Just in time for Halloween and the arrival of the Great Pumpkin, we’ve uploaded some moody backgrounds people can use for their Poser and Daz|Studio renders. Each image also comes with depth maps, and we’ve added a tutorial on using depth maps with Photoshop for compositing on this page.
Click on the image to the left to start your download.
Poser has been used primarily to generate still images rather than animations. A lot of Poser users are able to produce absolutely outstanding still images that can, and have been, used as illustrations in books, magazines, and other media.
One of the techniques that has been used by Poser artists is compositing images in Photoshop. By combining still images of different elements such as backgrounds, characters, and special effects, the artists are able to create a combined or composited image that goes far beyond what could be done in camera in Poser. This tutorial describes a technique for compositing still images generated by E-on software’s Vue. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to insert a character into a Vue scene and have them blend seamlessly, even to the point of having their feet nestled in the grass.
We are going to use depth maps in order to cut out the sections of the foreground that will appear in front of the character we want to insert. A depth map is simply a grayscale map that colors objects black closest to the camera and white furthest from the camera. Using this information we can insert a character as deep into the image as we want, and ensure that elements in the image that are closer to the camera to the character will appear in front of the character in the final still.
We have uploaded a set of still images and their corresponding depth maps into our downloads section, and you can use these to work your way through the tutorial.