Thought I should do a quick tutorial on how I use these HDRi Skydomes I’m selling. Note that this is just one of many possible workflows, and there are probably lots of tricks I’m missing and even things I do completely wrong. I should also say that I work mostly with still images, not animations.
1. Here is a typical architectural scene. It is a model I made of Waro Kishi’s Fukaya house in Japan that never really went anywhere.
2. I use a gamma 2.2 workflow together with reinhard color mapping, so not strictly LWF but shares some of the advantages. I don’t want this to turn into a LWF tutorial or discussion, but this post on cgpov.com pretty much sums up how I feel a gamma corrected workflow helps us as visualisation artists.
The reinhard color mapping helps to control burnt out (overexposed) areas. Screenshot of my color mapping set up: The burn value of the reinhard color mapping typically ranges from .75 for an exterior to 0.05 for an interior. You need to experiment with the value until you gain control over the burnt out areas. Here is an example with a camera pointing at the HDR sky:
For the final render, I use the Vray Frame Buffer, and add a slight s-curve to the output to compensate for the lack of contrast that the gamma corrected workflow introduces:
3. Add a vray dome light and load the exr/hdr using the max bitmap loader. Set the mapping type to environment/spherical. If you are using .hdr files, you can use the vrayHDRi loader instead. It makes no difference whether you use the bitmap loader or the vrayHDRi loader, the vrayHDRi adds a bit more control in that you can control the render multiplier independently from the viewport multplier. Set the output of the .exr to 1 and the vraylight multiplier to 1. If your hdr/exr has no alpha channel it seems you can save quite a bit of memory while rendering (approx 200mb in my case) if you load the exr/hdr as realpixel float rgb rather than the rgba option. (NOTE: ONLY applicable to 3dsmax 2009)
EDIT: Please don’t pay too much attention to the 3dsmax 2009 realpixel hdri loading option, it just saved a little bit of memory which is why I mentioned it. I now use a later version of max and no longer have this option either.
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4. To rotate the HDR you need to enter a U offset value from 0-1, so to rotate 180 degrees with would enter 0.5, 270 degrees 0.75 etc.
5. Add a vrayphysicalcamera, and set the aperture and shutter speed to something that would work for a typical outdoor scene, like F4, 1/200th & ISO 100. Remember that you are in effect using a completely manual camera, there is no ‘P’ or automatic mode so you need to experiment with different exposures until you get a good result.
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6. Hit render and see what you get. If it looks too dark/bright I tend to adjust the bitmap’s output rather than the vraylight multiplier, so that I can have a couple of ready setup HDRi’s ready to drag and drop onto the dome light. In the examples below I use an output value of 1.5.
Hello Peter,
Thank you for this very much. Recently, I gave a try at this. But instead of using a hdri I used very high resolution image. Thanks to your settings I did some test and it does really work nicely.
My only question would be, how does you Vray sun look yellow. Mine still tends to be white in color. I specially note this in your “Line house” or “Sail house renders”, that the environment is very beautiful due to the hdri with that the sun in day light renders also looks a nice yellow. Would like to know how to achieve that.
Thanks in advance.
If its low enough in the sky it should be yellow enough, plus you can try increasing the turbidity value of the sun
Hello Peter,
Thanks again. It’s around mid-day sun. I will try working with turbidity.
Works great. I worked up the S-curve a bit and it came out well. I plan to buy couple of hdri’s from your site soon. Presently, the tut’s have done a tremendous help. I simply increase the multiplier of the Vray-dome when using jpg’s. Which I thin won’t be necessary when using your hdri.
can you point out what is that s-curve you mean and where ?
@hany the 5th image
Hi there Peter,
Sweet tut, I’m just trying to figure out what’s the big advandtage of using a vray domelight instead of just popping the background into the environment-slot. Which in my tests renders alot faster?
Very good stuff as always Peter, thanks.
Though i cant find the way for “vrayHDRi loader”, using Vray HDRI map i don´t get an options dialog box nor nothing….
@nic better sampling, and you should get better direct light from the sun (crisper shadows) although tbh I havent tested this extensively
@pep not sure what you mean, vrayHDRi loader can only load .hdr files
Yes sorry, i thought your tut.’s capture of “open EXR” was the VrayHDRI loader, and was the bitmap one!!
Best regards,
Hi Peter,
I just have a quick question regarding HDR dome lighting -
I have several HDR files that I would like to use, but when I use them, my scene is really dark (especially with the multiplier at 1) , so in order to compensate I adjust the shutter speed, which isnt a problem as such. If I adust the shutter speed to 20 it works, but then say I switch to lighting with the vray sun sky the exposure is way off. Obviously the HDR is too dark, but is there any accurate way to use HDRs so that it simulates the sun intensity?
I try to use real world values as much as possible for other lights, so it would tie in nicely if I could set up the HDR dome light accuratley without guessing the power of my lights.
Is this problem also down to poor HDR quality? When viewing them in Bridge, they look dark, even though they are mid day sky HDRs.
I hope that makes sense!!
Cheers, Deano
Hi Peter
Just wondering, for the above tutorial, do you have sample files for the model and HDR ? I can’t seem to see them.
Thanks
Niall
Hi Niall, sorry, not for this tutorial
Hello Peter,
I was wondering if you gamma correct you HDRI (2.2)? or just leave it at 1
mn, gamma should be left at 1 for hdr images
Nice pictures, Just out of interest, as i do animations, how long did one frame take to render?
for me it works better with the hdr applied to a sphere (set not to cast shadow) and a vray sun.
this may just be my noob method
but its fool proof and renders quickly with very good results.
thanks for making the hdrs, i have purchased 2 and they make very attractive skies!
Hi auto,
that method works for me but only for night/dusk scenes. when i try to do a daylight scene it does not give good results. can you elaborate your steps further, i might be missing simething.
thanks.
cal
Hi Peter,
My renders look grainy and renders slower than vray sun+sky. How do I get reid of the graininess? In mental ray I don’t have this problem and I can reduce the file size of the image to make it render faster.
thanks in advance.
@cal Are you using my hdri skies or something else?
i’m using the hdr that comes with max. i don’t know if i just need to tweak some settings, or the hdri is the problem.i only get this problem trying a day scene with the hdr mapped to a dome light as texture.night scene seems to be ok, maybe because the darkness masks the grain.i need to prove to the office that this lighting method is superior so i can justify them to buy some hdri skies.
thanks.
I would say the hdri is the problem, I have never experienced increased grain (although I almost always render with the universal settings)
Hi Peter, what is the name of the plugin what are you using to open exr. files?
Thank you!
Its called 3dstudio max 2009 (no plugin)
Hey Peter, with max 2011, is there anything that needs to be done differently to the EXR file to render properly. I have imported the vraydome light from an a scene I was using in max 2010 which worked perfectly but now the map render grey in 2011. Any ideas?
thanks
Can anyone help jj ? I don’t have max 2011 so I can’t test. It’s a bit worrying to think that there might be a problem.
They have changed the exr-plugin again in 2011. I´m working with it as we speak and I dont´t have any answers yet but it feels different. I tried to delete the fOpenEXR.bmi but then you can´t load exr at all as in 2010. I´ve also tried to load the exr with gamma 1.0 instead of system (2.2). And big difference between Vray RT and rendered result is annoying. We will probably figure it out soon though!
Cheers!
Hey Peter iv been using this system of urs aswell as the hdri’s very often latly and it always worked like a charm but I always had a doubt about the resolution result of the background image at the end of the render. Whenever I do big size renders over 3k pixels which are going to be printed for the unviersity the background always turns out like a low rez image:( the clouds dont look sharp as they do on ur images though im guessing that’s couse ur images on the side ur much smaller then the ones im doing. Is there a solution to this? Iv tried palying with the resolution parameter which is set on 512 by default but it aint doing nothing…
Regards, Vuk Djordjevic
Hi Vuk, Someone else had this problem but I can’t remember the solution, can you email me a stripped down scene? (max 2009 if poss)
I misread your comment Vuk, didnt notice you were rendering as high as 3k. This is to be expected unfortunately, in these cases you can use the supplied backplates and comp the sky in post.
Hi Peter, Just purchased your HDRI pack 03. I gotta say absolutly wonderful quality.. I’ve been using Dosch skys V2 which are ok after alot of tweaking and tidying up all the dust spots they sold them with!! Yours are in a different league mate..
With regard to the exr’s in max 2011. Mine import and render fine although no option for just rgb so guessing they’ll be rendering with extra 200mb or so RAM, but no luck with RT (totally over exposed) Looks like a problem with the new exr pluggin?? HDRI’s work great although colours as you say probably ‘not quite as beautiful’ as exr’s.. I’ll use hdri’s if i’m using rt and swap to exr for final render.
Also, Whats your work flow for getting the alpha for the HDR’s
J
Hi Jamie, Thanks for being one of the first if not the first to buy one of the packs of 9!
I will try to answer as best I can:
Don’t worry about the rgb 200mb trick. Do you use vray? If so vray 2 can now load exrs with its vrayhdri map. I’m sure that will solve the RT problem too.
Re: exr vs hdr, theres probably no visible difference, I havent tested!
As for getting an alpha, it doesnt work behind glass, but you can set the far clipping plane of your camera to 999999999999999 and then optionally drop in the hdri into the background slot of the environment.
Hi, i purchased 3 of the wonderfull hdri skies, and everything works fine, 3ds max 2011, Vray 1.5 sp 5 and Vray 2.0!!
Serious products!!!!!
thanks MoMA, thats good to hear!
Peter thank u for your excellent HDRI maps!!! I just got my first
really nice results!
Peter, thank you for your tutorial and your excellent blog. I was wondering, what is your MO regarding anti-aliasing when you render hi-res images and using backplates becomes an absolute must? Do you save your output in TGA format with or without pre-multiplied alpha?
I was thinking, you said you usually drop in the hdri into the background slot of the environment… But, since the backplate & the hdri aren’tt always an exact match, isn’t it better if you render with a black background without pre-multiplied alpha, or even with pre-multiplied (and then do a simple “Layer > Matting > Remove Black Matte” in Photoshop)?
Best regards,
M.
Is this method also good for interior renders or is there a better way?
I use the same method for interiors
Hi Peter. Great tutorial, i follow your blog pretty often. I wanted to ask you about this tutorial what do you put in the environment slot? Thanks
Usually nothing at all, but if you want an alpha channel you can instance the HDR to the environment and set the far clipping plane of your camera to 99999999999999999999
I’m using one of your hdri skies and every time i render the sky is getting washed out totally but the rest of the image looks amazing.
Is there something i’m not doing?
Thank you for this great tutorial. But; anybody solve max 2011 hdr or exr luminance problem? I try this tutorial with different exr or hdr images in max 2011 but I can not get a satisfied result. results are always very dark and washed.If I try change dome light multiplier or image’s output value results are still washed and with no contrast.
And Peter, I really wonder if you use some post effects for this dream look results? Your renderings have really pretty foggy and very soft atmosphere…
Hi Peter,
Your work is what is driving me to improve at the moment.. Really great.
I have downloaded your HDRI 1103 Sun clouds, and am getting some really great results. But, I cannot seem to get a “richness” in the colour of the sky background.. I can apply the camera clipped alpha channel that works really well, but then when I replace the rendered background with the stock backgrounds, any reflective objects are left with a slight “halo” to their edges where they dont quite match the original solutions colours.
In short, is there an easy way to increase the contrast of the background, with out over lighting the scene, in the original render..?
Many thanks
Andy
comment3,
Not sure if the set up is the some for 2011 max, tried many different way would like to know if you need to do anything different for 2011, ?
I Think Ive found a bit of a work around for what Liegh ” 30 th of march ” was talking about:
I was getting the same problems, Just use the hdri until you happy with the exposure, GI lighting of the scene, then put the same hdri in the max environment, and vray override reflection with a lesser value , for example you might have your hdri in the dome light as 1, then have your vray refection override and max environmental as 0.8 this will stop the burn out of the hdri if your using LWF.
http://www.davidfleet.com/tutorials/linear-workflow
Thanks hope that helps someone
Hai peter, nice too meet u..
Im from indonesia..
Hi Peter,
I am having trouble with HDRI 1658. When I load the EXR or HDR into max, the area the sky should be is pure white, and the area where the ground should be is colored no matter how I adjust the multiplier in my map. Here is a screen grab of what I am talking about
http://imageshack.us/m/809/9994/hdrih.jpg
All my other HDRI files work fine, any idea what might be the cause? I purchased the file twice (3dOcean did not warn me that I already purchased the map, when all I wanted to do was re-download) and the same thing happened with both files.
Jesse, can you send me an email about this : peter@peterguthrie.net
What are the other settings of the Vray render Setup??