HDRI - What is it and how do you use it?

[jhorsthuis]

Hi elveatles,

there's a lot to say about HDRI really, maybe you can explain a bit more what it is exactly what it is you want to do and why you want to create your own?

HDRI is basically an image with much more information on how bright every pixel is than normal photography.
Usually, but not by definition, HDRI entails a full 360 panorama photgraph.
This information, covering everything from the brightness of a candle-lit hut to a sunlit desert, can be used to light your 3d-scene in a very realistic way, as if you can capture all the light hitting a specific point in space from every direction, the brightness and color.

There are bound to be much more detailed explanations out there so I suggest you try google and wikipedia as well. Making your own takes a lot of patience. You have to take photocamera and make tons of pictures from a tripod, at different exposure levels, different angles, and later stitch them togerther using software.

Yes there are free HDRI's out there and also tons of commercial ones.

On HDRI, also check out the amazing work of Paul Debevec. (think there are some free to download hdri's on his site, not too sure though)

[elveatles]

Thank you for the reply! I guess I wanted to know more about HDRI because I thought I might be able to achieve more realistic and satisfying renders from it. Making your own sounds like a complex and time-consuming process. I was hoping I could make my own since there's a limited number of free resources on the internet the same way there's a limited number of free textures.

[gregsandor]

Start at http://www.debevec.org/
You can learn a lot there and there are plenty of free resources, including processing software, HDRI images you can use, some really cool experiments, and enough information to get you started.

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