Using HDR in DS4?
Ostadan
Posts: 1,123
How do I use the HDR files such as I find at www.openfootage.net as background and lighting in DS4? I think that uberenvironment can use them somehow, but the technique is not obvious to me.
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UberEnviroment uses HDRI's in .Tif format. From memory HDRI's from openfootage.net are in .hdr format. If that is the case then you need to find the UberEnviroment HDR to TIF convertor shown in the image below.
Just double click the ICON and find your HDR image and click open. The convertor will do it thing and convert it to TIF format.
Please note that the convertor will not show up in the Light Pane under Presets. You have to go via the Content Library as shown below.
If alreay in TIF format then all you need to do is put the TIF in to the Light Colour Channel in UberEnviroment. You will then have to play about with the settings. This thread might help http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/306/ under the section Universal (multi-version or non-specific) Tutorials second tut down in that section named Learning UberEnvironment 2 Please note what Adam wrote at the top of the page about images on the old thread.
double clicked the 'hdr-tif" and selected the hdri image, the hdri image converted into TIF format.
how to bring that TIF image into "uber environmen t"
Select UBer Enviroment in the "Scene Pane" then in the "Parameters Pane" go to the Colour Channel and click on the little arrow on the left of the colour bar and choose "Browse" and go to where the new Tif is stored.
I followed these instructions and successfully loaded a converted HDRI into the UberEnvironment2 EnvironmentSphere and it shows when I render my scene. However, I cannot figure out how to get it to reflect in a reflective surface. I have the high resolution image in the ambient channel map and the ambient color white and ambient percent 100.I'm using raytraced lights and 3Delight. I have the reflection setting at 100% and reflection color white, but the reflective surface renders black. Can you help?
you effectively ignored the instructions and did something completely different.
You must put the image map in the color channel of the UberEnvironment
The ambient channel and the environment sphere weren't mentioned.
You can convert the TIF to a lower res jpg and use it with the sphere but it doesn't amke that much difference
Try this thread for learning about Uber Enviroment I have a feeling you will need it. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/5320/
Yes the Diffuse colour channel is different from the Ambient Channel. The HDR converted TIF should be placed in the Diffuse Colour channel not the ambient.
Why use UE, do what DAZ_Rand did http://vimeo.com/37500975
Bejaymac thanks for that link. Hadn't seen that one. I might have to try this out. Sweet idea.
As for reflections use some of the tips in that vid Bejaymac posted. You don't need the spehere to be a light to give reflections though I am liking the lighting tips shown in that vid opposed to using Uber Enviroment. :)
Thank you all for your help. I really didn't ignore the instructions, I just went beyond in trying to get it to work for me, I guess :red:.
I did map the converted tiff in the color channel of the UE, per the instructions (see screenshot below). I found a pair of images on openfootage - low and high res. Somehow I got the idea the the low res was for the UE color map and the high res for the scene background, to be shown in the render as a skydome. I put the low res tiff in the UE color map. That seems to work for me, and I didn't mention it in my post, because I didn't seem to have a problem with that part. That is what I meant by "I followed the instructions".
But just putting the tiff in the color map of the UE did not make it show up in the render as my scene background. The EnvironmentSphere is all white. Putting the tiff into the EnvironmentSphere Diffuse still left it white. The tiff only showed up when I mapped the fiff to the EnvironmentSphere Ambient channel. That is when the tiff finally rendered. But it didn't still show in reflections.
I also have read through Adam's learning UE tutorial, but I think a lot of it is still over my head. I did see where he mentioned that the EnvironmentSphere didn't show in reflections and he thought it should. But I also saw his answer to Wiseavatar where he said that "The solution to the lack of reflection was to set the Sphere Primitive (sky dome)‘s Ambient Color to 255,255,255 and Ambient Strength to 100%." That is where I got the ambient idea. I guess that "Sphere Primative" is not the same as "EnvironmentSphere".
So, if mapping the tiff to the EnviornmentSphere ambient channel is not the right way to make it show up as a skymap in the render, am I supposed to create a whole separate "Sphere Primative" and map it to that instead, or am I still missing something basic?
Yes the thing is with Uber Enviroment unlike many applications it doesn't use the HDR/Tif for a rendered background. It just uses the HDR/Tif for light purposes.
This is why Uber Surface 2 (I think Uber SUrface has it also which is preloaded into Daz Studio) has an Unviroment map channel for the reflection, surface by surfaces. Fake reflections in other words. If you have to computing power then Loading in a Spehere 1000 Mtr x 36 x 36 and appling a high res image, 3000 x 1500 is probably the lowest res, to the sphere and use real reflections on the surfaces as described in that vid Bejaymac posted 5 posts up. Just exclude the bit that changes the sphere into a light. The surface settings are pretty much what you want to get real reflections from a spehere.
what is the difference between LOW (750 x xxx pixels)and HIGH resolution (7500 x xxxx resolution) HDRi images (openfootage.net)
Is these HDRi images make any difference in lighting and rendering scenes under UE2 environments ??
(most of the free hdri images are low resolutions)
As I understand it the low resolution images would be fine for use as a light source, but would not be suitable for use as a reflection map or for application to an environment sphere (where the detail is directly visible, not just a determinant of light colour).
thanks for your reply
You were on the right track.:-)
Uberenvironment emulates the sIBL approach. Thats using an blurry HDR for the lighting and a sharp LDR (in this case a jpg) for the reflections. If those are actually huge HDR files, you won't need them. Convert them down to jpgs and save yourself a lot of memory. Which is the whole point of sIBL.
The little Uberenvironment scripts for adding its HDRs to the scene hide all this from you but all they do is put the tiff where its needed and the jpg in BOTH the Ambient and Diffuse channels of the sphere (under the Surfaces TAB). I think its worth emulating this manually to keep the convenience of the Uberenvironment setup.
Its really easy to edit one of those scripts for your own HDRs, the only requirement is to have the tiff and jpg with the same name and in the same Uberenvironment folder.
If I recall...the right size too.
When I was messing around creating some presets for UE, I found that if I didn't have the TIFF and JPG at a similar size (pixel dimension) as the ones used, there would be either odd stretching/cropping or tiling artifacts. Especially on automatically converted images. Ones I manually converted and scaled/cropped to the dimensions of the supplied pics didn't have those problems. Plus manually converting the image gives you a lot more control over the final 'look' of the image.
prixat, thanks, I appreciate the tips.