How do I use a picture as a background I've tried it a couple of times and the results don't look good, either it doesn't render properly, picture turns out all black or the size/resolution is off. What's the correct way of going about this? I am using Poser pro 2012

Thanks

I could be wrong but I think you have to attach the pic to a plane...

hmm!! I did try that but it looked awful could have been something to do with size of the plane v the size of the picture, I presume they have to be the same, I'm not sure which is worse trying to get a model into photoshop looking good or trying to get a background picture into poser LOL!!

I'm sure one of the pros will be able to help you more. Did you try and shrink the photo to fit the plane then enlarge to fit background scene? I'm a noob with Poser but these are things I have attempted myself..

Will be watching for a reply from someone who knows what they are talking about LOL.

If you want simple: the background and the render must be the same size.

If you want a little more complicated:

It has been my experience that it is not about size, it is about aspect ratio. As an example, I will use standard HD (1920x1080).

To ensure that everything looks okay the render and the background picture has to be the same aspect ratio. All of the following are the same ratio:

1920x1080

1024x576

500x281

You can use a 1920x1080 background in a 500x576 render. Or you can use a 500x600 background on a 1920x1080 render.

Any time your background image is smaller than your render, the background will be blurry.

And you will hear this from everyone, use a plane if you can.

And if you cannot get the aspect ratio the same, then you must use a rectangle.

Make a one-sided square with your image attached. Set the x and y scale of that square to the size of the image. For example, if the image is 735 by 400, make your x scale 735 and your y scale 400. Now it has the exact same aspect ratio.

From there use Scale to resize the whole image. Position it behind your subject. Since the aspect ratios do not match you will want to make the square larger so some of it is cut off - this is inescapable when using different aspect ratios. But at least you get to choose which part to keep.

As for clarity, texture filtering will cause problems if you don't deal with it. Today, P9/PP2012 have a new settings called "Crisp", but when you don't have that, use "None".

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3614718

Oh - there is also the Auto_Fit option on the Image_Map node holding your background image. That has something to do with adjusting aspect ratio automatically when using the Poser "Background" object.

Still, personally I prefer to use the scaled one-sided square as I get to decide everything myself according to my desires and not some generic math formula.

Might as well put in a link to the last subject on a background - avoiding shadows falling on it.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3859066

There you go BB. And here is one more step.

I have not used a background image in a render in years.  I use photoshop. The process is fairly simple.

Always render your scene over black.

Save the image as a png file. This will create an image that is transparent everywhere the background image will be visible. Load the png file into Photoshop (or other program that uses layers) and drop it onto your background.

There was a problem with backgrounds in the old day that may or may not exist today. I have not used one in a long time. It used to be that Poser did something that drove me crazy:

Let’s say I want to render an image at 2000x3000 and I have a background image that is 2000x3000. My old problem was that the largest window I could use in Poser (and have it fit on my screen) was 400x600. You will notice that the aspect ratio is correct. I would then load the 2000x3000 image as a background and render to 2000x3000. What drove me crazy was that the background would come out blurry because Poser used the 400x600 background it created from the 2000x3000 image so I could see it on my screen. It did not use the original background image.

There is still one occasion where I will render over a background image and that is when there is something semi-transparent (curtains, clothing, etc.) that you can sort of see the background through. I render over the background and save as a png file. The png will be transparent where there was nothing in the scene but the semi-transparent areas keep the background in them. Since they are not fully transparent, it does not matter if they are blurry. When I drop the png onto the background in photoshop, it looks perfect.