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If it works, would very much appreciate a step-by-step at your convenience. Thanks very much for this thread!
Phil, I don't want to spoil this fun, but that is flat IBL (Image Based Lighting ) not HDRI , whatever you do it will be always IBL, are we going back to 2005 again? lol
well you still can have fun, but watch out what location you use as many of them need licenses to be used on other public websites, I just spent last weekend $1000 on a location license that is free to view on google, besides you have also Intellectual property rights. With that means that all you can do use it on your own computer and on your own screen without sharing it on the web, in print in renders or as the whole commercial or not so I would be careful or you going to make someone a lot of money ..."nok nok nok in unpainted wood" ;)
And regarding Iray and HDRI rendering, you can render HDRI from each scene in iray using spherical camera set correctly , it will be true unflatten HDRI with all the light information you needed and reproduce exactly the light you had in the correct set scene, they may be synthetic HDRI but a real one and there is no restrictions to the image as long you used all content in the scene with commercial usage rights
I know (and have acknowledged) that there is a big difference between this technique and doing the kind of "genuine" HDRIs that you are doing, and I am humbled by the amount of care and effort that you and others put into them, but sometimes this quick and dirty approach is enough to get usable results, and it can be fun to try. I do not see this as competing with the kind of HDRIs that you are doing. I also made the point that this is for personal use and that you could not for example resell the outputs. The point about specific locations is well made.
Yeah using HRDI's for interior can be a big time saver
I don't see it as a competition as it is IBL , just comments on stuff around Phil, don't take it so serious my friend. I was more worry about the copyrights usages than the IBL in general , if I could make a real HDRI from a single jpg or even a raw photo I would make a 100 a month, sadly even a true HDRI with 3 separate exposures is not enough for iray , it does not have enough of the light data and all you get is Ambient light as that is what are IBL aka fake HDRI, you can load single jpg panoramas into iray and the same result as sometimes I do by mistake loading the wrong files lol thinking where the light come from at once .
The full concept of lighting in with HDRI in iray is not the bright side (exposure) of the HDRI or IBL but the darkest exposures that separate the light sources from the ambient light telling iray engine where to create ambient shadow and where to create direct shadows, and IBL is just the opposite of that as you can never load this data to a single jpg, I wish I could, anyway ...easy fix? sure why not , art is an art no matter what you use for your final results as long it looks good and you happy with .
Excacly one can also add lights ect..
Some great tips here. I've never been a big fan of putting 3D generated characters against "real" backgrounds as I always see the mismatches in contrast, grain, etc., but for lighting sources this technique works pretty well... I've even had surprisingly good results just from sticking an image on the emmisive surface of a large simple primitive and using that as a light/reflection source for city scenes scenes where I was trying to keep the polycount down..
Hi Phil,
this is a nice little tutorial.
I already found a lot of tutorials how to create HDRIs out of "normal" panorama pictures on the web.
But the lack is: it looks as if I first have to purchase the very expensive Adobe PhotoShop.
Are there alternatives to enlarge the [EV] with the corresonding sunlight information without spending much money? My overall budget is almost zero, what I can spend for some computer fun like this 3D drawings.
Picturenaut does not do.
A lot of available HDRIs on other sites do not work proper with iRay. They're designed for a different photorealistic render engine (I think called vray):
@Andys
Vray is just another implementation of Iray as far as I can see.
HDRIs for VRAY should work fine for iRay as far as I know. As for alternatives to Photoshop for this, I don't really know. I think any photo editing program that supports HDRI (32 bit images) should be able to follow a similar work flow, but not all are able to do that. Anyone else have any cheap or free suggestions?
Affinity Photo can do 32 bit I believe. So can GIMP.
I believe @Knittingmommy has used GIMP to edit 32-bit EXRs IIRC - perhaps she can chime in here if she notices the reference.
On another note, while I was watching your video, I couldn't help but smile as you mentioned still running Photoshop CS2. I stopped paying for upgrades for Photoshop at CS2 as well lol. As soon as they added scripting support, I had everything I needed. It's still the version I use today.
- Greg
Tell me about it, I have a few portraits I've done recently with an HDRI that finish in about 15 minutes. When I do very similar scenes using an actual DAZ environment they take 8 to 10 hours if I'm lucky. Obviously there are advantages to using the real 3d environment over the HDRI, but for just a basic pinup portrait, or something that doesn't need to interact with the environment, they are fantastic for cutting the render time down.
I was having a lot of fun with this technique and sticking monster trucks in my driveway. They aren't anywhere near as perfect as professional HDRI's no, and one has Google watermarks all over it, but still fun playing with my own house in Studio. :)
Here is the histogram for the HDRI (re-constructed from a standard .jpg) used in the renders I posted earler:
Here is the histogram for one of the HDRIs (OutdoorA) from https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio-iray-hdr-outdoor-environments (presumably created using traditional methods):
While I agree that not all HDRIs have the same dynamic range, I disagree with dismissing any HDRI generated from a standard 8-bit image as IBL from the Stone Age. Clearly, in this example there is comparable dynamic range to the traditional HDRI. And more important than the scientific measurements, it looks good ;)
Phil's method is easily accomplished, which is a huge plus - it does extend the dynamic range and produces some nice results.
- Greg
Yes, 32 bit EXRs can be edited in Gimp 2.9 Beta. It's very stable for a beta and I've been using that almost exclusively for the last year and a half. Free is a good price, too. :)
@PhilW Nice tutorial. I've been wanting to do HDRs of my own since seeing @Algovincian's experiments mentioned in a previous post. I still need to play with the 360 rendering, though, as I haven't had a chance to take a look at that, either. Lots of possibilies.
I tried some free HDRIs.
The outcome was pretty contrastless. As I reported this to the author, he stated that there is a big difference between i- and vray he created it for.
Other iRay users and HDRI creators suggested that DAZ with iRay needs a quite high [EV] (>20), whereas most of the non-DAZ vendors only have a lower value.
I have been trying rendering panoramas direct from Daz Studio using iRay Canvases. The good news is that it works, and it outputs an HDRI Panorama in EXR format. However I have also uncovered some strange behaviour, which I think is down to Photoshop rather than Daz Studio. If I load the EXR output from DS, and then adjust it by around -13 to -14 EV to bring it into a normal range, and then save it as an HDR, the brightest areas of the HDRI become totally black. If I change the Exposure using the menu command, it looks normal, but as soon as I move the Exposure control at the bottom left of the image, I get total black where the brightest areas should be. I thought at first this was an issue with the output from DS, but if you load the (very bright) EXR into the Environment Map, and set the map brightness to around 0.0002, you get good results and all the bright areas are as they should be!
Maybe I should try rendering the image very dark and see if that works. Any other ideas gratefully received.
Edit: Yes, that worked! Do the original render at around .0002 Environment Intensity and set the EV in Tone Mapping to 0 (so that you can see what you are rendering). When this map is loaded with "normal" iRay values, it looks pretty much the same, and the lighting looks correct. And I don't get the Black areas if I edit it in Photoshop - looks like it was some kind of ceiling effect in Photoshop, so now with reduced values, it all works well.
I noticed a similar phenomenon during my testing last year, too:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1426136/#Comment_1426136
It always struck me as wrap around - like flipping the score on an old Atari game (when you hit a million and your score started over at 0). It has been a long time, but I remember setting the intensity really low for the environment map (to counter the default tone mapping setting of 13 being set to 0). In my way of thinking, tone mapping should have nothing to do with 32-bit stuff, but in Iray it is used in some nominal luminance calculations, etc.
Never really pursued it further given how that whole situation panned out.
- Greg
Hi Greg, dynamic range will shift depends on the scene light , if the scene is dark from nature like for example woods and little sky visible the dynamic range can shift to just 12K only but still the exposure compensation can be 24EV steps and that what counts here , well some of my real HDRI has over 12 million dynamic range and 28EV steps to max 36EV ( not working in iray ) , that is over 11 million more dynamic range than the histograms you showing .. so this proves nothing, just saying
another real HDRI I made have just dynamic range of 12K but the exposure compensation is 28EV stops or exposure steps
How more range in the exposure compensation EV steps, how better the HDRI and better working in iray.
with jpg to IBL you just add the direct light to the file, and that is ok but you still miss a lot of stuff like bouncing direct light from the ground, floors, glass or walls that real HDRI offer
Phil, I believe you flatten the HDRI in Photoshop , you can't do that , iray need unflatten HDRI so it can't be tone mapped and all you can do is change the exposure under Image/Adjustment/Exposure and save as *hdr file , when you render a scene with a sun light it will not works, you need a separate canvases node for spot lights and direct sun, what you will render out is only the dynamic range of ambient light but not light sources and the sun will be black as there is no light info , it still miss the 10K of wats , the way you render is good for scenes with just ambient light without the direct light of a sun or spot light.
I was playing with it time ago and it give exacly good result as the real thing to the last WAT
below iray HDRIs I made time ago to save some time rendering and memory and it is just perfect and as good as the photo HDRI
Just tested the method above for generating HDRIs direct from Daz Studio and it works well for Sun-Sky illumination as well, all the lighting is captured, and no unexpected artifacts - see example below. The fireflies on the left are in the original panorama render, not the render with the figure, as you are dealing with an un-tonemapped and unfiltered image when rendering to canvases, there is no filtering of fireflies. In this case I wasn't too bothered as it was a proof of concept rather than a final image, but you should watch out for these and reduce reflections if they are going to be an issue. I used a matte plane for the wall as well as the ground so that the shadows looked correct.
Greg, when rendering using canvases the Tone Mapping in iray is ignored since it is post processing ( not rendered by the engine ) and flatting the actual normal render to 8bit where canvases are 32bit not flatten raw HDRI without exposure information what can be easy altered in photoshop Image/Adjustment/Exposure and saved back without issue , but once it is HDRI tone mapped in PS it get flatten and not usable to render in iray even if it is 32bit.
Cath - no I am not flattening the HDRI at all, and you do not need a separate canvas for the sunlight, it is all captured in one iRay Canvas (Beauty).
Iray exports out exrs with the light timed 10,000 and that's not an exaggeration. In blender if you load in the exr and multiply it by .0001 you get what you see in the DS viewport
Photoshop is actually surprisingly terrible at handling 32bit images as evidence I'd point to the number of tools that simply don't work (like the paintbucket last time I checked if you set the color depth to 32 bit you inexplicably couldn't use the paintbucket... why) and other tools will "work" but strip out some of the important light information without telling you.
As I have started rendering out all my images as exrs (for various reasons) I actually use blender to do the exposure adjustments, (I use it for other compositing things as well mind you) but I find it much more robust and less likely to lose information more of the underlying operations are built to work with 32. I find it pretty trivially easy too, although I imagine if you've never used blender before it might be less so.
You got it ! congrats
You rendered Sky-dome that why, I rendered with HDRI +sun, having sun layer allow you to adjust better the balance between ambient and direct light or add slightly tint so it is not as space white, you can render canvases of light like spot light or sun and place it over IBL.32bit where you want to have for cool effect as HDRI Studio Light offer, the possibilities are endless with that, just render the only sun with alpha, place as layer over your IBL hdri.32bit merge and save and you have direct light the correct way in your IBL
He might of said it, but when it comes to HDRIs that is not true, Iray is not some special case that needs more EVs to look right. and you can find good HDRIs with more than enough EVs to look right made by folks without ever thinking of Iray (one of my favorite HDRI makers is, in fact, a blender person)
There are just lots of bad HDRIs out there with barely more EVs than a jpg, they are contrastless regardless of render engine
Who said anything about tone-mapping in PS? I was merely talking about the DS default tone mapping setting.
1. Load a fresh scene in DS with the default HDRI
2. Create a new spherical camera
3. Render out a beauty pass (EXR)
4. Set the Environment Map to the newly rendered EXR
Render again and you'll see that you need to set the tone-mapping in DS to 26 rather than the default of 13 to view anything useful. This is what I was talking about.
@j cade - I think you're right - both DS and Photoshop funky.
- Greg
It is not about looking right, as for that you need a good equipment to shot it in first place, the max that works best is around 14EV in iray in both direction so around 28EV steps at max, as some of my older HDRI are over 36EV and iray don't render it at all , and once again it is not about the look of the picture in background itself, having higher EV steps allow iray to read correctly the light sources and separate them from Ambient light to produce the correct shadows and light bounces. So HDRI with very low EV steps will produce weak shadows or not at all especially from the direct light like the sun . Even with 10EV steps 5EV in each direction, iray will not recognize sun light the way it should. So that is not a special case for iray, it is the case of HDRI for lighting that not much people understand and its concept in general . A lot of HDRI you find around have in most case just 3EV steps and that is good for just reflection or some ambient light filling as much as IBL