What You Need To Create Your Own DAZ Studio Movie Maker Backgrounds

The above render was done inside DAZ Studio 4.6 with the upcoming “Circular Hall” background pack. The cool part is that although it appears that our model is sitting on the floor, she’s actually sitting in an empty scene. Movie Maker for DAZ  Studio 4.6 takes care of the illusion with pre-rendered 360 degree backgrounds. With full shadow, light and color matching it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between a real render, and this “faked” one. However, the difference IS noticable during rendering, since it literally goes in seconds per frame, which is perfect for animation and even still rendering.

More examples of how Movie Maker matches the backgrounds can be seen in this new cool zombie video:

This zombie video was done in only three days, including design, rendering and editing. But how do you go by creating custom ones for your own projects in case you need something special? Here’s some userful pointers:

1. You need a software capable of creating 360 degree renders, such as Carrara, Bryce, Lightwave or similar.

2. If you don’t have such software, it’s possible to render 6 square renders with 90 field of view and then stitch them together using a panorama-stiching software.

3. Next, you need to arrange your scene, add lighting and do the actual panoramic render (or renders) for each of the camera nodes you want to use. Movie Maker (as of now), doesn’t allow camera movement, only rotation, so each render you do is called a “Movie Maker Node”.

3. You don’t need to create 10, 20 or 30 backgrounds, usually found in the Movie Maker packs. It’s actually enough to create just one to meet your needs for a particular project.

4. You can also use any 360 degree panoramic image, which usually have double the width as opposed to the height. For instance 6000 x 3000 pixels.

5. Next, you need to enter some data into a Movie Maker data file so it matches the colors, camera position, lighting and shadows.

6. Finally, simply add all components, including icons in the appropriate folders and viola, you’re ready to render at ultra high speed.

7. NOTE: Be sure to check what rules each online store has. Normally, when you buy a prop and do a render, you own that render and can sell it. But some stores have special rules regarding that, and you need to check that if you do any backgrounds for sale.

It can take everything from 30 min to several hours to create a single background, but the time savings, especially when doing a 4,000 frames long animation are HUGE. More importantly, you create the scene once, and can then render multiple camera nodes while you sleep.

I’ve created a step by step video guide that shows you exactly how to create your own backgrounds for fun, or for sale. Movie Make is a bestselling plug in, so you have the opportunity to make an income by creating cool background packages. Dreamlight does not require you to pay any royalties, so you are free to create your own backgrounds on DAZ 3D.

For more information, check out Movie Maker Maestro HERE.

Have fun with your Movie Maker!

– Val Cameron

P.S. Create your own Movie Maker backgrounds for fun or sale. Click HERE.

Val Cameron

Happily sharing how to create great 3D & 2D art in DAZ Studio, Lightwave and Photoshop, Val Cameron, CEO and founder of Dreamlight, has been coaching and mentoring hundreds of thousands of artists since 2005. Bestselling DAZ 3D vendor with over 230+ video tutorials, plug ins and light sets.