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[arketype]

Hi guys- thanks for the replies. I am glad you like them so far!

I plan on doing a video tutorial or two for the products soon.

If you have any feedback or special requests please let me know.

Thanks
Dave

[jimjam]

A tutorial using Studio Lights HDRI (one large reflection, one small blurred skymap, and GI glossy) for a product shot would be nice, especially advice on how to tweak the look and get it just right. An example of how to clamp out color saturation might also be helpful.

Any tutorial would be great, though. Thanks!

Jim Mulcahy

[Reuben5150]

Reuben, how far does the HDRI get you on product shots? Do you still have to add other lights and/or reflective objects? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Jim Mulcahy

I’ve hardly used the HDR features as yet, i got distracted by other things just after v7 was released and haven’t had any paying jobs, but i’ve started to work on some projects and testing again with the new stuff.

I tend not to use extra lights or reflective objects unless needed for specific reason, or something extra that GI/HDR cannot provide alone, of cause the HDR maps that are use used are all-important to the end result.

Reuben

[jimjam]

Thanks Reuben,

I created about 20 small turnaround animations of a simplified camera model using a different small blurred StudioLights HDRI for each. They rendered extremely fast and gave me a pretty good sense of what kinds of images give what kind of results. Then I used the ones I liked on a better model, added GI glossy, tried the HDRI at different angles and settings, and got some really nice highlights. But there’s room for improvement and I’m not sure of the next step. Anyway, good luck with your explorations. I’ll keep trying.

Jim Mulcahy

[jimjam]

Dave,

In my tutorial request I mentioned clamping out color saturation, but I had forgotten that Ian provides a nice little explanation in his Advanced HDRI and GI tutorial (at the EI site).

JM

[arketype]

Hi James.
Before I get a chance to do some videos here are some tips…

These HDRs are “synthetic”. They have not been created using traditional multi-exposure photographic techniques.

The Studio Lights series will REDUCE it’s saturation as you lower the clamping value.
The Solo series should INCREASE saturation as you lower the clamping value.

The reason for this is the relative brightness of of the “key” light source and secondary sources.

If all of the sources are very bright, then as you reduce the clamping all of the light sources become “overexposed” and move towards white in color.

If the key light is very bright, and the secondary sources are dim (as in the Solo series) clamping will mainly affect the strongest light source, the already dim lights will not be clamped. So the difference in value between the two becomes less. This should result in more color saturation overall as the dim sources are not so overwhelmed by the Key Light, and they contribute a greater percentage of the overall illumination. This may also add some noise- so be prepared to increase your primary ray count.

The best way to learn is to do some basic tests with clamping at it’s highest value, around 75%, 50%, 25%, etc. As you approach a clamping value of 1.0 you will likely begin to get very poor results as all of the light sources begin to be clamped.

If you want a darker scene you can move the “bias” control to a lower value. The default is 2.0. If your scene is “overexposed” you can lower this. Try values of 1.75, 1.5 and 1.25. Values all the way down to 0 will work, but your scene may become very dark.

Good Luck.

Dave

See my previous post below for a clamping sample:

Attached is a better render sample using one of the HDR images from HDR Capsule:Studio Lights.
You can see the very soft shadows created from the Adaptive Skymap as well as a combination of RT Reflection Skymap, and GI Glossy effects.

All of the HDRs are meant to give good results right away at the default settings, so you don’t have to wrestle with the controls to get results. But some simple tweaks can be useful.

Because these images were “engineered” rather than photographed, they have some special properties. For all of the images in the Studio Lights series, the saturation from the light sources is controllable using the clamping control within Animator. You can see in the sample that pulling the clamping down to about 30% of the max pulls most of the color out of the light sources, but leaves the soft shadows intact.

As for speed, these images used 400 Primary rays, and rendered on my “old” 2ghz G5 in 6:30s. Not too shabby

I hope everyone will find these useful!

I’ll be sharing some more things soon!
As always, feedback is welcome

Dave

[jimjam]

Thanks Dave,

Your information will be a great help.

I wish EI provided more than blue and pink color feedback on the HDRI image during clamping adjustment. Photoshop levels-like visual feedback on the HDRI image would make it all so much clearer. Maybe EI can add that in the future. Or is there a feature I’m missing?

Jim Mulcahy

[arketype]

Thanks Dave,

Your information will be a great help.

I wish EI provided more than blue and pink color feedback on the HDRI image during clamping adjustment. Photoshop levels-like visual feedback on the HDRI image would make it all so much clearer. Maybe EI can add that in the future. Or is there a feature I’m missing?

Jim Mulcahy

Sorry, the clamp colors are all we have
But there are some “auto-magical” adjustments built into Adaptive Skymaps so that users do not have to re-map the lighting output by hand every time the clamping is adjusted

Looking forward to seeing some test samples
Dave

[jimjam]

That’s what I figured, Dave. Thanks.But I must say I’m impressed with the wizardry EI has already employed. So far, it appears that HDRI lighting provides superior results AND greater setup ease. It’s pretty impressive. And thanks again for your HDRI product. I tried various free HDR images off the Net, but get better results with yours.

JM

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