need brazil hdri tuts

[ZeBoxx]

Heya,

The HDRi tutorial will soon be updated, althoug the main content really remains the same. It's already at a pretty basic level (with full explanations of what the black/white points do, how to switch to Spherical Mapping, etc.), so I'm not sure what we could add to it.

But to recap here in really stupid-simple steps.

--=( HDRshop )=--
1. Check if your HDR image is rectangular, or a circle.
2. If it's a circle, go to Image > Panorama > Panoramic Transformations.
3. Under Source Image:Format pick "Light Probe (Angular Map)"
4. Under Destination Image:Format pick "Lattitude/Longitude"
5. Click OK

--=( HDRI I/O plugin - 3ds max )=--
1. Go to the material editor, and change the first slot to a Bitmap
2. When presented with the file browser dialog, find and choose the HDR file.
3. When presented with the Setup dialog, change the "White Point" value until you see no more (or just a little) magenta in the preview image.
4. Note down the "Linear" white point value
5. Click OK
6. Scroll down the Bitmap map to the "Output" rollout, and change the "RGB Level" value to the white point value you noted down.
7. Change the Bitmap "Mapping" type to "Environment" (radiobutton) and "Spherical Environment" (drop-down list)

--=( Scene setup )=--
1. Drag & drop this bitmap from the Material Editor to the Environment background
2. Drag & drop this bitmap from the Material Editor to the Skylight map slot
3. Add some objects with reflection or not, as per usual
4. Hit render

And you should be all set.
This is pretty much the same as what the the tutorial describes, except that it even offers images of all the dialogs and concepts.

If you remain stuck, though, well...

Best regards,
Richard Annema
P.S. How's the transfer of non-transferrable licenses going ?

[Potato77]

well thanks a lot for that. i was missing a few steps so that made it easier to follow. thanks. i was just unclear that you didnt have to put the hdri maps on the objects themselves in the environment map.

so i going to have materials that raytrace to get the neat shiny effect?


i found out that i dont have a full version its acually really really old. well at least thats what the guy at splutterfish said. so im just ganna use the newer public test thing when i have the chance to install it and download it. been to busy to do either. the guy i was talking to that had the "full version" is a retard cause he said he bought it..when i asked him about the license and we had to contact splutterfish to get everything cleared away he gave some cock and bull story on why he didnt have it. i also found out that he doesnt work for a as company either. hes just a guy thats likes to shoot off his mouth and try to sound better then he really is and i guess he thought he could use that to his advantage to pull a fast one on me. oo and i finally figured out how to do that neat clay look the right way. some guy on the brazil channel told me how.

well thanks a lot sorry to bother you with my retaredness. the thing that really irks me is i had a georgeous rendeing going...well in my eyes it was georgeous....it had been a day and was ready to finish...well i unplugged my speakers to put in my headphones and it froze solid to i lost my file and the render and i had no idea how to do what i figured out at 2 in the morning the night before....:( so i tried and tried to get it to work and nothing


that is another question. i think that my render times are way to long for this....what is a good number for the sampleing cause im not too clear on that too. i have 15 as the view rate and 15 as the sec in the luma server. is that too high? thanks again you are too kind to noobs

[Dark Carnival]

hoi potato

ive finally decided to contribute to this great community so why not start by helping someone out :>

ZeBoxx HDRI "how-to" is rather complete but there are some things that you should try out additionally...

first
after transforming the picture in HDRShop save two copies of it.

- copy #1: remains untouched - that will be the background
- copy #2: apply a gaussian blur to it (Image/Filter/Gaussian Blur)

i usually apply a 8x blur to the picture. most of the time i do that even twice depending on the file and scene.

this blurred copy will be your actual light

second
In 3Dmax you use copy #1 as your environment background

copy #2 will be your ligthmap just as ZeBoxx explained BUT you have to make sure that you disable the bitmap filtering for the file!

by default its "Pyramidal" and you change it to "None"
the checkboxes are right below the reload button
this is most important.

by blurring the lightmap and turning the filtering off the rendering will be WAY faster...
i did some tests with rather complex scenes and managed to get up to 8 times faster renderings at same if not better quality with adjusted settings

of course there is a slight difference in the emitted light but you wont notice it much (at all?) plus the speed difference is just too great to suffer from filtered and unblurred lighting

also you might want to try to lower the blur values of your background image too (dont turn them off though because it looks rasterized then).
eg if you put "Blur:0,01" and "Blur Offset: 0"
depending on your map this might improve you reflections as well with same rendertimes

neat too

PS: i got too much time on my hands :>
did a quick test
64 segments sphere
simple glass material
centered with zoom extends
rendered the perspective view 640x480
skylight direct + indirect uses environment settings
the infamous kitchen.hdr as test map (RGB value at 64)
CSG plane as ground

rest is at default settings

unblurred + filtered bitmap : 2:43 minutes

blurred + unfiltered bitmap : 0:23 minutes

7 times faster
plus you got way smoother light distribution at same view rate
if you turned the setting down so that the pictures would be the same in quality youd probably get 10 times faster


pfew ok hope thats no overload heh
could have said that in 2 sentenced but oh well

hope it helps :>

outtie...

[ZeBoxx]

Yep.. forgot to reply to this thread... those suggestions are all in the updated tutorial for 0.4.53, btw - just has to be put online.

The commercial users with an Account have had access to an updated version of the HDRi tutorial, including additional data, as well as a 2nd HDRi tutorial (rolling your own HDRis) for some time now.

We'll see when the updated tut for 0.4.53 (or Rio) gets online.

Best regards,
Richard Annema

[Potato77]

neat im going to go try that. thanks for taking the time to help me out.

[Potato77]

ok ive been playing so its only fair to show you what you have helped me with. right now im trying dof stuff. but its taking ions so it think i have something set too high. so does it look right? :)

[Potato77]

another

[Potato77]

what is f-stop on the dof i cant figure it out....all i know is it has to do with light. what is a good default f-stop so you dont have to write essays like you have.:)

[Dark Carnival]

hey

i really like your pictures especially the second one
how long did it take to render ?

oki and forDOF let me quote...

The F-Stop, or aperture, determines the amount of light that enters a camera.
Lower F-Stops mean that the aperture is smaller, and cause less light to enter. This will give an image less depth of field, resulting in less of the image being in focus.
Higher F-Stops have the opposite effect, and more of the image will be in focus.

basically
the lower the f stop the blurier is your image
the higher the f stop the more focused is your image

i usually go for +/- 1 of the default value
depends on what kind of look you like

and make sure you play with both values initial rate and adapt levels in render dialog not only with one of them
try mh maybe 5 initial and 4 adapt or something like that for the start
youll get the hang of it

good luck and keep us updated with the image :>

[Potato77]

i think it took only about 5-10 min....i was off painting when it rendered so im so really sure. thanks for the f-stop tips.

[Potato77]

what are those different types of focus options in the dof render dialoge. i've played a little with them but nothign seems to come out right. or should i not use them at all? for some reason i cant get this dof thing to work at all. i even tried the adobe plug-in lenscare that makes dof in like 2 seconds. but since its the demo it makes your image look crappy till you buy it. so im kinda stuck and im so close.:( every time i render the dof it makes everything grainy but without it the sampleing is fine and there is no grainyness. is there any demo file online that i could check out to see what other people are doing to thier files. thanks

[qu2k]

can anyone tell me how to get rid of this speckling that appears in the raytracing



http://www.sunandfun101.com/qu2k/speckles.jpg

[Potato77]

im pretty sure you have to turn up the sampleing somewhere....im not in front of my computer right now so im not sure. and im sick too so i cant think strait so im not sure if its in the ray server or the luma server or what. just mess with sampleing for now and ill try to get to my machine soon.

[drewbie]

You probably need to turn up your Sec Rate to get rid of the noise in the glass and chrome, and to turn up the View Rate to get rid of the junk on the ground part.


Potato: The different filter types in DOF are for Bokeh effects. This is what you see in DOF when really bright points are out of focus. For instance, I'm sure you've seen a picture of a street at night where the lights in the background are blurry rings or hexagons. It happens when you have a small point that is very bright and out of focus. It has to do with the aperture of the camera. (hence the hex|oct|whatever-agonal shape you normally see with a dof shot from a camera)

[Potato77]

ahhh neat....thanks.

[Potato77]

well ive messed with this a lot and it seems to take way to long to render...this took 2 hours :( and i have a good machine....sooooo something is on way too high and i cant figure it out....also there is also grainyness....i think it has to do this the rates of the DOF stuff. is there any ideas on why its taking too long to render? ty

[Dark Carnival]

hoi potato

image looks nice indeed

i think it takes "so long" (2h is ok for dof and all the neat stuff for such a picture... at least for my machine :> ) because of the grainy reflection on the ground
did you turn glossy reflections/refractions on for the ground material ? if so i guess thats your "problem"
dont know if you can get much lower rendertimes...
the last picture i did was a glass of whiskey on a table
with just reflective ground it took ~30 mins and with glossy reflective ground - nothing else changed - it took ~90 mins

i had a rather high sample rate for the material though in the glossy refl options
try to lower the sample rate or maybe

ah another thing
in the ray server in your render options

1) change the accelerator from Default Accelerator to High Performance - should be a rather obvious drop down menu

2) if you didnt already change them there should be three numbers above (in ray server)

# of reflection rays 3
# of refraction rays 8
# of total rays 11

thats the default
lower the refractive one to like 4 and the total to 7 then (3+4 ^^)
you might notice slight differences in you pictures but thats 4 less rays per uhm pixel ? dont know
anyways it should be faster :>
play around with those values

good luck :>

[Potato77]

ok thanks for the info...never thought of messing with the ray server.

[Henry_james]

HELPPPP, I CANNOT STAND A CHANCE TO USE HDRI!! :shame:

Henry

[cat_dancing]

can someone tell me plaese where this guid is?

:hmm:

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