Occasionally its nice to be able to use a HDRi environment together with a vraysun, for when you want stronger shadows than the HDRi supplies. The trick is in aligning the sun with the HDRi so that the shadows from each match up. You can do this through trial and error, but if you want to change the rotation of the HDRi then its a pain. Rather than try to explain the steps involved, I thought it would be quicker doing a video tutorial. I’m afraid it turned out to be 13 mins long, but hopefully it will help.
The code for the wired rotation is:
radToDeg(Z_Rotation/360)
Perfect! It thanks
This is soooo good peter a was doing math before, now i just made the rigs on my master lighting scene and merge it on the new ones :), one question, is it posible to conect the on/off check of both lights?, a yes or no would be enough i can figure it out,
ps: its funny to see the diferent angles of the sun and just pick the mood for an scene
hmmm that would be handy, will try and figure it out!
well you can just go ahead and wire the enabled state of the vraysun to the multiplier of the vraylight (no fancy expression needed) and it will toggle the multipler between 0 and 1. That does the job for me as I control the brightness of the HDRi in the bitmap output anyway. Thanks for the idea!
Thanks a mill. This is a great help! And simple too. I like a simple process.
peter
excuse my English
but my question is this
like you to clone the VFB to retain the same gamma in max buffer. How do you set the LWF?
excelent blog……..and tutos thx for all
Hi Peter.
Great tut. But how did you make your dome hdri visible in render background?
Thanks
Am I right in thinking you are no working in a 2.2 workspace?
Great idea! and simple to implement… but it seems the wire is lost after a turn the VRaySun on/off. can’t see why that would do that since it is the VRayDome light the connects with the texture.
@Ronen, not sure why that should happen, it all works fine here. Did you wire the vraydomelight to its own texture 1st, and then the sun to the vraydomelight as a separate step?
excellent tutorial…..got heaps out of it, thanks.
Wouldn’t it be easier (since you know the date and time the HDR was taken) just to aim using the geo sun - ie just enter longitude / latitude + date + time?
very thanks peter your work i so inspiring always follow your work.
Thanks a lot Peter ! Excellent tutorial !
Just for notes if you use this method with the VrayHDRI map the rotation code is : radToDeg(Z_Rotation)
Hey Peter,
It seems the “lost link” is actually VRay RT related… after I change the sun parameter it is only the VRay RT viewport that shows the background at the same place until restart of the activeshade viewport.
How do you handle VRay RT with this setup though… the preview is not the same as the render… it is over bright and burned due to the .EXR it seems. when I switch it off (The VRayDome light) VRay RT shows the same as the render with only the Sun+Sky
do you get both VRay render and VRay RT to show the same result for you using the .EXR’s?
Cheers
Hi Ronen,
I have no problem in getting RT and vray to render hdri’s the same, but the link doesnt seem to update in RT.
@Kiernan, good idea!
all HDRi’s were shot in London, dates should still be in the exif of the jpg backplates
peter,
is there a advantage using a HDRi in a Vray dome light over putting the HDRi in the Vray Envrionment slot?? just curious i’ve always just dropped it in the Env slot and tweaked the HDRi in the Mat editor
besides the fact that you can wire a domelight to the sun..
@pipjor I believe the vraylight is more efficient/better optimized compared to just dropping it in the env slot. In my tests, its not necessarily faster but seems to give better results.
@pipjor: The difference is in the shadow. The env slot will give you the same result with a VrayLight with the “Store with Irradiance Map” active. If you need to use a single HDRI for your lighting, you will probably want sharper shadow and so you wont active the “Store with Irradiance Map” option.
Sorry for my poor english…
Peter, whats your post production method to comp the backplates in your final renders?
Cheers
Peter no need to answer again (pm in chaos group). Thanks and best of lucks.
FYI - I used the VrayHDRI map and wired the x-rotation to the Horiz.rotation in the texture but had to use the expression: -(Z_Rotation) to get the vraysun and HDRI to line up. That is a minus as a 1-1 link seemed to send the map round in the opposite direction.
Great Tutorials Pete, many thanks.
Hi Simon, yep I forgot to mention that I normally put -1 anyway in the horizontal tiling regardless of if i link them together
hi peter
sorry for my noob question. i tried the HDRI map in the vraydome light and it works great!!!! but when i tried to wired using your magic code the HDRI and vraysun didn’t line up =( .. by the way thank you for the wonderful tutorial,and so far this is the best vray HDRI tutorial.
Hi toqvaxy, make sure you line them up first, before the magic code. I do this by pointing a camera at the sun and doing a render with the hdri on first and then off. You only need to do this for the elevation as my hdri products have the sun in the middle.
Great Tutorial Peter..I tried to use Standard Direct Light with the Vray Dome Light and it also works…Just asking if I want to link Vray Light ( Sphere ) as my Sun with the Vray Dome light how could i do it…?
Hello Peter, really great tutorial, I would only want to ask you one thing.
You say you control the brightness in the bitmap output, but when we´re using a VRayHDRi map how can we do the same, as that map doesn´t have the output tab?
Thanks
@smaximo just adjust the overall multiplier in the vrayHDRi options
peter good tutor but in this video u set linear workflow in colorr mapping why?or this workflow and perfenses worflow are same
Peter, the magic code dont work for me on 3dsmax 2011, I have an error for the “/” in the code.
Hi,
what does radToDeg(Z_Rotation/360) actually do? I have followed your tutorial without adding in that code and it seems to work fine.
I used one of your hdri maps that you have, the clear sky one located here http://3docean.net/item/hdri-1224-clear-sky/93268
I had to rotate the HDRI map -90 degrees in order to get the sun centred to the viewport. This messes up with the wiring.
how would you go about wiring a hdri map where the sun is not in the centre of the hdri.
Hi
peter thanks for your great tutorial. Your mat library seems normal despite others which use linear work flow method. Do you use another lwf method? I tried your link (http://cgpov.com/?p=103) but the link is down. finally is your system units set to millimeters? those it make any sense?
sorry for my many questions but I’m planing to enter lwf space and I have many methods in front of me!
I prefer not to give advice on lwf, its all up to personal preference.
HI, great work and thanks for the trick!!
I just wonder seeing the video why does your exr loading interface is different of mine i have 3DSmax 2011 and when i try to load an exr file i have no possibility to choose 32 bit Floating-Point (RGBA), is this normal ? and is it a problem .
Do you have a special openexr plugin ?
Thanks by advance.
@fredzy its just that i was using 3dsmax 2009, dont worry about it, its not a problem!
Hi Peter,
I just noticed that in this video tutorial you turn on linear work flow in the color mapping, while in the previous only image tutorial, you didnt. I wonder why since this isnt an old scene.
Anyway, when i have LWF turned on black colors become soooo intense that there is almost no difference between black and grey. “When this option is checked V-Ray will automatically apply the inverse of the Gamma correction that you have set in the Gamma field to all VRayMtl materials in your scene. Note that this option is intended to be used only for quickly converting old scenes which are not set up with proper linear workflow in mind. This option is not a replacement for proper linear workflow.”
From being a very early adopter of a gamma corrected workflow (not true lwf) I was always suspicious of changing gamma settings in 3dsmax, so I just changed all my colours and textures using a color correction map… years later I am still in this ‘bad’ habit. Like I have always said, nobody should be trying to emulate what I do regarding gamma workflow!
HI Peter. Thanks for this tutorial, it was very helpful. One thing that bugs me is why .exr is not appearing properly in 3dsmax 2011 64bit (it looks like grayish without the clouds)? i tested it in 3dsmax 2009 64bit and it works perfectly. Is there any chance the exr’s are not compatible with 3dsmax 2011 vray 2? If no, how can I see the clouds like what it appeared in hdri and max2 2009?
Nice tutorial. I noticed my first post was deleted and don’t know why. Anyway, I bought your 1725, 1658 and purelight collection 001 and tested how it works but was confused why in 3dsmax 2011 exr doesn’t show (the lighting is there but the cloud image is not), hdr did. i tested it in 3dsmax 2009 and everything works perfectly. Why is that?
@Mitch, there may be some issue with max 2010 i think, but 2011 should be fine. In any case, you should have a hdr file bundled with the exr you can try instead and see if that works.
@Mitch, it wasn’t deleted, just hadnt approved it yet. Thats strange, can you email me at peter@peterguthrie.net with more info and screenshots/renders if possible?
Thank you for your response. I really appreciate it. My bad i thought it was deleted for i can’t see it on other computers. I found out that using .exr for vraydome in max2009 then reopen the scene in max2011 will do the trick but for whatever reasons, material editor takes time on its first loading but look good afterwards. You are correct, I can use hdri instead but it will defeat my purpose of buying the files because of the .exr. I emailed it some screenshots though. Thanks again, your method and skies are great!
Hi Peter,
i often tried to reach same results like you did in your tutorials. But i often have this problem of burning the Vray Sun out. When i set the multiplier of Vray sun at .05 than it seams to be okay. Your Renderings seems to be physically correct. When i tweak this button at the vray sun it also does. But with the settings in your tutorial everything seems to be overbright.
Greetz
@Marius, are you using a physical camera?
Yes i use physical camera. The Problem is that the contrast between loaded EXR file and with dome light multiplier by 1 and the vary sun multiplier by 1 is too high. The Sun seems to be too bright.
Greetz
Hi Peter,
I bought your 175 sun clouds hdri image, Im making some tests flowing your indications.Every thing its perfect, but i have a litle question. There is the posibility of moving the background (hdri image) up or down, im making a test with a terrace in the last floor of a building, and i get the city landscape in the background asi in the reflections, It would be nice if i can just move down a little bit the image. I tried movieng my camera,sun and objects, and leave the dome light in the same place , but nothing happens in the render.
Muchas gracias
And sorry with my poor english