Where do I find a good starry sky skydome for iray?
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Been looking all over with no good results. Please halp!
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Iray doesn't use a sky dome; it has an environment dome that can accept an image, but that image is also used to generate light for the scene. Since a starfield produces little light, the use here is basically just a backdrop, and then you have to add additional lights to illuminate your scene. Just to be clear, it's not quite as easy as skydomes under 3Delight. You can just as easily use any cove or backdrop cyc prop and texture it with a star field of your choice.
If you want a 360, do a Google search for 'HRDI starfield,' and similar keywords. They aren't as common as daylight scenes, but I've seen a few freebies here and there. If you have Bryce (not expensive), you can create your own backdrops that have the proper "optics" for the 2:1 projection that Iray likes for its HDRI maps. I think the latest beta of of D|S 4.9 has a couple of camera options that might make it possible for you to preoduce your own environment maps in the proper projection. Haven't use it myself, though.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:360-degree_Panorama_of_the_Southern_Sky_edit.jpg
you need to provide a link here http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/copyright/ under the CC atribution but otherwise just stick it in your iray dome
http://www.daz3d.com/southern-lights-for-terradome3
This pack has 3 HRDI starfields, according to the What's Included section.
http://www.daz3d.com/terraluna-3
This has 4 "night" skies, and I know I've used at least one of them. Edit to add: If you get TeraLuna3 and you find the stars are too dark, just increase the environment intensity
Tried Hellfish Studios 'Space System' ?
There's domes with starfeilds in there, easy to swap the shader to the Daz Uber Iray shader, using the 'stars' as light sources.
Scalling the domes in one axis makes a pretty good speeding thru space effect.
Wow. Great suggestions. I did buy terra luna 3 and am messing with it now. I do have a panasonic gh4 so I may just try some long exposures to see if I can get some good skies. then learn to bracket them and make an actual hdr for lighting other than night scenes. This is the year of learning how to do it myself i think.