I was wondering if anyone has some advice on how to make the environment for my scenes? I am using poser 8 and would rather not pay for the vue program right now to make the environment. But the biggest problem I would like solved is the issue of the horizon. I know I could use the worldball type prop, but I am looking for something a little different.

 Hi

You never use envsphere with equirectangular picture ? You can found thousands environment here  https://www.flickr.com/groups/equirectangular/pool/

When you say you're looking for something "a little different', I think you need to be more specific. How different?

Most of us an environment sphere with equirectangular images, as noted. Over at Daz, Flipmode has made a Skybox that is itself rectangular, but functions like a sphere.

Or are you talking about the terrain -- the thing people actually stand on?

Edit: Or are you talking about using actual PROPS to simulate a horizon, such as hills and mountains?

If it's the last one, there are some potential pitfalls, as the scaling will be off. For example, I once made a very lovely scene with gorgeous, realistic looking mountains on the horizon. It looked great. Until I put some buildings in and rendered, and realized that my buildings were casting shadows on my mountains. LOLOL.

Hence the environment sphere, because you avoid such issues.

 Look beyond Vue.

Bryce takes work to integrate into Poser, but it  works well, when it works.

Alternatively you can spend weeks sifting through a ton of free models at Turbosquid or here, then trying to make them work. 

     I have some modeled terrain enviros with wall/dome enclosures.  Some are posted in the freebies here here (Galadriel's mirror, Eldar house, Tink's Cafe')  The updated version of Lothlorien isn't released yet - it's massive.

Terradome @ RDNA if you are looking at meshed terrain/environment.

When you say you're looking for something "a little different', I think you need to be more specific. How different?

Most of us an environment sphere with equirectangular images, as noted. Over at Daz, Flipmode has made a Skybox that is itself rectangular, but functions like a sphere.

Or are you talking about the terrain -- the thing people actually stand on?

Edit: Or are you talking about using actual PROPS to simulate a horizon, such as hills and mountains?

If it's the last one, there are some potential pitfalls, as the scaling will be off. For example, I once made a very lovely scene with gorgeous, realistic looking mountains on the horizon. It looked great. Until I put some buildings in and rendered, and realized that my buildings were casting shadows on my mountains. LOLOL.

Hence the environment sphere, because you avoid such issues.

Well, to be honest I am able to make the spot the figure stands on. But I am not quite sure how to get it to fade into the background in a way that makes it look natural.

Do you mean using Depth of Field?

 Hi

 

You never use envsphere with equirectangular picture ? You can found thousands environment here  https://www.flickr.com/groups/equirectangular/pool/

This is actually what I needed. But the photos at the flickr link you gave are too small it seems. They end up all pixilated on the render. I tried the hdr image in the instructions on how to use the env sphere and it came out great (you know the whole lake scene). But if I need to get other equirectangular pictures, what size should they be? Also, am I missing something about how to find good images on flicker for it?

For free, the highest rez images you can get are to be found at the sIBL site:

http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html

Dosch has a bunch of high quality sets but they aren't cheap:

http://www.doschdesign.com/products/hdri

You can also try searching for 'hdri' in google image search.

     I often use a ground plane prop which fades to transparent at the outer edges,  would something like that be what you had in mind?

When I create large environments inside of Poser I use the Focal settings of the camera to create the illusion of distance and pull the camera back to increase the width of the scene.   Here's an example that shows this method on making it appear as if someone is high up looking down.  If I wanted to make the city look vast then I would point the camera towards the horizon instead of the ground.   The posing camera or the dolly camera should be used to create this effect.  The main camera produces a flat look and you can't adjust the Focal settings.   You can combine this technique along with the focal distance to help determine what parts of your environment you want your viewer to focus on. This method will probably work best with some sort of environment dome.

When you say you're looking for something "a little different', I think you need to be more specific. How different?

Most of us an environment sphere with equirectangular images, as noted. Over at Daz, Flipmode has made a Skybox that is itself rectangular, but functions like a sphere.

Or are you talking about the terrain -- the thing people actually stand on?

Edit: Or are you talking about using actual PROPS to simulate a horizon, such as hills and mountains?

If it's the last one, there are some potential pitfalls, as the scaling will be off. For example, I once made a very lovely scene with gorgeous, realistic looking mountains on the horizon. It looked great. Until I put some buildings in and rendered, and realized that my buildings were casting shadows on my mountains. LOLOL.

Hence the environment sphere, because you avoid such issues.

Well, to be honest I am able to make the spot the figure stands on. But I am not quite sure how to get it to fade into the background in a way that makes it look natural.

Ah, yeah. You need a terrain that is big enough to reach the edge of your sphere (or look like it does), and textures for the terrain that match the image on the sphere very well. The first isn't too hard; the second is the real challenge. And it's why whenever a vendor offers a matching set that looks good to me, I'll buy it. Other than that, you can cheat by completely obscuring the "horizon" with objects like buildings, rocks, trees, etc.

Try turning on the depth cue.  Also try adding atmosphere.  Even light fog or smoke can help soften the distance.

Depth cue renders fast. No good for God rays, but for fading the background, I agree with icprncss2. The trick, I think, to the depth cue is to moderate its intensity. For me, the longer the distance between the start and end point, the thinner the density. So if I start with a distance of 5m and end with 350m, it's much more subtle than if I start with 5m and end with 20m.

Another possibility is to add a water plane -- with a good BB water shader -- to meet the horizon line. It's frequently very convincing. You can usually justify a little strip of water in the distance in almost any landscape. :)