I want to use BB's Environment Sphere to provide background and save memory.  Has anyone used this prop in Carrara?  If so, any tips on usage, changing mat file in the attached shader, lighting, etc?

Thanks for any input.

Klebnor

Can you point a link to this product??

GK,

It's not a product, it's a freebie created by Bagginsbill, and it's on his freebies site.  It was made for Poser, and it's apparently a globe with a diameter of 750 ft on which a equirectangular photo can be superimposed so that a camera at the origin can rotate in all directions and record the background.  It seems an excellent way to provide a backdrop for rendering.  I'm just not sure it works in Carrara.

I intend to test it tonight, but was hoping someone else had tried it.

The link is at:

sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff

Klebnor

Within the carrara content is a space nebula object that is just like you describe, it is a sphere. Your scene goes inside it. I have changed the texture to other scenes and it worked fine. The light has to be inside the sphere, other than that, all the rules are the same as any other render. It would help if the texture mapped to the sphere were seamless...
So... I imagine this freebie would work well also.

I would suspect that if you disable recieves and casts shadows on the nebula sphere, and make a copy of the image texture into the glow channel (not forgetting to adjust brightness), you shouldn't have to worry about the light sources fitting within the sphere. Just some 2¢ worth.

Thanks, all.

I tried bagginsbill's sphere and had to do some modification, but it works well.

I first scaled it down physically as it was huge and would take a huge image to get any detail at all on the texture map.  I made it a 700' diameter sphere.

Next I had to resize the equirectangular photos I had collected from flickr to get a good background image.

I put the sphere at origin, and put a bulb at origin, lighting only the shere.  I used a distant bulb oriented as the sun is in the image.  I didn't use a sun light, as I don't want to load a sky in my scene - the sky is on the sphere.

I then put a terrain through the sphere, replicated trees on the terrain and put a building at the origin.  I can pan all around and through the building and the background constantly changes, but stays realistic in detail and orientation.

Pretty cool.

Klebnor

Have you simply tried putting the Camera and light inside a big sphere?(The Sphere Primitive!).

Brian

@klebnor: How about a render so we can all see before we decide to download?

@bwtr: Brian it may be my eyes are playing tricks on me (they are not as good as they used to be) but it looks like the shadows are not consistent in your last shot. The flowers in the foreground in particular. For reference assume directly out of the screen is south, flowers on right appear to cast shadows to southeast, flowers in center more south, flowers to the left to southwest. Is your light  above and behind the flower bed?

Inst more easy to use the image in the Background feature of Carrara?? It can use any image format, not only HDRI images and will do the same trick...

GK:

If the background feature properly uses an equirectangular image, then this would be great.  In my experience with this function, it only places a flat image file behind the render selection.  I can't even pan around the image (unless there's something I don't know).

The envirosphere allows one to pan around while providing an undistorted background through 360 degrees.  I am unable to reproduce this with background.

Brian - I tried playing with a sphere primitive - but couldn't resize.  Can you make this primitive large enough so that the interior is useful, say 1000 ft in diameter?  Also, did you use a spherical or equirectangular image - the first render appears distorted.  Is this image incorporated in a shader which you applied to the sphere?  If so, did you put it in the color channel?

I will post some screen shots as soon as I can.  I am looking for very large images (2 to 10 MB) as the smaller files don't render well due to lack of detail.

Thanks all, I'm still trying to make this work to my satisfaction.

Klebnor

Quote - If the background feature properly uses an equirectangular image, then this would be great.  In my experience with this function, it only places a flat image file behind the render selection.  I can't even pan around the image (unless there's something I don't know).

That sounds more like backdrop than background... When I put an equirectangular image into a background, I can pan around it without any problem. If you change the zoom of your camera lens, you'll see different amounts of the background, too.

Sorry captain! I always invert those two features....

GK - Not you, it was I who confused the two.

Captain - that sound's great.  Are you saying that if I use background and simply open an equirectangular image, it will work as if I were in the center of a sphere?  If so, how does one adjust lighting of the background?

Does this work for stereographic images?

Klebnor

This is what Carrara do for HDRI and any image in that Scene tab.

Quote - Captain - that sound's great.  Are you saying that if I use background and simply open an equirectangular image, it will work as if I were in the center of a sphere?  If so, how does one adjust lighting of the background?

It does indeed. I do find that a lot of equirectangular images in the background seem to be too close to the scene, so I often have to adjust the zoom on the camera before I starting bringing in objects.

As far as I know, you can't adjust the lighting of the background, except by gamma correcting the whole image. On the other hand, you can use the background image to light your scene, by turning on the "Sky Light" GI function (which is slow, but gives really accurate lighting, especially if your image is HDR).

Quote - Does this work for stereographic images?

Hmmm... I really don't know about that one. Couldn't hurt to try it, though.

I have a related question for the Carrara experts.  If I create a large scene (terrain / trees / sky) that I like, is there any way to render it as an equirectangular render?  I am looking for a one shot, Carrara only solution (not doing multiple renders and stitching them together).

Klebnor

Captain Jack:

Thanks for the input.  I have seen your posts for some time, but it never clicked that you are a Hoosier!

My frau is originally from New Palestine (which is not in the middle east - although I would assume you know that).  She followed me to Europe, as well as Atlanta and San Francisco.  We currently live in New England, but she is always pushing for a return to the flat land of her birth.  She claims I will enjoy watching corn grow and listening to Chevy's rust.  I am less certain, but will likely give in to the inevitable some day.

All the best,

Klebnor

Cool! My girlfriend lives in Greenfield (where I will live also, in about a month) and we drive through New Palestine all the time. Well, we do when she's driving; I consider highway 52 more of a "back road" and prefer to travel I-70, but to each his own.

There's lots of stuff to do here besides watch corn grow, too. You can watch the soybeans grow, for example.

My wife tells me I was insulting - believe me it was not intended so.  It's a bit difficult to parse out some word plays when not navigating one's mother tongue.  My wife's family is in Greenfield - I've been there several times to a famous hog roast (I think it's actually in Gem - but I wouldn't expect most people would know that, it's really just a sub-division).  I do also like the famous pork tenderloin sandwich - a specialty I haven't seen many other places.

Alles gute!

To others watching this, I have tried the primitive as suggested by Brian, and it does indeed work.  One defect is that the image is not viewable in the preview as it is with BB's envirosphere.  I am still playing with it and, for good definition, a high resolution image is needed (4MB+).  With a smaller file, say 1 MB, one can get an acceptable result (it looks like depth of field has been used).

Klebnor

Quote - My wife tells me I was insulting - believe me it was not intended so.  It's a bit difficult to parse out some word plays when not navigating one's mother tongue.  My wife's family is in Greenfield - I've been there several times to a famous hog roast (I think it's actually in Gem - but I wouldn't expect most people would know that, it's really just a sub-division).  I do also like the famous pork tenderloin sandwich - a specialty I haven't seen many other places.

No worries, I wasn't insulted, I thought it was funny. 

Just to bring the circle of coincidence full circle, my girlfriend worked in Germany for a few years, in Würzburg. She was a civilian contractor for the US army. She loved traveling all over Europe. Not sure what her favorite food was, though.

:biggrin:

PurplePanther
I did not keep the file--I was just trying to example that so much can be done with Carrara if you apply a bit of 3 dimensional or lateral thinking!
(I think the light was just above and forward of the camera)

Brian