Elfen Citadel: Platforms Environment Pack

ImageNATION's Elfen Citadel props represent one of the most ambitious fantasy settings created for Poser, both in physical size and detail. Whether used individually or with all the elements combined to create one massive scene, several methods can be used to optimize your performance and rendering time.

Scalability: The Elfen Citadel prop sets have been broken down into seperate pieces, allowing for individual import based on the needs of your scene. For instance, a close-up scene of a character standing inside the overlook would not require all elements of the overlook, but most likely would work with only the base and the lower arches. Similarly, the citadel main platforms can be used without the archways, depending on where you might be rendering (on the portico or from within the catacombs).

The plant and tree details of the Citadel sets are also loaded as seperate objects, allowing you to leave them out of any scene where they might not be in view. The plant and tree sets for the cliff objects are further divided into "upper" and "lower" areas, allowing you to only load the sections that you will need. See the section on compositing for more ideas on how to optimize plants and trees.

The included lightsets are also customizable, based on your render needs. The evening lightsets, which include individual lights for each of the lamps in the entire Citadel scene, are much more CPU heavy than the sunset lightset. Performance can be greatly improved when using the evening lightset by using any of the area-specific lightsets, such as bridge only, portico only, etc. Of course, you may also choose to load the entire evening lightset and simply delete the lights you won't need before rendering.

Compositing: the process of rendering multiple images of a complicated scene, each image showing a seperate portion of that scene, and then bringing those images together in an image editing application such as Photoshop is called compositing. Compositing allows for much higher poly-count renders than a single-image render could, and also gives the artist much greater control over the final artwork. By compositing render layers, the artist can add fog effects, out-of-focus areas, lens-flares, as well as fix any render problems, such as repeated textures or texture seams.

The Elfen Citadel is a great place to work with render layers, since the entire scene together can be pretty dense, and since it is the sort of scene that might be beautifully enhanced with some subtle post-effects. For instance, you could save significant render time by rendering some of the cliff plant-life as a seperate layer. This would also allow you to add your own soft-shadows to the plants inside your favorite image editing program, rather than rely on Poser to create them for you. If the process of compositing is new to you, or if you'd like to examine some professional tips and tricks, download the original {ImageNATION compositing tutorial} available to buyers of the Elfen Citadel and Woodland prop sets.

Shadow/Lighting settings: Another very useful way to keep your render time low is to experiment with your shadow and lighting settings. Try turning off the shadow-casting feature of some of the more complicated objects, such as plants and trees. Also, turning off the shadow setting of any lights which do not cast important shadows will significantly reduce your render times.

Other notes and tips: Because the Citadel prop sets were built to be usable both individually and as a complete scene, you may notice that some of the elements, such as the Overlook and associated pieces, arrive in the scene off-center. To bring the Overlook and it's pieces back center stage, simply change their position values from all zeroes to X=100 Y=0 Z=30. Be aware that if you move the Overlook and it's pieces, the camera poses for the overlook will not line up the same. Also, regarding camera poses, all camera thumbnail images show the Elfen Citadel as a complete scene, whereas your sets may only contain some of the elements. The camera poses will still work perfectly fine (unless you move any of the elements), although some of the poses may not result in the scene shown if the thumbnail shows elements that you haven't purchased. See your ReadMe file(s) to check out what elements were included in your purchase(s).

Try any of these options to rev-up your images and reduce your render time and we hope that you have a great time creating amazing artworks with the ImageNATION Elfen Citadel prop sets!