My First Foray into HDR Mapping

[MarkyMarkV]

My first attempt at using HDR imaging was a success in my opinion.
The image on the left is without HDRi, and just lit using indirect lighting. The second is the same, but with this image as the HDRi map:

Conclusion + thoughts: HDRi makes me giddy with excitement because it adds a whole new set of tools to help achieve realistic CGI implementation. Unfortunately, the downside to HDRi is VERY long render times. The second image took about 8 minutes to render in comparison to the 3 minutes for the first image, and that is with only 5 samples. The more samples, the less grainy, so I can only imagine how long it would take at 16 samples.

All done in Blender 2.59.

What's your HDRi process? I'm curious to start making my own HDR images from scratch. Thoughts/suggestions/tips welcomed.

 

[timmyg101]

Hdr

Hdr

Good stuff!

To really put it to use, try to do a digital matte with a building.

HDR render times are ok, as long as you plan for them in production, try to get as less grain as possible,

If you need speed doing, lighting the old fashion way (tracing light bounces) will deliver always faster render times, I use HDR sequences at 3K for render passes during animation, just like you, I keep it simple to keep the render times down and composite render passes.

Cheers,

Tim

 

[MarkyMarkV]

What do you mean by doing a "digital matte with a building"?

And I would do the old fashioned way, but I feel like using HDRi would save me more time in the long run setting up lights. If I use one of the Macs at school, the render time shouldnt be too rough. I'd turn off HDRi except for when I would use it to gauge my progress and the final render.

I'm also just learning compositing. It's a bit intimidating, but I know that i need to master it, so I'm starting to learn it.

 

[TERRA Operative]

You can downsize (like 1/4 the size) and Gaussian blur the light map without affecting output quality (I used to use HDR Shop). This will significantly decrease render times, the Gaussian blur will help prevent artefacts.
You only need the high res map for reflection mapping.

I like using a sun system (or VRay sun) in 3D Studio Max to provide hard shadows (with the longitude/latitude and time/date set to when the pic was taken) with a light map for HDRI lighting and a high res reflection map. Finally, pump it all through VRay for some very nice pictures.