Setting up quick backdrops for 'photo-shoot' purposes.
Hello All,
I am new to Daz Studio having signed up in December of last year (2018) and at only two months in, I have already aquired much in terms of product from the Daz Store. I have many environments already, but I sadly, I do not have a GPU on my machine and I am rendering with the processor only. This does yeild to some very slow render times. Often times, I find it is the background that is causing the slow down as if I just render the character alone, the render times are much faster. I have a beach setting which is just a backdrop that came with Daz and I found that background renders very fast. So I am wonder if there was a way to create a studio like backdrop just to frame my characters out. I know that the Daz store has such items and they often come with light settings and other things, but I am just after some nice backdrops. Is there anyway I could do so with a photo? I am looking to have a backdrop with a ground like what they have in a photo studio.
Is there anyway I can do this on my own, or do I have to purchase one of those 'photo-studio' sets?
Thank You
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You want HDR images - there are many in the store, there are also freebies around (though they often stipulate no commercial use).
Another option would be to use the Sun and Sky settings to set the tiem of day/location that you want, render that with no actual backdrop, and save as Tiff/PNG for compositing with a photo - for ground shadows, if needed, you'd have to add a shadow catcher.
Daz Studio has an Environment pane. You can add a photo there and it will appear in your rendered scene as a backdrop. I use it frequently.
It can be difficult sometimes to get a backdrop image and a rendered character to look like they go together. The scaling may be off, the camera focal length might be different (wide angle vs. zoom). So some experimentation might be necessary, but as you work with it, you will get better at it.
Hmmmmm, not exactly what I had in mind and I hated to see your wonderful explanation / presentationmight be in vain. But this should give you a better idea of what I am after. Prior to Daz Studio, I was messing around with those 'cartoon' avatar/character creation programs such as Azaleas Dolls and Rinmaru Games. This is a character I created from Rinmaru:
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/162feff1-e525-4e66-9252-090d0c3fbd79/dcsi814-9f246704-ad9b-472d-9ee3-f03db290fb12.jpg/v1/fill/w_797,h_1002,q_70,strp/melissa_by_ravendiablo_dcsi814-pre.jpg
Get a good look at the backdrop. THAT is what I am going for. But in the context of Daz, the backdrop would be similar to how the beach backdrop is that comes with the program. Like I said, I KNOW they have packages like this and they often include lighting settings too, but with what I been spending on Daz so far, I need to cut the $ someplace. This is one of the packages I was referring to:
https://www.daz3d.com/idg-portrait-studio-2
Specifically:
https://www.daz3d.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/0/5/05-idg-portrait-studio-2-daz3d.jpg
You see that roll thing that goes from the back wall on to the floor? The right side shows the backdrop patterns / textures. THAT is what I am referring to.
All the did with this is have the backdrops and then put the lights in actual fancy cases and such. Make it look like an actual photography studio. I don't need all that and frankly I don't want to spend money on that. If it costs like $2-$6 for those backdrops, fine, but I wouldn't spend much more than that.
Sorry my description wasn't clearer from the get go.
Thanks
There‘s a curved backdrop freebie linked in this thread:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/66373/free-daz-studio-curved-backdrop-prop
I believe the technique I described eliminates the need to put any background prop in your scene, to achieve the look of the image you posted. You can simply put a nice image in the Environment backdrop and not have to worry about getting good lighting on the backdrop prop, or having your character cast unwanted shadows on it. If you really want to have an actual backdrop prop in your scene, you can just add a primitive plane and put any texture you want on it in the Surfaces pane. If you really need a "curvy" backdrop prop with walls and floor, you can probably find something free on ShareCG or Renderosity.
My gallery has a lot of images that use the Environment backdrop technique. For example. this one and this one. Do I still misunderstand what you are trying to achieve?
Here is a forum thread full of free background images you can use with either the Environment pane or on a prop. To put them on a prop, you will have to add the image to the Base Color or Diffuse in the Surfaces pane.
Nice to see people are interested in the "photographer's roll" and similar kinds of props. There is a roll included in at least one of the "IG iray light studio" sets. And there used to be a similar product -- "Backdrop Deluxe" -- by Nerd3D. The "terrain" prop in Maclean's Everyday Morphing Primitives set can used as a b.g. roll and you can adjust the surface a bit... I have yet to try that one as a sort of fun house mirror (like in a carnival) by adding a reflective shader.
I bought the FSL Morphing Backdrop and Shaders for Iray as it really sounded like my cup of tea, but I have yet to try it. Another, sort of interesting, set of b.g. images is the Dreamlight Real Lens DOF Backgrounds.
I have yet to figure out why, when you put a value into the backdrop part of the main Environment pane, you can no longer use that scene to generate a transparent background (eg. your figures or objects if any float on a null, checkerboard, zero layer sort of thing); up until now if I had a scene that I had not saved in an unaltered (no fiddling with the Environment pane) form, my access to having a transparent b.g. with that scene at some future point is toast.
Also, I am not sure but I think that not including any background information and rendering as a TIFF file is faster if you don't have a GPU. An added plus when going this route has to be that your rendered object or figure can be combined with any background image later on, using any image editor (just about) that supports multiple layers. So you're not forever committed, with that (or any) render to just one background.
I didn't mention it before because I doubt it's worth the expense, but since we seem to have drifted onto photo studio backdrops in general.... Fashion Studio has everything a studio might need.
I got that one...followed the instructions and put it in the directory it says to. I open up Daz and I can't find it! Looked all over in Environments, Props, Accessories, even in Content Library and it doesn't show up.
(I will add more to this to answer the other messages, but I have to run for now...)
I used it once when I first got Daz and the image was all distorted. Perhaps that aspect ratio thing you were talking about. I know what you mean about the Shadows though. I ran into that problem when I did this shot (See attached). That is actually a sky backdrop that is set up on a vertical plane. I turned it upside down so you don't see the hillside in the shot.
I mistakenly used a Camera with a headlamp and yeah, I got a shadow. I wanted to use the skydome anyway, and I just rotated it around until my character was lit. This really wasn't an exercise in using backdrops but I am going through a phase now where I am trying to make older ladies look pretty. She is an Alexandra 8 base with an Edith body and I aged her a bit more by using Sydney's skin and some extra morphing.
That last one is kind of what I was referring to in terms of something more detailed. But yeah for just a textured pattern I could try the Environment way. As it is, I have used the 'Draw Dome' On setting as well. But natually I got tired of it after a while.
So TIFF files render faster? I didn't get the last part though. You are saying you can store the image as 'parts'?
I have seen these and was on the fence about them myself, but I got to thinking is that packs like that really just put a 'package' around your existing lighting tools. I guess it does make it easier to understand and work with, but yeah, justifying that price is difficult.
I like that domed half sphere thing That looks cool.
Again learned something new and cool tonight thanks to @Barbult ! Before this, I used to create a primitive plane and adding my photo to it... geesh that feels so backwards now... I am going straight into DS now to test this out! <3 <3 <3
yes this is where a manual would be handy
Each way does have it's advantages and for the most part, I am still usiing the billboard method, but in the render I attached below, I coudn't have a shadow on that, so I used Barbult's method.
I kept saying that myself when I first started with Daz. However, what you can do with Daz is so vast that any major update or addition of a major feature would require quite a bit of changes to any kind of manual. So I guess the Daz Devs dont want to put their time into that when they can work more at making their product better. So I do see that point, but I know they can just have a dedicated team to work on a keeping a decent manual up to date, but then the question is if they are willing to pay someone to do that? What I ended up doing is whenever I ran into an issue, or wanted to learn something new, either I looked on Youtube for instructional videos, or I just asked here in the Daz forums. I think I came quite a long way by doing that and I suggest doing the same if there is something you would like to know. Sure it is more work to look for the information that way, but I have found that there are many here that are willing to help you out.
Regards and have fun creating!
Geo
@jukingeo a fabulous render that one!
Thank you very much! I am glad you like it. It is obvious that I created that render in lieu of of the fire that happened at Notre Dame cathedral in France. While I was used to putting a picture on a primative, that particular picture of the interior of Notre Dame didn't work well as Audrey's (the angel) shadow would cast itself right over the backdrop and naturally I was trying to make like she was standing in the doorway of the cathedral.
I am a fan of Gothic Architecture and naturally cathedrals top that list and the most famous one of all is the Notre Dame cathedral. So it is any wonder it is my favorite example of Gothic Architecture. So it was upsetting news. So I created that render along with a little background story for Audrey on my Deviant Art account. But this represents one of the few times in which I used the method as described by Barbult. It is more involved than the primative plane method, but the big advantage it has is that the shadows of your figures and props will not be cast on it. So it does look like Audrey is actually there. BTW, I had a quite the time creating Audrey's halo. I think I should do another render of her as this is the only one I did.
Considering the rendering speed putting a picture behind the scene is going to slow down things quite a bit because light has to interact with that surface.
So if you want to do everything really fast you better render the backdrop and characters separately as PNG files then combine them.
alternatively to get faster rendering speed on iray backdrop can be made emissive what makes rendering much faster. and you avoid shadows that will naturally be produced if you are illuminating the backdrop with the scene lighting.
so you just put a picture on the surface behind your character and adjust the brightness to get everything well balanced
I know this is an older post as I am rarely in the forums here, but that photo in the render is a flat plane and it seemed to render pretty quickly. It seems 3D objects are what take a long time. Granted what you are saying might speed things up from a rendering point of view, but it also means I have to two step it, instead of just rendering it and having the finished render. Again, for a flat 2D object, like the photo above? It is just less time consuming for me to have it fully render in Daz. But if that was a 3D model in the background, then I could see the point of separate renders.