woes, dont know what doing wrong, folders for 'Skies of Economy'?

Mistara

refering to this product, has a carrara d/l http://www.daz3d.com/skies-of-economy

one folder is .cbr, i added to shaders tab, but not seeing any thumbnails.

added folder with .car files, i seeing empty boxes for thumbnails.

i've removed/re added folders. what could i be doing wrong?

I can't figure out what i'm supposed to apply the shaders to?

help!

Thanks. :D

evilproducer

Despite the empty thumbnails, can you load the scene?

Also, check the read-me for his web site. I believe he had a fix for the blank icon issue. I don't have the product, but I do have Skies of Terra, which is scenes with included HDRIs and scene lights.

Speaking of Read-Me files, did you check to see if he included instructions on where stuff was supposed to go?

Diomede

This is a product that has files for Studio, Poser, and Carrara.  I can only give you partial help.  Some of the Carrara files for this product are loaded to the "background" tab in the scene section of the instances tab (lower right).  Not in the content tab, but in the Assemble room, go to scene and then background, and then load component, and then navigate to your Carrara program folder and go to “Presets:Backgrounds:DimensionTheory:SkiesOfEconomy”   That will load the sky image in the background.  You don't need to load the sky dome prop and apply a sky texture to it as if it were Poser or Studio (old versions?)

Diomede

I should say that there are also Render presets and light presets.  The render presets are in Presets:Rendering:DimensionTheory:SkiesOfEconomy.  The lights are in the content folder under Scenes:Lights:DimensionTheory:SkiesOfEconomy.  I haven't tried to use the render presets so that is why I can only be partial help.

 

Here is what Daz has made available as far as help goes.   http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/15328/start

 

Diomede

I loaded the render settings and the background.  Here is a test render.  You might get a predominantly white background if your camera is not pointed up at the sky.

Mistara

thanks.  

i'll submit ticket on the empty thumbnails.

Mistara

evilproducer said:

Despite the empty thumbnails, can you load the scene?

Also, check the read-me for his web site. I believe he had a fix for the blank icon issue. I don't have the product, but I do have Skies of Terra, which is scenes with included HDRIs and scene lights.

Speaking of Read-Me files, did you check to see if he included instructions on where stuff was supposed to go?

 

dont see a readme, not in the ca d/l.  didnt d/l the others

3DAGE

HI Misty

These should be HDRI presets and accompanying Carrara Sky and Distant light presets,.

The HDRI presets should be loaded into the Scene / Background,.. (drag and drop from the browser to the panel)

The Sky presets should be dropped into your Scene / Atnosphere

The Car scene files should be the Distant light setups.

There should also be a bunch of Render presets to setup the Sky light rendering option and quality settings.

Whenever you load an HDRI (or any other background image) you then need to enable "Sky Light" in the Render settings, before carrara will use that image as a Light source.

Hope it helps

 

Mistara

Thanks.  Can you see thumbnails for the hdr files?

I submitted a ticket on the blank thumbnails issue, maybe they can fix the files in the download.

Mistara

found when adding folder to misc tab, the prompted options include "background"    all the thumbnails generic sun image though.

havent found a prompt to add render settings folder yet.  they cbr files, but shows as empty folder. not even file names showing.

 

i guess, could resave all the files with preview checked.
iz a plan for a friday night. with egg nog

3DAGE

I don't have that specific set installed, however,..

I believe that Dimension Theory created some custom icons for the Background components, using a program called P3DO,

those background components should load the HDRi files.

So, yes, there should be some icons for the Background elememts,,.which load the HDR images,. but they may not show an example of the actual HDR image.

Any render settings should show up as a Carrara "Gear" icon, unless there are also custom made thumbnails created for them

Components such as render settings, backgrounds, modifiers, constraints etc, which are settings rather than objects,. are normally added into the Misc tab in the browser.

When Carrara saveas a file,. with "preview" enabled,. what happens is that it loads the file,. creates a defauklt camera and renders a small preview image which it creates a thumbnail icon,.

So,. If the thing you're saving isn't an object or a shader, ,. then saving it again to creae an icon with "preview" won't nessecarilly create the icon you want.

Carrara needs something to render to create a preview thumbnail image, otherwise it defaults to its own internal thumbnail images.

Hope it helps

 

 

Mistara

Thanks.

I tried every option for adding the Render folder.  Shows empty, no matter which i choose.

Mistara

okay, thinks i understand it now?

load the light preset,
load the corresponding background
load the corresponding render setting - using import from the render tab 
skylight has to be checked on

and then save the whole scene to scenes folder, 
then, next time i can load the whole thing from scene tab

 

Mistara

only done 3 so far , hard cuz it's tedious.

should prolly do the same for TP skydomes, just to be thorough.

can i hide the background image for hdr light?  

Dartanbeck

If you don't want to use the HDR for light, just don't check "Skylight" in the render room. TP Sky Domes comes with loadable files and nice instructions pdf.

Mistara

thanks.

i do want to use the hdr for light,
no wantz the background picture rendering  >.<

 

MarkIsSleepy

MistyMist said:

thanks.

i do want to use the hdr for light,
no wantz the background picture rendering  >.<

 

You have to render to a format that allows an alpha channel.  In the render room under output select a format like PNG or Photoshop and then check the render alpha channel box.  The HDRI will still light the scene and produce reflections but you'll get a render against a black background.

Mistara

MDO2010 said:

MistyMist said:

thanks.

i do want to use the hdr for light,
no wantz the background picture rendering  >.<

 

You have to render to a format that allows an alpha channel.  In the render room under output select a format like PNG or Photoshop and then check the render alpha channel box.  The HDRI will still light the scene and produce reflections but you'll get a render against a black background.

 

 thanks.

dont want my animated renders wasting time on background.  after all this effort, hdr is kinda slow for animations

need to find the balance of quality vs speed.

Dartanbeck

Actually, all you have to do is to put in a "Backdrop" in addition to your HDR Background.

So if this is for an animation, and the background you 'do' want to show up needs to be animated from a scene of some sort, just make everything invisible except for the scenery you need in the background. This might be as simple as another spherical map in the background maps area, or a complete scene... whatever. Then use those same cameras that you'll be using in the end, and render just the background scene footage into the same resolution as the final render. Now make everything else visible, and get rid of that stuff - like, switch the background map to the HDR, for example. Either way, put your HDR into the background channel for lighting.

Now add the footage that you've just rendered (avi or sequenced images will work) into the backdrop channel under 'Map'. Set the render room to use the Sky Light and you may also wish to have Indirect as well (or not). Now you're actually using the HDR in the background as a lighting source so you won't need any more lights in the scene, but you may use more lights if you want. The Backdrop will show up instead of whatever is on the HDRI.

Sweet, eh?

Dartanbeck

I do that a lot. Put an HDR (or just a map as a light source) in the Background channel, and then set the Backdrop to Color = Black to check out my shader work.