Netvudu Posted April 1, 2010 Share Posted April 1, 2010 Hi there, for anyone not in the know, this is what Smart IBL is about http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/index.html It´s nothing ground-breaking regarding the technical aspect, but it is really useful. I´ve used myself with LW a lot of times and it can be a huge time-saver, specially for product-viz or automotive renders (but not only). For those that don´t want to check the link, it´s just a way of automatically setting a scene with three panoramic textures. One blurry lo-res HDRI panorama for quick diffuse GI, a medium res non-blurred HDRI for reflections, and a hi-res non-blurred JPG as the background image. It saves about 15 to 30 minutes of manual settings, and it´s dead easy to create your own IBLs. (I´ve done it myself. It´s great and reeeaally simple). It also creates a light where the sun is on the panorama. You can choose the type of light and the radiosity settings. It must be quite easy to port, firstly because it´s thought out to be simple to port, and secondly because...everybody else is doing it! The first version was Lightwave, but now there are MAX, Maya, XSI and Modo ports already. I´m quite bad at coding (just some quick Python) but I bet for some of the people around here this would be piece o´cake... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mightcouldb1 Posted April 2, 2010 Share Posted April 2, 2010 (edited) It wouldn't be too hard to set this up with a HDA without any coding at all. Not too sure about the sun light positioning itself automatically. The next release might have some features that you would deem useful... Edited April 2, 2010 by mightcouldb1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netvudu Posted April 2, 2010 Author Share Posted April 2, 2010 (edited) I agree an HDA would allow to get the same results without coding, but we would loose the nice interface that SmartIBL shows, plus it has direct connection with the EditIBL standalone which allows to tweak the HDRs and make all the tonemapping and place the light for the sun and many other thing that are already done for us. An HDA would be the obvious solution if all that work weren´t done previously, but why not take advantage of what´s already there...specially if it´s there precisely for that. There´s a nice video tut on the site that shows the way to use it and it quite clarifying on its advantages. Also using the .IBL format specs (which are on the site as well) and directory structure makes it very easy to use it in a cross-platform pipeline. If I had two spare weeks I would take the time to learn how to code it myself, but supposedly it´s my Easter holidays and I´m working, so go figure... Of course, it´s just a suggestion. I use it regularly on Lightwave and because of that I though many Houdini users would benefit from it. Edited April 2, 2010 by Netvudu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noouch Posted April 22, 2010 Share Posted April 22, 2010 I've been having a crack at this, so far all I have is a lighting rig that corresponds to the UV coordinates of the definition file. I plan to refine it some more, seeing as I'll have a bit of free time in a couple weeks, so maybe a built in loader isn't too far off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netvudu Posted April 22, 2010 Author Share Posted April 22, 2010 great!...are you going to use the developers kit from their site? or is it easier the Houdini way? Their interface is really pretty... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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