Carrara 8.5 and Realistc Sky Questions......
LinkRS
Posts: 168
Greetings Everyone,
I switched to Carrara (from Daz Studio) in order to have a "full-featured" 3D rendering/modeling application. I am hoping to be able to go from a Daz Model, to fully realized 3D scene within a single application. One of the things I have been playing around with is the Realistic Sky option. I have been creating "medium" empty scenes, adding a figure (have tried Victoria 4, Genesis, and Genesis 2), a terrain, and then a sky to create outdoor scenes that consist of a single figure. For the most part this has worked, with one big eye-gouging exception. I zoom the camera in close to show as much of the figure as possible, with the idea of seeing the sky in the background, and perhaps even some of the terrain.
However, whenever I zoom the camera in close enough to see the figure, the horizon line ends up at about chest level with the figure, with the sky above it, black between it and the actual horizon of the terrain. I have not been able to figure out how to "lower" the sky horizon to actually be at ground level. I can get the "sky" to do this, but it doesn't look as nice. Does anyone know if the horizon can be adjusted, or fixed to not show? Is the realistic sky only supposed to be used with "large" scenes, or landscapes rather than figures? I can upload pictures of my renders illustrating this later if it would help. Thanks in advance!
Rich S.
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I believe that it's Carrara's method of defining the horizon line a bit. I usually just hide it. In this case, I'll demonstrate two natural ways of doing that:
In the First image below, you'll see that I have that dark line at the horizon, like you say.
The next image shows that I am in the Realistic Sky Editor. The smaller red circle on the left is the button you press to enter the Fog and Sun Rays controls. The larger circle are the fog controls. I have turned the fog on, left the color at default, but lowered the settings from their defaults to make the fog appear farther away from the camera. So the third image shows the result in the spot render.
A different way is to use terrain as your friend. For the above example, I just dragged in a plateau from the browser and moved it down a bit, so it was in a good position. This time, I'll turn the fog setting back off, so we can see the results of this second method.
I select the terrain and duplicate it (Edit > Duplicate or Cntrl (Cmd) + D)
Now i go into the Director's Camera (upper left of the main view to switch cameras) and, with that new duplicate selected, type 0 (zero), which will put the whole terrain in view. I push back the terrain behind the subject and rotate it around a bit.***
The first image shows me in the Director's Camera placing the duplicate, the second image shows what it looks like in the film camera.
Not too bad. I duplicated that one, and slid it to the side, grouped them (Edit > Group or Cntrl + G) so that I can move and scale them all together. So the third image shows it with just that one more duplicate.
*** You may, of course, use anything you wish to extend your horizon line. This way was shown because it's fast, simple and, since it's using "Duplicate", it's friendly to your system - as it's just an instance of the original.
Here is an example of what happens to the horizon when an infinite plane is inserted (using the insert menu) and left in it's default location, which is ground zero. You can see that the infinity of the ground level in Carrara hides that line.
Just curious...
Did any of this help?
You may also be able to add a color blue color in the scenes's Background slot. Not the Backdrop!
Was gonna say…
There is a wonderful tutorial by Tim Payne where he shows how you are suppose to use the background WITH the realistic sky (who knew?)
Free scenes included:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/30164/
Was gonna say…
There is a wonderful tutorial by Tim Payne where he shows how you are suppose to use the background WITH the realistic sky (who knew?)
Free scenes included:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/30164/Whoa... Thanks for this link Holly! I had this, once before, but can't find it. Wonderful = this booklet!
evilproducer, you're right. And the default Bi-Gradient is set up to be used with the default RS. Tim Payne's skies come with bi gradients to drop in. His products, including the really cool books that come with, are truly a must have for the realistic sky users out there. Loading in all of the elements provided, with the book explaining why, is very good stuff towards learning how to set up and tweak your own. Where was my head at for not mentioning the background color thing?!!!
I just got Ringo Monfort's Sky collection as well. It comes with so much stuff I didn't get a chance to check it all out yet ;)
What I did check out is excellent!
I just tried the bi-gradient thing and the line was still there. C8.5 Pro 64bit - Win 7 Home Premium x64
That sucks.
The other thing I noticed about the atmosphere slot in the Scene's effects tab, is that the horizon line is in inches. I usually type the value I want, such as 100 ft. To lower the horizon lineI would type it this way, -100ft, and then hit enter. Carrara computes the -100ft into the equivalent inches. It won't get rid of the line, but it may help to hide it.
I must add that in the renders with alphachannel, the sky does not appear and you can add what you want at the place of this sky and without line...
Excellent point DUDU!
Did you adjust the the horizon degree angle? That is how you move it up or down...
No I didn't. I'll check that, when I get a chance.
DUDU,
That's cool! Never knew that. I spend most of my time with this without rendering channels. One day....
Did you adjust the the horizon degree angle? That is how you move it up or down...Yup. That does it. What I did was to change the upper two bi-gradient colors while leaving the lower two at default. I normally then crank that horizon to the left as far as it goes. -90, I think. But I just tried it at a few other settings and it worked fine in changing the line to whatever shade I wanted, according to the gradient. So I probably could have just set the darker ground color of the bi-gradient to match, and would also work leaving horizon at 0.
Hi Everyone,
All I can say is WOW, thanks for all of the tips and advice :-) I haven't had a chance to try these ideas out yet, but will hopefully over the next few days. I just wanted to let everyone know that I have read it all. Thanks!
Rich S.
Welcome to Carrara! Glad we could help!
For some really good ideas and inspiration, check out last month's Carrara challenge WIP thread:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/29066/
And the entry/voting/results thread:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/30882/
There's also the new Carrara challenge WIP thread for this month's challenge:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/31940/
Everyone is encouraged to participate regardless of experience! It's a great way to share ideas and knowledge with all levels of users. Plus it's fun! Even if you don't enter, it's good to follow along and ask questions!
Hi Dartanbeck and Everyone,
I finally got some time today to try these techniques, using Teen Josie and a simple render. I have made several pictures to illustrate my results. I had asked a question about the line earlier, and someone mentioned raising the horizon value really high in the realistic sky, and that does get rid of the line, but the gradient fading to black towards the ground is still there.
So the first picture is the render before I tried any of these techniques, with the ground layer of the realistic sky "on." You don't see the gradient or black line, but the ground is rather visually jarring.
The second picture is the same render, with the ground off, showing both the line and the gradient.
The third picture shows the ground off and the horizon of the realistic eye raised really high. So the line is gone, but the sky still fades to black as it approaches the ground.
The fourth picture is my attempt at Method 1, with the fog it works nice, but you can still see there is a difference between the fog area and the ground. It looks better, but still not right?
The fifth picture is trying Method 2 with a plateau in the background. I had to have them much closer than in Dartenbeck's image, to completely cover up the gradient. Even then, the left hand side still showed the black line, so I raised the horizon and that his how I arrived at the attached image.
I noticed in the sample pictures, the horizon is much higher in the background, allowing for both the fog and the plateaus to be lower or further away. In my renders, the horizon is about chest level in the background.
Thoughts? Thanks!
Rich S.
The way I do it is by using either bought terrains with hill morphs or by creating one in the terrain editor..
I make sure there are hills behind the subject and also the camera angles on the subject are from either above looking down or down looking up, I try not to use straight on views.
Here is a quick example of what I mean.. ;)
That's the way it is in real life unless you're in the middle of the ocean- or Nebraska. ;-)
Yeah, I was going to say that in real life, you can never see below the horizon line, and the only time you can see TO the horizon is looking out at sea. So you need to put in either a sea plane (no, not a plane that can land on water...) or some terrain that will stretch to the horizon or at least cover it up. If you are going for realism that is, if not you can do what you like!