Hi everyone - forgive me if I'm starting this thread in the wrong forum, but I wasn't sure where to put it.
I've got a question or two about cyclorama, please;

1. I see a lot of add ons for cyclorama, and they sound good but, is cyclorama really a good way to go when trying to place your characters in a given environment? I guess what I'm really asking is...is cyclorama worth buying? I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound cynical, but I'm really tired of struggling with perspective, and backgrounds for my Poser people/props... many times after a lot of work, the result is unsatisfying. I'm at a place where I might be able to afford buying Cyclorama, but I want to make sure it's worth it before I buy

2. Also... Cyclorama is available at Daz, correct? I've been looking around there, and came upon this link  http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=651&_m=d      is that the right one? It looks like it's a set of accessories, but not Cyclorama itself - or am I wrong?

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Steve

Yep, this is the right place to ask.

Planes such as Cyclorama are a great way to incorporate ground and background into an image.  The link that you posted is the correct one.

There is also something called "Infinity Cove" available at RDNA.  Many prefer that to Cyclorama. They basically both work on the same principle.

www.runtimedna.com/mod/bcs/index.php

www.runtimedna.com/mod/bcs/index.php

The principle behind both is that an image is mapped for the cyclorama or infinity cove background and applied to it as a texture just like you would apply any texture to anything.

There are several addon texture/scenes for each one.

I think cyclorama is cheaper if you are a member of the PC club at Daz, so you might want to go for that one and try it out first.

Okay, well I checked them both out and the one at Runtime DNA is actually cheaper, but the one at Daz says it's only $14.95... that's not too bad.
But I've seen a lot of add-ons for Cyclorama here in the freebies section, and they look really good. If I was to get Cyclorama, would the results be worth it? Will it really make my characters look as if they're standing in that environment? And is it overly difficult to use? Sorry - I know I'm asking a lot of questions -

Here is an image I did using Cyclorama

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1310372

I personally thing the results are worth it.

However if you buy the cyclorama from Daz and don't like the results, you can get a refund within 30 days of purchasing it.

I think I used Infinity Cove for this one:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1184296

Here are some other examples:

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

To each his own, but I've shown several times how to integrate your figure with any photo, using only the Poser ground plane, my shadow catcher material for it (free), a Poser one-sided square, and a photo of your choice.

There's no reason to use a cyclorama just because you want the figure to touch the "ground" in the background image. If you want it because its "easy" and you like the images that are out there for it, then by all means.

But if you want to use real photos or rendered backdrops not designed for cyclorama, you can't use cyclorama.

If you don't mind mild nudity, here are two images by me showing the integration of the figure with a background photo, using a one-sided square.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1168926

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1168275

The shadows of the figure match the shadows of the photo, and are projected in the right direction. This creates the illusion of being "on the floor" when in fact there was no floor at all. Cyclorama gives you a floor with a matching picture on it. You don't need that.

Here's another. I took the beach photo myself, then composited V4 into the image within Poser, generating a matching shadow.

Quote - To each his own, but I've shown several times how to integrate your figure with any photo, using only the Poser ground plane, my shadow catcher material for it (free), a Poser one-sided square, and a photo of your choice.

There's no reason to use a cyclorama just because you want the figure to touch the "ground" in the background image. If you want it because its "easy" and you like the images that are out there for it, then by all means.

But if you want to use real photos or rendered backdrops not designed for cyclorama, you can't use cyclorama.

Hmmm, I didn't know you had a shadow catcher material for the ground.  Can you post the link?

Hmmmmm..... Acadia, yours look incredible! I really like the way they turned out!

But Bagginsbill, you've intrigued me. I'm gonna check out your shadow catcher material (free is always a good price!). And you said you've shown how to integrate a figure  with a photo... is that somewhere in the tutorials section?
It's late, so I'm off to bed, but I'll check all this out in the morning. Thanks so much for the help.... yet again another example of just why I love these forums!

Cyclorama won't get you this :)

Acadia,

You were in a thread that leads to the shadow catcher.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3182737

arrowhead42 - read that - you'll find it relevent and interesting

My custom shadow catcher is in this thread.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2714444

For really basic shadow catching, it is built into Poser's material room. For advanced subtle shadow tone matching, you must use my shadow catcher. Look at the demos and instructions in that thread. Other people tried it and found it matches the photos shadows first time, so its very useable. Do not be intimidated. Quality realism work doesn't come from spending $15 and slapping some half-assed cartoonish background onto a cyclorama. Well, unless you're trying to do cartoony. :-)

I remember the first thread, but I didn't see the second one. Thank you :)  I also put it in the bookmarks thread.

I still have to get some time to sit down and get those links onto your site.  Hopefully this weekend.

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1705085&member

Ok, well reading thru all these forum posts, my head is spinning! Geez I feel stupid, but I just want to make sure I have this concept right. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, here are the steps I take:

1. Open a Poser scene with whatever characters and props I want.
2. Select a background picture. Insert a one-sided square into my scene, and set it's X, Y scales to match that of the width, height of the background image. Create a new image map node and attach it to the alternate_diffuse node (diffuse value=0, specular value=0)
3. Rotate and move the one-sided square prop to where I want it. Resize it if I desire, using the "scale" dial so it maintains aspect ratio
   This is where the whole thing gets confusing for me...
4. Insert a hi-res square prop to act as the "ground" for the scene.
5. Using different settings in the material room, as well as lighting, this prop will  be transparent, except for the shadow. And if I've got the settings right, the shadow will appear to be part of the background picture, making the characters/props look as if they're actually in it.

Have I got it right? Originally, I was thinking that the shadow catcher was some kind of miracle prop, but in reality, it's just a series of settings in the materials room, right?
I've been reading thru all the different posts about it, and I think my skull's going to pop! But I want to get this right. If so, I feel like it'll open a whole new world of possibilities for me. If I'm completely out to lunch on any of this, please let me know. Thanks -

You've got it right.

This is a hard concept in some ways.

The shadow catching prop is a device that will selectively darken the photo. That is accomplished by positioning the prop to be a stand-in for something that is seen in the photograph, such as a floor, or stairs.

Because the floor is already visible in the photo, we don't need or want to render the floor, so the prop is usually invisible. But, when a shadow falls on the the prop from our 3-D objects, that means there is a section of the photo that would have been darker if the object casting the shadow had been in the photo in the first place.

So my shadow catcher material needs to know how to change the color of the photo. That's why you teach it through calibration, what color is lit, and what color is in shadow. It then applies some complicated math to whatever you see through the shadow catcher prop, that will accomplish precisely that color shift.

In order for this to work, the stand-in prop must be positioned correctly between the camera and the photo. That is the hard part - choosing the right perspective.

By the way, the prop does not need to be a hi-res square. Occasionally there are strange issues with that prop. I use the one-sided square for all my rectangular needs now.

Wow! Where has this tool been all my Poser life?!?!? It's incredible! Below is a test render of a project I'm working on, using the shadow catcher.

Granted, it's just a first effort and needs a lot of improvement, but it's far better than anything I've ever done before. And to think that before, I was using Paint Shop Pro to add shadows in postwork. The results were ok, but nothing to shout about (see below, taken from my Renderosity gallery)

Shadow cathcher is the way to go - I'm not gonna pretend to even understand everything going on in the material room when I add the shadow catcher material to my ground plane, Bagginsbill, but.... thank you!!

See, I told you it was easy. Just do it!

You'll love my new freebie - environment spheres. Cyclorama is lame compared to these.

With environment spheres, you surround the whole scene with a photo - creating a virtual environment.

There are tons of uses - the most important thing is you get nice reflections from the world in all directions.

Here is one, un re-touched. This is just a few clicks in Poser.

Here is the same sky photo, but with added drama. This is done in the shader, not pre or post work.

Original photo - no shader work.

Click these for full size.

This whole thing is just incredible! Thank God for people like you that know how to create this kind of thing - it makes it so that a knucklehead like me can create realistic looking art. I'm in awe of this!

That is truly amazing BB!
Here is something i would definitely use! ^^

Help!!! Argh! Bagginsbill, what am I doing wrong? I'm using your shadow catcher material in a scene I'm working on, following your instructions from the other thread, but somethings's terribly wrong.
I have 3 lights in my scene, only one of which I have set to cast a shadow. It's a bright daylight scene, and in the background picture, the sun is directly overhead, so I want the character in my scene to be lit in a similar manner. When I move the light to an overhead position, my character casts no shadow at all. However, when the light is set low, as it would look if the sun was going down, it casts a fine shadow.  I don't get it. I've been messing with the settings for "calibrate black" and "calibrate white" to no avail. Moving the light itself, seems to add or delete the shadow, and it's so frustrating. What am I doing wrong?
I've attached a picture to illustrate it. The only thing different in the scenes is the lighting, which I've circled in red. I've been messing with it for hours - I'm so frustrated I'mabout ready to just give up.

I think you have so much light that the shadow catcher has become too sensitive. It's hard to tell since you shrank the screen shot so much I can't read any numbers.

Moving the light directly overhead means that the angle of incidence goes close to 90 degrees, when the amount of light is at its highest. (Light intensity varies with angle of incidence.)

With tons of light like that, you need to recalibrate the black part. You don't want it to go crazy being oversensitive to light, which is what is happening. It is overwhelming the shadow detector part.

Set Calibrate_WHITE back to 1.

Now try Calibrate_BLACK at .5, .4, .3, until the ground renders gray. Then slowly go back up until it just turns black. For me, with a lot of lights, .5 works.

Then increase Calibrate_WHITE until you get a nice white-on-black shadow detection.

OK, I think I see what you mean about the angle of incidence. After a lot of experimenting, I have calibrate black set at .55, and calibrate white set to 15. Then I set calibrate to 0, like it says to do in the other thread with the instructions. Now when I render, it looks much better, but.... the shadow that shows up is very nearly transparent. I can barely see it, and I've tried changing some of the other settings and shadow/lit colors around with no luck. Ideally I'd like the shadow to be dark, and very sharp, as it's mid-day in the scene, but I can't seem to get it. Any thoughts?
I'm really sorry.... I must be the bigest pain in the neck you've ever come across!

Remember, the settings of lit color and shadow color are supposed to come from your photo. You're supposed to find and area of an existing real shadow, and sample the color outside and inside the shadow. The shader will then reproduce those same colors.

You haven't shown me what you're using, nor an example of a real shadow in the photo, so I'm only guessing here.

Nor have you shown me the calibration image, so I can't tell if you really got black and white or not. If you did not get black and white, in particular if the calibration white isn't white, the shadow strength will never reach its maximum.

Just quickly looking at your previous screen shot, the calibration render of the shadow is clearly not white, but gray.

Sorry about not including pictures before. I tried to put them here, but suddenly the internet site I use to store my pics, and link to them is down. I'm just not having any luck at all here. I'll try again tomorrow.
Oh, and you're right, the previous screenshot did have a gray shadow. But I've changed it since then (to a calibrate white value of 15), and now it's really white now.

You don't need to store pics offsite. Just attach to your post. As long as they are under 200K you can host them right here in the post. I never put pictures offsite in these forums.

You can upload the images right here, no need to host them externely.

If the images are larger in dimension that what Renderosity allows, it's automatically resized for the forum, but if you click on it you can see the full size.

Not sure about the bytes though. I usually try to keep them about 100,000 bytes or less. 

Just use the "Attach a file" below the reply window.  If you have more images, you will have to make anothe reply to add the second image.

Can you show the render with Calibrate=1

 The DAZ Cyclorama is based on an old cinematic stage "trick" which if I understand correctly had an antecedent in stage theater. Cycloramas are defined by their curved background and the inclusion of various other props (or layers) to depict environments with depth. The curved backgrop allows for camera pans in animated sequences without the sort of obvious distortion that would give the game away as obviously if the backdrop were flat. 

This is the major difference between the DAZ Cyclorama and the DNA-style Infinity Cove or similar props. (I may be wrong, but IIRC Nerd introduced the first "infinity" sort of curved backdrop as a freebie many years ago.) The cool thing about the Infinity Cove sorts of props is that the wall-to-floor transition appears seamless, given the right sort of lighting. Same technique used commonly in professional studio photography. 

Because of the obvious advantages of rendering 3D outdoor environments in programs such as Vue into which Poser figures can be imported, that's what I do, so ironically, my main use for the DAZ Cyclorama is as a portrait studio backdrop. Indeed, DAZ' "paper" portrait backgrounds are to this day my favorite to use with the prop ... they make for really nice portraits.

OK It looks like it is calibrated right. This is Poser 5, right? I wonder if there are issues in Poser 5. I never tested it. Oh well we'll see.

Have you tried adjusting the Blending_Factor node? I forget what my instructions were on that. I think a higher Blending_Factor might work.

Have you tried making the Lit_Color and Shadow_Color actually similar to the photo (like the green grass and a darker shade of that)? I notice you have black or nearly black for the shadow - I'm not sure what it does with that. No shadows are pure black and the math I used may have gotten confused by that. That's why you're using those extra lights - to make sure the shadows don't go black, which never happens in daylight outdoors.

You'reright, I do use Poser 5. I haven't tried adjusting the Blending_Factor. I'll give that a try. I'll adjust the shadow/lit colors, too, and let you know what happens.