HDRI backgrounds appear blurry

murph101

I have used World Machine to generate a great mountain range, brought it into Vue, then rendered a panoramic HDRI image.

I then go into Carrara and set the HDRI file as the background and plunk in some basic posed figures (one a space suit of armor and a clothed Genesis character).

Generally, it looks great. However, the background is consistently blurry. It looks okay, much like using a real camera where the subjects are nice and crisp and the background is blurred. However, if I want a shot where the characters are more distant and would have the same focal length as the background, it will not work.

Note: I have not done anything with the camera such as changing depth of field and focal length.

I have tried rendering the HDRI with 8" X 4.5" at 600 dpi, but no change to the blur.

Anything I'm missing when implementing an HDRI background?

DimensionTheory

It's the resolution. 8in x 4in at 600ppi is only 4800x2400 which isn't great for background usage, especially when you are using something other than a wide angle lens. The backgrounds from my sets for example are 16384x8192 (nearly 4 times larger) and they're still too low to maintain detail with telephoto focal lengths.

EDIT: I saw that you actually said 8in x 4.5in which is 4800x2700 which is still low, though the dimensions should be 2:1 to prevent any stretching or distortion.