My First Hdri Render.

[Symbolic]

Hi everybody,

I have always wanted to explore HDRI lighting... But never had a chance to explore it. Usually I was doing the lighting by using multiple lights and trying to match the environment.

So this is my first test.

Used the "The Uffizi Gallery" hdri image.

(http://www.debevec.org/Probes/)

Rendered in passes. (I hope this is not cheating )

Light (HDRI), Diffuse, Reflection (chrome material), Occlusion Shadow, Occlusion, Specular, (and a little bit fake color bleeding)

The composition and colors may not be the best choice. But I had to use the HDRI image as the background to have something to composite on.

The HDRI tutorial at Side Effects was very very helpful.

So any ideas or suggestions?

... and where is the control for Reflection bounce? I think that the environment reflection is not on the teapot when parts of the teapot reflect one more time. I am trying to say that the environment is not visible in the secondary reflection. (Using chrome material)

... just a quick note. The reflection comes from a constant shader mapped on a sphere. I could not use the build in reflection map options for any of the reflective shaders because I could not find a way of rotating them. So the only way to control the reflected environment was mapping it on a sphere.

... and how one can be sure that the HDRI image is in correct position? I tried it with my own HDRI images... and "Front", "Left", "Back" etc. was always messed up. However it worked for "Uffizi"

Cheers.

Edited February 5, 2008 by Symbolic

[mark]

hdri supercharges realism!

you could try putting the hdri image in the reflection map field of a light..that is a good way to do reflections without worrying about mapping the hdri image. having said that i checked and cant see a reflection map option on lights now (H9 change i guess - i dont know if a projection map field is the one to use now or not).

btw H9.1 ships with some dosch HDRI maps now .. $HFS/houdini/pic/DOSCH......

[Symbolic]

hdri supercharges realism!

you could try putting the hdri image in the reflection map field of a light..that is a good way to do reflections without worrying about mapping the hdri image. having said that i checked and cant see a reflection map option on lights now (H9 change i guess - i dont know if a projection map field is the one to use now or not).

btw H9.1 ships with some dosch HDRI maps now .. $HFS/houdini/pic/DOSCH......

Hey mark,

Thanks!

... Yes they changed a lot in H9.1. I think everything is hidden somewhere in that "Edit Parameter Interface" part... But I could not find some of the important things.

For example... the "Reflection Bounce" thing was in the parameters of the geometry at the OBJ level... and was helping to control how many times the reflection will reflect within each other. I can not find them now?!

and thanks for the tip about the dosch HDRI maps...

cheers.