Pic 164: A Day at the Beach

This is about the other day 2 morning paths: The Beach and the Coral Reef. Both used some interesting rendering techniques. Above is one of the few beach pictures on a new beach set. It's also the set used for the sunset pictures.

 The best way to do beach pictures is with HDRI, which are 360° photos that Daz Studio also uses to properly light the scene. This is the best way to do beach scene photos.

 The problem is, I used background photos in the original version, and used the photos to tell a story (and hide the shells) and wanted to repeat that. What I discovered is that I can do both. I used the HDRI to light the scene, then slipped in the background photo over the HDRI to get the image I wanted.

 Even HDRI generated shadows showed up in the photo backgrounds, something that doesn't exist in the old photos.

The coral reef scene had its own set of difficulties that was a challenge to find solutions to. The mask and snorkel I used originally is literally the only mask and snorkel prop I could find anywhere, and it was designed for the old model. Took a bit of fiddling, but I got it to work... sort of. Just ignore the fact that Ariane's wet hair clips through the mask. The small atoll used in the background is the same one used before. It looks way better in HDRI lighting.

The complex underwater set ended up a bit of a cheat. I re-rendered the coral backgrounds in Poser with an improved lighting scheme, then used them as backgrounds in Daz Studio. Rebuilding them entirely in Daz would have taken a lot of time, and would not be a dramatical improvement, so I didn't bother. 

1.98 coming soon

At this point I'm also done with the Taco stand, the Aviary, and the Casino, which I'll share next week. That just leaves the Sailboat scene to finish the Day 2 pictures. there are 85 Sailboat pictures. Hopefully it won't take me more than a week to do them, and I'll have a beta release for this month to release.

August will be day 3 pictures, some of which I have already done. Any Day 2 scene that was repeated in day 3, I did both at the same time. I'll release a 1.99 to Patreon, and 2.0 will be the final after a full testing, which will go out to everybody, hopefully late August.