Happy New Year and quick question

SnowSultan

Hope everyone had a safe and happy new year!

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this question, but I'd like to confirm it. There's currently no way to have an HDRI (Dome only) cast light within an entirely closed space (like a windowless room with no walls hidden), correct? There's no secrets to reversing the casting direction or anything like that? I tried all of the available options for a finite cube dome and the render was always black - as expected, but was hoping for a miracle.  :)

Thanks in advance.

ChangelingChick

As far as I know, the only way to do it would be to render in several passes and composite, but you'd need to hide walls alternately, and even then I'm not sure it would give you the effect you want :/ 

SnowSultan

I don't think compositing a bunch of pitch black renders would help much, haha. No problem though, HDRIs work great indoors if you attach a section plane to your rendering camera (it cuts away everything behind the viewport). There's an excellent free one out there somewhere (called "Iray Interior Camera"), apologies for not remembering where or who made it.

Fishtales

If you want ambient light inside then plug the diffuse image for the ceiling into the Emission channel; set it to white at 6500; and adjust the Lumen until you get the light you require.

3Diva

SnowSultan said:

I don't think compositing a bunch of pitch black renders would help much, haha. No problem though, HDRIs work great indoors if you attach a section plane to your rendering camera (it cuts away everything behind the viewport). There's an excellent free one out there somewhere (called "Iray Interior Camera"), apologies for not remembering where or who made it.

It's made by HeroineAdventures (at least the one I have is): https://www.deviantart.com/heroineadventures/art/Iray-Interior-Camera-V1-3-758604718

Since HDRIs tend to (at least for me) be the easiest, fastest, and simplest lighting solutions I absolutely love that camera. :)

I have heard great things about the Ghost Light products by KindredArts for interior lighting though. I bought them recently but haven't had a chance to try them out - I've seen a lot of people suggest them though for lighting interiors. :)