Digital Art Zone

I want to use UE2 in lighting a scene. Especially the indirect light or GI ability. However I can’t get the image to appear in the render.

The image should appear as a full surround environment like in this tutorial video http://vimeo.com/37500975 for another IBL method. If this method can do indirect or GI lighting too then great. The results of this method might be good for my project without IDL/GI anyway.

I saw this thread http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/3463/ , post 15, which said that putting the image in the UE2 environment sphere’s ambient channel would show it in the render but that did not work for me.

It doesn’t have to be UE2. My goal is IBL like in the video but preferably with IDL/GI too.  Suggestions?

Here’s a hint for sky domes: Flatten the sphere some.  Reduce it’s height so it is like a discus or Frisbee. This puts more clouds in view and gives a sense of distance or depth.

Yep it can be rendered but the maps supplied are really low res. Best to replace them with more high res maps.

If you want to make your own dome, then only flatten the bottom if needed. I don’t bother, I leave it a Sphere and it works perfectly. I wouldn’t flatten the top otherwise any map you put in will be distorted.

Thanks Szark.! Parameters tab! I saw the Visible in Render for the light but must not have looked thoroughly for it for the sphere. That rendered it.

I almost always reduce the height, “flatten” may have been too strong, of sky domes. If you don’t over do it then distortion is not noticeable. It gives a depth, perspective to the horizon, for the clouds when more nearby clouds are visible. That’s for skies though. I wouldn’t do it for an indoor, street, trees or similar image. Distortion would surely be clearly visible on that.

I’ve got some good high res skies to use.

I often use a dome with an interior map applied as I like true reflections as opposed to using reflection maps.

If you look through my render file any Daz Studio render that has a sky uses a perfectly round sphere as a sky dome.