How to Get the Most Intense Direct Summer Sun ?

Fauvist

What iray method or product could I use to produce the effect of intense direct middle-of-the-day summer sun with no haze or air pollution? 
Thanks

sazzyazzca

I like the lighting that comes with this set  https://www.daz3d.com/natural-stone-poolside-and-scenes

There are quite a few outdoor sets that come with lighting. You might already have something suitable that came with a set.

I haven't used these but maybe someone else can comment on them:

https://www.daz3d.com/quick-iray-outdoor-presets

https://www.daz3d.com/da-real-world-lighting

https://www.daz3d.com/iray-sun-sky-system

lou_harper

You could use an HDRI with those qualities.

lilweep

lou_harper said:

You could use an HDRI with those qualities.

came to suggest this too. 

nonesuch00

I've never seen such a situation in real life. Maybe on or near the equator in the desert would come closest.

In iRay it's easy though: set the date to the Summer Solstic, the time to noon, and the latitude to 0 degrees (equator), longitude, don't care and turn off any fog or haze effects in the environmental portion of configuring the iRay renderer. 

Fauvist

nonesuch00 said:

I've never seen such a situation in real life. Maybe on or near the equator in the desert would come closest.

In iRay it's easy though: set the date to the Summer Solstic, the time to noon, and the latitude to 0 degrees (equator), longitude, don't care and turn off any fog or haze effects in the environmental portion of configuring the iRay renderer. 

The closest real life situation I have heard described like this (numerous times) is by landscape painters of the 19th century describing the light on the land surrounding the Mediterranean (most often in France and Italy).  This is before major industry and car exhaust.

FirstBastion

This product comes free with the dazstudio download,  and it has a maui beach scene hdri that is bright midday sun shining down on the environment from above. .

 

DAZ Studio Iray HDR Outdoor Environments | Daz 3D

Fauvist

FirstBastion said:

This product comes free with the dazstudio download,  and it has a maui beach scene hdri that is bright midday sun shining down on the environment.

 

DAZ Studio Iray HDR Outdoor Environments | Daz 3D

Thanks, I'll try it.  Strangely, the promo images for the Beach scenes show a soft shadow on the ground, while some of the other scenes show a shadow with a hard outline. 

Fauvist

sazzyazzca said:

I like the lighting that comes with this set  https://www.daz3d.com/natural-stone-poolside-and-scenes

There are quite a few outdoor sets that come with lighting. You might already have something suitable that came with a set.

I haven't used these but maybe someone else can comment on them:

https://www.daz3d.com/quick-iray-outdoor-presets

https://www.daz3d.com/da-real-world-lighting

https://www.daz3d.com/iray-sun-sky-system

Thank you.  I have the pool set and didn't realize lighting came with it.  I'll definitely try it. 

barbult

You could set Render Settings to Sun-Sky Only and set the date and time and lat/lon that represents the situation you want to replicate. Sett Matte Fog and Ground Fog to off.

NylonGirl

The Flower Road HDRI is super intense.

https://polyhaven.com/a/flower_road

Sven Dullah

NylonGirl said:

The Flower Road HDRI is super intense.

https://polyhaven.com/a/flower_road

Quite a task to render dark skin with that amount of contrast, nicely done;) I tend to avoid those with insane EV values, basically what the OP is wanting, because I find the high dynamic range being hard to handle. 

Stonemason

Try using Sun/Sky and adjusting SS Sun Disk Intensity to make the light brighter

barbult

Sven Dullah said:

NylonGirl said:

The Flower Road HDRI is super intense.

https://polyhaven.com/a/flower_road

Quite a task to render dark skin with that amount of contrast, nicely done;) I tend to avoid those with insane EV values, basically what the OP is wanting, because I find the high dynamic range being hard to handle. 

I have the same experience. Some (many) of the PolyHaven HDRIs seem to be higher contrast than DS can deal with. The shadows formed look unnaturally harsh.

WendyLuvsCatz

I use this

Cybersox

Best way I've found is to forget to wear sunscreen. *ba-da-dum!*  

But seriously...

Technically, the sun mode is going to be closer to realistic than any HDRI simply because it's a single directional light source like the sun.  BUT... and this is a huge but... that's not going to be how most people's eyes perceive it, because what we THINK looks like really strong sun in a real photo is basically something that doesn't match what our eyes actually see... For one thing, sunlight is actually bluish, but our brains warm the colors up when something is too blue (and cool off the colors when they're too red.)  Likewise something has to be insanely bright (like a direct reflection of the sun off a metallic or glassy surface) for the intensity of to overload your eyes, but film and video have far less exposure lattitude than your eye/brain combo, plus unless you have only one eye you see in stereo and the two slightly different POVs tend to fill each other in.  As a result, photographers have developed a set of standardized cheats over the years to make an optimized compromise that's pleasing but not completely realistic, yet everyone accepts that that "is" how it looks, just like people accept that turning down the exposure and adding a blue-cast is what something looks like at night, when it really doesn't look like that at all.   

For example, in the case of almost any professional shot of a girl on a brightly lit beach. the odds are 95% or greater that what you see isn't going to be just the result of the direct light, as while our eyes have no problems seeing all the detail in the shadows and the bright areas at the same time (well, unless you're looking directly at the sun), even the best film and video camera shot photos will have either the highlights will be blown out or the shadows jet black, or both.  So to get around that, the photographer will either be filling in the light with a set of reflectors or additional light sources like a flash, or filtering the raw daylight with a semi-transparent material like a scrim, to balance the levels of the two.... or just waiting for a cloud to cover the sun so the shot can be taken in the far more aesthetically pleasing lower contrast light that results.  That's also the mentality behind the the RAW modes that most high end cameras have these day, where the goal is to make the image that the camera takes as neutral as possible, bringing the exposure down on the bright end and lightening up the darks so that none of the details are are lost with burned out whites or detailess blacks.  Because you can always play with the exposure and contrast in post, but you can't recover that information once it's gone.  Therefore, when setting up the render, I always work with the same mentality, lightning the blacks and keeping the whites from clipping in emulation of a RAW, then zap up the contrast and exposure levels in post where I have complete control and can see exactly what's happening instantly.  Photoshop/Gimp/theImage Processing Software of you choice is your best friend.

Fauvist

NylonGirl said:

The Flower Road HDRI is super intense.

https://polyhaven.com/a/flower_road

Really nice image, and I'm going to try the HDRI. Thanks! 

Fauvist

Cybersox said:

Best way I've found is to forget to wear sunscreen. *ba-da-dum!*  

But seriously...

Technically, the sun mode is going to be closer to realistic than any HDRI simply because it's a single directional light source like the sun.  BUT... and this is a huge but... that's not going to be how most people's eyes perceive it, because what we THINK looks like really strong sun in a real photo is basically something that doesn't match what our eyes actually see... For one thing, sunlight is actually bluish, but our brains warm the colors up when something is too blue (and cool off the colors when they're too red.)  Likewise something has to be insanely bright (like a direct reflection of the sun off a metallic or glassy surface) for the intensity of to overload your eyes, but film and video have far less exposure lattitude than your eye/brain combo, plus unless you have only one eye you see in stereo and the two slightly different POVs tend to fill each other in.  As a result, photographers have developed a set of standardized cheats over the years to make an optimized compromise that's pleasing but not completely realistic, yet everyone accepts that that "is" how it looks, just like people accept that turning down the exposure and adding a blue-cast is what something looks like at night, when it really doesn't look like that at all.   

For example, in the case of almost any professional shot of a girl on a brightly lit beach. the odds are 95% or greater that what you see isn't going to be just the result of the direct light, as while our eyes have no problems seeing all the detail in the shadows and the bright areas at the same time (well, unless you're looking directly at the sun), even the best film and video camera shot photos will have either the highlights will be blown out or the shadows jet black, or both.  So to get around that, the photographer will either be filling in the light with a set of reflectors or additional light sources like a flash, or filtering the raw daylight with a semi-transparent material like a scrim, to balance the levels of the two.... or just waiting for a cloud to cover the sun so the shot can be taken in the far more aesthetically pleasing lower contrast light that results.  That's also the mentality behind the the RAW modes that most high end cameras have these day, where the goal is to make the image that the camera takes as neutral as possible, bringing the exposure down on the bright end and lightening up the darks so that none of the details are are lost with burned out whites or detailess blacks.  Because you can always play with the exposure and contrast in post, but you can't recover that information once it's gone.  Therefore, when setting up the render, I always work with the same mentality, lightning the blacks and keeping the whites from clipping in emulation of a RAW, then zap up the contrast and exposure levels in post where I have complete control and can see exactly what's happening instantly.  Photoshop/Gimp/theImage Processing Software of you choice is your best friend.

I was a professional photographer, and went to university where we used only film.  I was also a union grip (I gripped lights on the lighting team) on feature films and TV series and movies.  None of that experience informs my choice of lighting products in DAZ Studio.

 

Cybersox

Fauvist said:

Cybersox said:

Best way I've found is to forget to wear sunscreen. *ba-da-dum!*  

But seriously...

Technically, the sun mode is going to be closer to realistic than any HDRI simply because it's a single directional light source like the sun.  BUT... and this is a huge but... that's not going to be how most people's eyes perceive it, because what we THINK looks like really strong sun in a real photo is basically something that doesn't match what our eyes actually see... For one thing, sunlight is actually bluish, but our brains warm the colors up when something is too blue (and cool off the colors when they're too red.)  Likewise something has to be insanely bright (like a direct reflection of the sun off a metallic or glassy surface) for the intensity of to overload your eyes, but film and video have far less exposure lattitude than your eye/brain combo, plus unless you have only one eye you see in stereo and the two slightly different POVs tend to fill each other in.  As a result, photographers have developed a set of standardized cheats over the years to make an optimized compromise that's pleasing but not completely realistic, yet everyone accepts that that "is" how it looks, just like people accept that turning down the exposure and adding a blue-cast is what something looks like at night, when it really doesn't look like that at all.   

For example, in the case of almost any professional shot of a girl on a brightly lit beach. the odds are 95% or greater that what you see isn't going to be just the result of the direct light, as while our eyes have no problems seeing all the detail in the shadows and the bright areas at the same time (well, unless you're looking directly at the sun), even the best film and video camera shot photos will have either the highlights will be blown out or the shadows jet black, or both.  So to get around that, the photographer will either be filling in the light with a set of reflectors or additional light sources like a flash, or filtering the raw daylight with a semi-transparent material like a scrim, to balance the levels of the two.... or just waiting for a cloud to cover the sun so the shot can be taken in the far more aesthetically pleasing lower contrast light that results.  That's also the mentality behind the the RAW modes that most high end cameras have these day, where the goal is to make the image that the camera takes as neutral as possible, bringing the exposure down on the bright end and lightening up the darks so that none of the details are are lost with burned out whites or detailess blacks.  Because you can always play with the exposure and contrast in post, but you can't recover that information once it's gone.  Therefore, when setting up the render, I always work with the same mentality, lightning the blacks and keeping the whites from clipping in emulation of a RAW, then zap up the contrast and exposure levels in post where I have complete control and can see exactly what's happening instantly.  Photoshop/Gimp/theImage Processing Software of you choice is your best friend.

I was a professional photographer, and went to university where we used only film.  I was also a union grip (I gripped lights on the lighting team) on feature films and TV series and movies.  None of that experience informs my choice of lighting products in DAZ Studio.  I swear daylight looked pink to me in Hollywood. "Hollywood is a state of mind" comes from the unreality of the air quality - it's hypnotic.

 

We're in similar situations.  I've been working in film and video since my teens and have worked continuously as a full time pro for the last 35 years, so I totally get your perspective.  And yes, the way that Hollywood presents reality has far less to do with making something look "real" as it does with hiding the age lines on an actors faces, making cheap sets look passably believable, and, unfortunately, delivering whatever twisted vision the latest hot director has in his head no matter how patently ridiculous it is (what, you want the hero to swing from a helicopter while holding a jeep 200 feet above ground?  Sure!  You want to make it look like 5' 7" 60 year old Tom Cruise has a realistic chance of holding his own in a fight with 6' 1" 40 year old Henry Cavil?  Of course we can do that! (snicker)  Build an entire 747 set that splits in half so you can get this one great camera shot that you have in mind but will cut in editing?  Whatever you want sir!  What's another half-million dollars after all?)  And yet, for many people, the Hollywood version is the version that is fixed in their minds, and they're often shocked when they finally see something "for real" for the first time and it doesn't match their expectations. 

Which is why I noted that while, technically, the sun mode is going to produce a far more realistic intense sun effect as it's a single lightsource like the sun actually is, an HDRI is more likely to create something that's aesthetically pleasing to most viewers, rules of optics and physics be damned. :)  To me, it usually boils down to exposure and contrast, and I find an image looks more real if I imagine what a photographer would have to do to get a decent image under the conditions that would exist in real life, then set up the render so I can "solve" those issues the same way.      

Linwelly

I would work with the sun only mode, set to midday choose the right location , and then play around with the SS multiplier (standart is on 0.1) and get it up to 1 or somewhere in between

if you go for 1 you can then set the f/stop in the tone mapping to 16 and dial burn highlights crush blacks

alternative route (and this works better with the fStop on 8 because with 16 it's hard to find a setting that doesn't gray out the image) choose the ss multiplyer to something between 0.3 and 0.5 and then use bloom settings, take the Bloom filter threshold up to 9000 or higher, the filter radius and brightness scale are then dials to play around with until you like the result.

this sounds a bit contra the no air pollition thing because the bloom happens more with more particles in the air but our sense do like the bloom as indicator for a lot of sun

 

Sven Dullah

The closest example from the film industry would probably be some of the 70's westerns, where the contrast is mercyless and the picture is razorsharp;) Gotta love the analogue stuff

When it comes to air pollution in DS.....you lost me here, are we talking about the background being totally without haze blur etc. or are we talking about particles in the non-existant DS air, that actually scatter light somehow?

oddbob

I use the iray geolocator product in the store as a shortcut to setting up sun only mode renders. Pick a location from the interactive map and a year that fits. Pick a time. Iray preview on, adjust settings in the render tab to suit and click through the hours and minutes in the geolactor tab to put the sun where I want. Sometimes I amuse myself by clicking quickly through the hours to watch the light change across the scene. I'm fairly easy to amuse.

NylonGirl

Sven Dullah said:

NylonGirl said:

The Flower Road HDRI is super intense.I

https://polyhaven.com/a/flower_road

Quite a task to render dark skin with that amount of contrast, nicely done;) I tend to avoid those with insane EV values, basically what the OP is wanting, because I find the high dynamic range being hard to handle. 

I did find this HDRI to be a bit bright for almost everything else. But that particular character was so dark it was hard to light with anything else. So I figured that character and that HDRI might be perfect for each other. 

kyoto kid

...I simply use the Sun Sky with the Sun Chain to position the sun where I need it to avoid all the "real world" calculations..  When I need cloud details, I use Denki Gaka's IBL Skies or Kindred Arts Iray Sky Pro (the latter which works with the Sun/Sky setting). 

I also have Cloudscape creator which unfortunately is fairly resource intensive for my system even without the volumetric expansions.. .