess a bit of fiddling should fix that.
Poser 6 - doesn't look like it can handle HDR IBL. It won't let me oped an .hdr file, and if I try to open an HDR .tif I get "Texture could not be loaded. Image map file could not be found, or there is not enough memory to load.")