My 3D CG Tips and How-Tos 6
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Generating Equirectangular HDRs in Blender3D for use with Poser software
I created a Microsoft Sway presentation to show how I did this. I also made a Youtube video for easy reference.
I FORGET TO MENTION in the video...
that under render settings, if you use Branched Path Tracing, you can choose to denoise as well. I recommend that.
Using Poser Morphing Ball Prop and HDRI equirectangular image
For background and illumination
So I figured out this is the best setting for me to illuminate my Poser 12 scene as well as to get an immersive background environment. See my screen capture below for the details. (I am using a third-party 360 HDRI image). There is no light in this scene. The illumination comes from the HDRI.
Note: If the HDR file is clipped, it means it won't serve well as an illuminating source. You will have to check your HDR files and fix them - that involves very technical knowledge and is not within my scope of experties to advise. I only know that clipped HDRIs don't illuminate scenes properly.
There is a non-technical fix to fake an unclipped HDRI - see https://sites.google.com/view/grumpyoldfartssite/my-3d-cg-experiments/my-cg-experiments-5#h.wm6l4iy44lyi for my discussion of SlickSHWart's method.
How To Rotate The Background Node Image
I have a thread at Renderosity Forums showing how this may be done in the Material Room with a node tree. I also show how I used the Intel Denoiser to work with my fast render times on an older hardware rig. Intel Denoiser is an Artificial Intelligence-trained utility now available in Poser 12.
https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2961159
I show the node setup
I also show my render results using a low-resolution render setting (faster render time) coupled with Intel Denoiser.
Fast low-resolution render using SuperFly.
Intel Denoiser applied to fast render. Intel Denoiser is available in Poser 12.
All illumination comes from the Background Node. There are no lights in this scene.
PBR Dragon Scales in Poser 12
I used the PBR Dragon Scale texture set provided by Joao Paolo.
Here's my Shader solution applied to the Daz3D Eastern Dragon in Poser 12 Material Room. (Scales only ! I have not created the material shaders for the rest of the figure).
A statement on dynamic simulations and cloth realism
06 July 2021
Now I am not dissing any product or technique which produces realistic dynamic simulations of cloth or fabric within a 3D scene. I will say this. I sacrifice realism when the layered clothing are failing simulations. I play with the many parameters of each clothing layer to get the best dynamic simulation result, which not necessarily means the most realistic result. The truth is that 3D clothing is not and never will be identical to that in the real world.
You may also be interested in this:
How I adjusted the default Genesis 8 Female shaders to produce an East Asian skin tone (Link to another page on this website).
My notes on using the commercial asset dForce Necklace by Mada.
2021 September 08
For the dForce Necklace, under Parameters:
Make sure Show Hidden Parameters is enabled.
Switch Mesh Resolution to Base level.
Switch Enable Smoothing to Off.
Set Smoothing Type to Base Shape Matching.
In the Simulation Settings Tab, use the Default settings.
Creating 360 HDRIs using rendered images
with Daz Studio Pro and GIMP with Exposure Blend plugin
2021 September 18
In case anyone wants to make 360 EXR or HDR images for using with the Render Dome in Daz Studio Pro:
I was using large background geometries for a particular scene. The actual geometries of the background made it very difficult for me to scope the camera shot for my render. I decided to create my own 360 image of just the background alone and dispense with the background geometries.
To do this, I started a fresh scene with only the background geometries in it. I adjusted the emission values of the light sources in the scene via Surfaces Emission Node.
I used the spherical camera lense of the camera, and positioned this camera with translation values (0,180,0) and rotational values (0,0,0). I use the 180 Y value because that is the average eye level for a figure in the scene. You may of course change that to suit a shorter or taller human figure.
I used the lowest ISO (default).
I used Exposure Value (EV) = 11 for this scene. Then, I also rendered two more images, one with EV = 12 (the +1 or "darker" value) and the other with EV = 10 (the -1 or "brighter" value).
I took the images into GIMP software with the Exposure Blend plugin installed. I processed the 3 images with Blend Exposure, then exported as EXR format (to be safe, I also exported as HDR format). I used the image in the Render Settings Dome of my new scene with only my human figure, thus dispensing with the heavy geometries of the background.
The background is purely a 360 HDRI image plugged into the image node of the Render Dome.
Rendering an equirectangular image using the Spherical lense.
Heavy background geometries make it difficult to control the camera setting
