I was going to bring my Poser figures into Bryce, but then I remembered Runtime DNA's freebie infinity cove and thought I would experiment with using it for my picture, since Poser does a MUCH nicer job with skin and hair than Bryce does. That and my Bryce image as it is will already take several days to render without bringing in TWO Poser figures. =D

I have some questions though. If my Bryce image is a given dimension, is there an easy way to translate that to the size of the infinity cove? Right now my test background image looks a bit squished, and I want it to be NOT squished. =) Before I start randomly changing the scale dials I was wondering if there is an easy way to calculate the "size"/aspect ratio of the infinity cove.

Second, I was wondering about lighting. I don't want my Poser figures to look pasted in, and I DEFINITELY don't want the scene lighting to affect the complex background picture's lighting. Colored lights seem to mess it up. What color should I be using for lights?

Third, what camera FOV should I be using? 120 seems to look ok (not squished at the top) but I figured I would ask the experts. =)

Thanks, and sorry for the long post.

Ive only barely experimented with the Cove, so Ill tell you what I know thus far. In default, it works best with imported images that are square -- I think the ones that came with it were 2800 x 2800. Render the Bryce scene with the horizon just below the centre point; the default setting of 60/100 works fine for the Bryce camera. Insofar as lights... wow. Case by case basis, thats the best I can recommend. If you have colored lights in the Bryce and want to mimic that in Poser, Id focus them very tightly so they hit, as much as possible, only the Poser figure. Give the cove an overall illumination at the same time to bring it out. I would imagine that some of the lighting presets that were developed for nerds backdrop would work here as well. If you have the ones PW did for his prop, Id suggest trying them out on the cove. Id bet theyll work just fine.

Thanks for the information. As an experiment, I tried going the OPPOSITE way also. I rendered my poser couple using global/ambient lighting, saved to TIFF, and applied it to a PICT object in Bryce. All I can say is, wow. It would require some postwork, and the default material settings are not good (have to fix ambience and diffusion) but overall the effect is pretty impressive. I was suprised to see that the scene lighting affects the 2D face in a relatively believable way. As an experiment I am going to do this picture BOTH ways - with the infinity cove and with the 2D pict in Bryce.

I'm looking forward to see them both!! :)) Britt

I'd love to see the test-renders!