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Skies of Economy question

dpm316dpm316 Posts: 0
edited December 1969 in The Commons

Do the Reality presets in Skies of Economy contain Reality Sun lights linked to the sun in the image or is it just a set of images?

Thanks,
dpm316

Comments

  • DimensionTheoryDimensionTheory Posts: 434
    edited December 1969

    The Economy presets for Reality don't contain any sort lights other than HDR, but the maps are made in a way that should be pretty close to physically accurate regardless. Reality is generally really good at deriving directional shadows from the brighter bits like the sun when it's not being diffused by clouds or atmosphere in the images.

  • dpm316dpm316 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    DimensionTheory said:
    The Economy presets for Reality don't contain any sort lights other than HDR, but the maps are made in a way that should be pretty close to physically accurate regardless. Reality is generally really good at deriving directional shadows from the brighter bits like the sun when it's not being diffused by clouds or atmosphere in the images.

    Thanks for the reply. So are you saying that I can get away with just using the HDR without any other lights? I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. One of my most realistic renders was done with only a single IBL.

    Peace \/
    dpm316

  • icprncssicprncss Posts: 3,694
    edited December 1969

    Can the Reality maps be used in Reality 3 for Poser?

  • DimensionTheoryDimensionTheory Posts: 434
    edited December 1969

    dpm316 said:
    Thanks for the reply. So are you saying that I can get away with just using the HDR without any other lights? I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. One of my most realistic renders was done with only a single IBL.

    Peace \/
    dpm316

    They should fare you pretty well, there are a few which would benefit from added directional lights but the majority of these maps are pretty diffused though clouds and haze do the directional shadows would be really soft anyway (in real life). If you want more directional lighting with harder shadows I'd be happy to tell you how with some really easy editing of the maps.

    Can the Reality maps be used in Reality 3 for Poser?

    I'd be extremely surprised if they couldn't be. The isn't any presets for this specifically and the Poser presets wouldn't help I don't think, but I have to imagine the same file formats can be used in Poser's Reality since they're the same general idea and go to the same renderer. I don't have the Poser version though so I'm not 100% sure.

  • icprncssicprncss Posts: 3,694
    edited December 1969

    DT

    Thanks for the information. I had decided to wait for Reality 3 for DS before I bought it. I'm hoping I can use the Reality part of the product with both but even if I can't, I'm just going to go buy them anyway. If they work it's an added bonus as they already cover Poser, DS and C8.

  • cwichuracwichura Posts: 1,042
    edited December 1969

    The actual IBLs are HDR files loaded in LuxRender. Reality for Studio has the IBL Sphere that makes this easy to see and set up using a low-res JPEG preview image within the viewport. This facilitates setting the rotation of the IBL to best suit your render.

    Reality 3 for Poser DOES support IBLs. However, I believe you have to manually select the HDR image in the Reality UI and there is no sphere to facilitate setting the rotation within Poser's viewport. (At least I recall people asking about the sphere when Reality 3 first launched and Paolo said it was not there, but he intended to add it back in a future update and I don't know if that has happened yet or not.)

    Bottom line: You can absolutely use DT's Reality IBL sets in Reality 3 for Poser, you just have to manually assign the .hdr files to the IBL settings in Reality's UI.

  • cwichuracwichura Posts: 1,042
    edited December 1969

    Also, the technique I usually use when I want hard shadows while using an IBL for the Sky (and I use DT's IBLs a lot for this) is to load the IBL and a Lux Sun object in the same scene. I'm using Studio, so I load the RealityIBLSphere, apply one of DT's presets to assign the IBL and load the preview of it on the sphere. After adjusting the rotation of the IBL sphere for the scene, I then switch the viewport to the Sun view and rotate it around until it lines up with the sun in the IBL sphere preview. This insures the hard shadows are consistent with the angle of the sun that the IBL was recorded with.

    Adjust the scene's tonemapping to an exposure suitable for the IBL with the IBL at a gain of 1. The Sun will MASSIVELY overpower this, so turn the Sun and Sky off while you are experimenting with the linear tonemapper to determine the correct exposure. Then turn the Sun lightsource back on and adjust its gain downwards until it is suitably balanced with the IBL. It is not uncommon for the Sun gain to be in the range of .001 to .0001 when you do this.

    When you are ready to do the final render, you can speed things up by hand-editing the .lxm file generated by Reality. At the very top, you will see the sun and sky lightsources defined, along with the IBL (should be pretty much the first thing in the file). DELETE the section for the Sky, since you are not going to use Lux's Sky model since you are supplying your own sky via the IBL.

    Example render using this technique: Lavender Angel 002

  • OstadanOstadan Posts: 1,125
    edited December 1969

    Any chance of creating convenient Luxus presets for these IBLs?

  • icprncssicprncss Posts: 3,694
    edited December 1969

    cwichura said:
    The actual IBLs are HDR files loaded in LuxRender. Reality for Studio has the IBL Sphere that makes this easy to see and set up using a low-res JPEG preview image within the viewport. This facilitates setting the rotation of the IBL to best suit your render.

    Reality 3 for Poser DOES support IBLs. However, I believe you have to manually select the HDR image in the Reality UI and there is no sphere to facilitate setting the rotation within Poser's viewport. (At least I recall people asking about the sphere when Reality 3 first launched and Paolo said it was not there, but he intended to add it back in a future update and I don't know if that has happened yet or not.)

    Bottom line: You can absolutely use DT's Reality IBL sets in Reality 3 for Poser, you just have to manually assign the .hdr files to the IBL settings in Reality's UI.

    Thank you for the information. I was hoping they would be useable even if I had to do it manually. I haven't played with Reality3 in a while nor had time to check for updates so I don't know if the dome has been added back or not. I was buying them mainly because they covered Poser, DS and C8 but now that I can also use them in with Reality makes them all that much better.

  • dpm316dpm316 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Excellent information, cwichura! I bought Skies of Economy last night for 50% off. Can't wait to try it out!

    Peace \/
    dpm316

  • dpm316dpm316 Posts: 0
    edited December 2013

    Here's a test render I did last night. I added the Reality Sun and removed the Sky in the LuxRender GUI. I dialed the Sun way down as you said. I left it with just enough brightness to cast shadows. Any brighter and it starts looking fake. I do have a few questions: It seems to work fine with just loading the DT preset directly instead of loading the RealityIBLSphere first and then loading the preset. Is there any use for the RealityIBLSphere? I'm not sure what you mean by "load the preview". Lastly, it defaults to 60% opacity. I changed it to 100% to see it better in the DS window. Does it matter for the render? Thanks.

    Peace \/
    dpm316

    Smugglers_Dock_with_cloudy_sky_IBL.jpg
    1000 x 800 - 92K
    Post edited by dpm316 on
  • cwichuracwichura Posts: 1,042
    edited December 1969

    The opacity of the IBL in Studio doesn't matter in the actual render; the RealityIBLSphere geometry is not exported to Lux in any way/shape/form. Only the IBL settings are exported, and IBL settings have no opacity value. That said, having the sphere partially transparent is useful when switching to the Sun object to see through the sphere when matching up the alignment.

    The benefit of the RealityIBLSphere is that it lets you adjust the Y rotation of the IBL and have a visual reference of what the IBL will look like. "Loading the preview" is something the DT preset does when you have the RealityIBLSphere selected when you apply one of the DT IBLs. Again, it's just for visual reference within the DS viewport.

  • OstadanOstadan Posts: 1,125
    edited December 1969

    My Skies of Economy copy seems to have stopped working; when I try to load it, I see

    Executing DAZ Script file: /Volumes/[...]/My DAZ 3D Library/Lights/SkiesOfEconomy/Reality/SoE-Sunny8.dsa
    WARNING: Script Error: Line 34
    WARNING: TypeError: Result of expression 'contentMgr.findBaseDirectory(scriptPath,false)' [null] is not an object.
    WARNING: Stack Trace:
    ()@:34
    Error in script execution!

    I do not know whether this is a consequence of recent Studio changes, or my moving my libraries to a different file system on my Mac.

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