I have been studying various aspects of the Luxology Render Environments.I have set up an environment using a ".hdr" file I have downloaded:
The .hdr file came with a spherical projection of the scene (a ".jpg") from which the .hdr file was derived I assume.From the screen shot above you can see I have used the affiliated ".jpg" as the background. I was optimistically hoping the background file would wrap around my site while actually doubting that it would. It did not wrap and displayed literally with the spherical projections looking like they would on a flat surface not a sphere.I assume this is perfectly normal behavior but is there any way that these panoramic files available from various sources can be projected around the model while rendering? I understand the .hdr file in this case contributes to the rendered image in say, large expanses of glass on the model reflecting the image. I also understand that light "emitted" by this panorama is not used by the rendering engine due to it's large computation overhead. (I read this somewhere.) I have no experience in other rendering/3D software regarding the .hdri technology.Here is the image rendered with the above settings:
Am I to assume that the only use for the ".hdr" file and related technology is to provide reflections in my model? It seems like this is not taking full advantage of the panoramic display capability of the .hdr product packages out there.If anyone cares to correct my assumptions or offer examples of the use of .hdr files I would appreciate it.
Hi Alan,
If you want to see a panorama background then the environment needs the camera option enabled, using a background is not going to work that gets stretched to fit the view.
You can use separate indirect layer so lighting from environment can be adjusted separately from the visible one. Once you have your spherical environment defined as visible to camera you can graphically adjust it in the camera view using tool provided in environment Settings dialog..
Cheers,
Jerry
Jerry,
Thanks for the info. I will attempt to do what you suggested.
After I re-entered the renderer after leaving yesterday's post I realized I needed to check the "Camera" box and did so. I got a strange result that suggested there might have been some scale since the result looked like they may have been clouds but zoomed way in.
I am studying a document authored by you and Matt Gooding called "All About Luxology Environments" I am just trying different things to see what works.
The result of my latest attempt is shown by these settings:
And the rather odd result is this:
I have taken note of the instructions in your document to create an "Image Cube" and it seems like the effort and equipment/software necessary to execute this is not within my budget. I am now thinking that taking this experiment to the next level is not practical for me. I do have some nice non-panorama .jpgs to use and I have mapped them to flat and arced panels to use as backgrounds. That is probably sufficient.
Check the lens on you camera if you are far away and using a telephoto lens I would expect to see the environment zoomed in. Try using 50mm or 35mm lens then move the camera closer to building.
You can use your panorama images if they are not spherical try using them as cylindrical.
So after the last post I kept banging away at this and it looks like I got lucky.
Just for an experiment I used for the .jpg (spherical scenery file included with the .hdr file) as the source file in the "Image, File" dialog box and I fiddled with the "rotation" and "horizon" settings thus:
I got something that doesn't look odd as the first rendering I posted. That is the rendered background was just a portion of the background ".jpg" that the camera lens could see once it was projected on a sphere. I am impressed with how well this worked and will fine tune things. One thing I would like to do is get the material mapped to my ground surface to look like the grassy field in the background. Alternatively I could try to map a mowed grass to that area if I can't get the exact match. This is the latest image:
I hope this sequence of attempts is some help to others in the future. If I had found a post with this content previously, it would have saved me a bruised forehead (just kidding of course.) What I learned is how to use a spherically developed .jpg background. I still have to work out image scaling which I think may be based on the sphere encompassing the model geometry.
For anyone interested in the fine-tuned results, I took the remaining 3 corners of the building with the same spherical .jpg and got some acceptable results. There is a different view of the background in the remaining 3 quadrants and some plausible reflections of the sky in the window glass. In each case I adjusted the horizon setting to raise or lower the background. It worked quite well.