Using Background Pictures

Contents

Using Background Pictures
1. Showing and Clearing Background Pictures
2. Use Background Shader Node

You can import static images as backgrounds. For example, if you are creating a scene with Poser characters in a room with a window, you could use a background image to simulate the view from the window. Selecting File > Import > Background Picture opens a standard Open dialog, allowing you to select your image’s format and location. As with movie imports, you are asked if you wish to resize your Document to match the imported image, and the results are the same as described above. Changing the aspect ratio of imported images can introduce unwanted artifacts into your scene when rendered and can result in blank areas on the sides of the Document (see above). We therefore recommend resizing your Document or importing correctly sized images. Poser supports importing background images in a wide variety of formats.

Extension(s)	Description	Import	Export
bmp	Windows bitmaps	x	x
dds	DirectDraw Surface	x
exr	OpenEXR image format	x
gif	Graphics Interchange Format	x
hdr	Radiance Image	x
jpeg/jpg	Joint Photographic Experts Group image	x	x
pbm/pgm/ppm	Portable bitmap, graymap, and pixmap image formats	x
pcd	Kodak Photo CD	x
png	Portable Network Graphics format	x	x
pict	Macintosh PICT files	x
psd	Photoshop Files	x	x
sgi	Silicon Graphics Image format
tga	Targa files		x
tif, tiff	Tagged Image File format		x

When importing images, we recommend that you import them while the document window is in its docked state. You should try to light your scene in a manner consistent with the background so as to blend them together. Please see Lighting for information about lights in Poser.

Showing and Clearing Background Pictures

If you have a background image in your scene that was placed there using either the File menu or by pasting the current figure/prop into the background, then selecting Display > Show Background Picture toggles displaying this image on and off.

Selecting Display > Clear Background Picture deletes the currently displayed background image (if any).

Use Background Shader Node

There are two ways of specifying the background of a scene – by loading an image in the BG Picture node, or by attaching a shader tree to the Background root node:

If you want to use the BG Picture node as the background of your rendered image, choose Render over > Background picture in the Render Settings dialog, as described in FireFly Options Settings.
If you want to use the shader attached to the Background root node as the background of your rendered image, choose Render over > Current BG shader as described in FireFly Options Settings. Please refer to Root Background Node for information about using background shaders.