HDR Lightning with Iray - HOW?

Richard Haseltine

Herakleia said:

I'm kinda pleased with Iray so far - save for one thing, my pictures get so grainy, they look like I scanned an image from a newspaper. Is there anything to do about that?

You may need more lights, or stronger lights, in the scene or you may need to adjust the Tone Mapping in Render Settings to cope with lower light - the defaults are for outdoor scenes with an environment map - try raising the Film ISO, or lowering the shutter speed.

Hera

Richard Haseltine said:

Herakleia said:

I'm kinda pleased with Iray so far - save for one thing, my pictures get so grainy, they look like I scanned an image from a newspaper. Is there anything to do about that?

You may need more lights, or stronger lights, in the scene or you may need to adjust the Tone Mapping in Render Settings to cope with lower light - the defaults are for outdoor scenes with an environment map - try raising the Film ISO, or lowering the shutter speed.

Thanks! By the way - Tone Mapping seems only able to switch on and off, is that what you mean?

And another thing, is there a way to use bumps, displacements and ray trace reflections with Iray? I find that the materials in my pictures (a brook of water, metal items) do not return reflections in Iray the way they did in 3Dlight.

Karibou

Herakleia said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Herakleia said:

I'm kinda pleased with Iray so far - save for one thing, my pictures get so grainy, they look like I scanned an image from a newspaper. Is there anything to do about that?

You may need more lights, or stronger lights, in the scene or you may need to adjust the Tone Mapping in Render Settings to cope with lower light - the defaults are for outdoor scenes with an environment map - try raising the Film ISO, or lowering the shutter speed.

Thanks! By the way - Tone Mapping seems only able to switch on and off, is that what you mean?

And another thing, is there a way to use bumps, displacements and ray trace reflections with Iray? I find that the materials in my pictures (a brook of water, metal items) do not return reflections in Iray the way they did in 3Dlight.

Sickleyield's tutorial on deviantart gives a few basic hints about tonemapping in #5 (http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/journal/Tutorial-Getting-Started-With-Iray-519725115 ). It also has a link to some great photography info, which is incredibly useful with unbiased render engines. When you turn tonemapping on, you'll have a bunch more options appear below the on/off button.

As for the bump/displacement/reflections -- are you applying the Iray ubershader to your materials? ANY surfaces in your scene that you want more than just a diffuse channel (base texture), you have to apply the ubershader to. When you apply it, DS does a rough approximation of what the Iray shader should be, based on the original texture. Then it's just a matter of playing with the shader to get the effects you want. (Look at "Glossy layered weight" and "glossy reflectivity" in the metallic/roughness settings, and also "glossiness" in the specular/glossiness settings.) A note -- displacement is way down the list, below the bump, normal map, and opacity settings! (I couldn't find it at first!)

Richard Haseltine

Also note that Iray doesn't do the micro-displacement that 3Delight does, it can move only real vertices in the model, or SubD vertices, so fine displacement requires enough levels of SubD either on the model or as a surface setting.

Karibou

Richard Haseltine said:

Also note that Iray doesn't do the micro-displacement that 3Delight does, it can move only real vertices in the model, or SubD vertices, so fine displacement requires enough levels of SubD either on the model or as a surface setting.

Richard, is this also true of normal maps with Iray?

Hera

Richard Haseltine said:

Also note that Iray doesn't do the micro-displacement that 3Delight does, it can move only real vertices in the model, or SubD vertices, so fine displacement requires enough levels of SubD either on the model or as a surface setting.

Hi!
How can I create SubD ?

Richard Haseltine

Karibou said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Also note that Iray doesn't do the micro-displacement that 3Delight does, it can move only real vertices in the model, or SubD vertices, so fine displacement requires enough levels of SubD either on the model or as a surface setting.

Richard, is this also true of normal maps with Iray?

No, a normal map just changes the way lighting applies to the surface so it works without needing extra vertices. It's only displacement, which moves the geometry, that has this issue (I imagine it's a sacrifice to stand a chance of getting the model into the GPU memory).

Richard Haseltine

Herakleia said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Also note that Iray doesn't do the micro-displacement that 3Delight does, it can move only real vertices in the model, or SubD vertices, so fine displacement requires enough levels of SubD either on the model or as a surface setting.

Hi!
How can I create SubD ?

Edit>Figure>Geometry>Convert to SubD..., if it isn't already (the Genesis figures are). The actual SubD level for Iray is set in the Parameters pane using Render SubD Level under Mesh Resolution. If you need additional levels for displacement, with the Iray Uber Shader applied and a displacement map applied use the SubD Displacement Level. Note that the final division should be the maximum of the two settings, though that doesn't seem to be how it is currently working. Also note that each level of SubD quadruples the polygon count.

Hera

Karibou said:

[ ANY surfaces in your scene that you want more than just a diffuse channel (base texture), you have to apply the ubershader to. When you apply it, DS does a rough approximation of what the Iray shader should be, based on the original texture. Then it's just a matter of playing with the shader to get the effects you want. (Look at "Glossy layered weight" and "glossy reflectivity" in the metallic/roughness settings, and also "glossiness" in the specular/glossiness settings.) A note -- displacement is way down the list, below the bump, normal map, and opacity settings! (I couldn't find it at first!)

Is "glossy reflectivity" corresponding to "reflection" in normal surfaces. And if so, how do I use it to get something similar to 80% - which I use for water when it's in a pond or a pool.

I'm trying to get a water surface to reflect, you see, and no matter what I do, using Iray, it doesn't seem to work.

Widdershins Studio

Thanks for all these comments.

I'm getting there, but had a couple of questions.

Basically I am just loading a jpg HDR image into the Environment Map Slot, then hitting render.

I'm wondering if there is a way to increase the intensity of the light just on the character - because compared to the background the model's skin does not look bright enough.

I probably need to keep exploring, but thanks if anyone has saome advice.

mjc1016

Karibou said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Also note that Iray doesn't do the micro-displacement that 3Delight does, it can move only real vertices in the model, or SubD vertices, so fine displacement requires enough levels of SubD either on the model or as a surface setting.

Richard, is this also true of normal maps with Iray?

 

Normalmaps are glorified bump maps.   As such, they don't move any vertices.

 

 

mjc1016

Hera said:

 

Karibou said:

[ ANY surfaces in your scene that you want more than just a diffuse channel (base texture), you have to apply the ubershader to. When you apply it, DS does a rough approximation of what the Iray shader should be, based on the original texture. Then it's just a matter of playing with the shader to get the effects you want. (Look at "Glossy layered weight" and "glossy reflectivity" in the metallic/roughness settings, and also "glossiness" in the specular/glossiness settings.) A note -- displacement is way down the list, below the bump, normal map, and opacity settings! (I couldn't find it at first!)

 

Is "glossy reflectivity" corresponding to "reflection" in normal surfaces. And if so, how do I use it to get something similar to 80% - which I use for water when it's in a pond or a pool.

I'm trying to get a water surface to reflect, you see, and no matter what I do, using Iray, it doesn't seem to work.

Using one of the water presets in the Iray materials section is probably going to do more to get a water like look than anything else.

Fishtales

mrmorph said:

Thanks for all these comments.

I'm getting there, but had a couple of questions.

Basically I am just loading a jpg HDR image into the Environment Map Slot, then hitting render.

I'm wondering if there is a way to increase the intensity of the light just on the character - because compared to the background the model's skin does not look bright enough.

I probably need to keep exploring, but thanks if anyone has saome advice.

A .jpg and an .hdr are two different things. The .jpg will give you a background but it isn't good enough to give you light for lighting a scene. A .jpg even the ones called hdri's are only 24 bit whereas a good hdri can be 96 bit which gives enough range in the light parts to give light in an image.

Widdershins Studio

Thanks I see what you mean. I was using JPG and it was a bit off. I tracked down a proper HDR to test with and it came out a lot better...

 

Widdershins Studio

If anyone needs a few freebies, I found these : https://www.hdri-hub.com/hdrishop/freesamples/freehdri

Moonlight

Hi everyone, I'm new to HDR so I have a question how can I make my own HDR Enviroments and how to do it step by step or point me in the right direction to a link explaining how to. Thanks  

Fishtales

Moonlight said:

Hi everyone, I'm new to HDR so I have a question how can I make my own HDR Enviroments and how to do it step by step or point me in the right direction to a link explaining how to. Thanks  

Have a look here.

http://www.hello-napalm.com/tuts/hdri.html

http://www.hdrlabs.com/news/index.php

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/131/Spherical-Panoramic-Photography

http://ict.debevec.org/~debevec/HDRShop/tutorial/tutorial5.html

Rogerbee

Interesting links, I'll have to check them out.

CHEERS!

tl155180

Is it just me using them incorrectly, or is the HDR lighting from the DT-Yosemite sets really dim in Iray compared to the background image? Is there a way to tweak this, or is it more a question of adding photometric lights to the scene to compensate?

Fishtales

In what way do you mean the 'light'?

The .jpg images look washed out when used on the dome as is the .hdr image. The .jpg doesn't give 'light' but the .hdr does if you use the right one (I can't remember if there is a 'light only' .hdr in the set at the moment).

These ones I used the HDRI.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/uploads/FileUpload/c3/3b1dcc164639d11e9b481f9374432d.jpg

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/902308/#Comment_902308

tl155180

Thanks. Yeah, I know the jpeg won't give any light - I'm using the .tiffs in the enviroment map (such as DT-YosemiteHDR2.tiff). It is providing HDR lighting to the scene, but the image on the dome is bright and washed out, while the figures in the scene are dimly lit by the HDR lighting.

Kerya

Searching the forum for Yosemite and Iray ... you are not alone:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/804356/#Comment_804356

 

tl155180

Kerya said:

Searching the forum for Yosemite and Iray ... you are not alone:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/804356/#Comment_804356

 

So I see - thanks Kerya.

I also just downloaded another hdr from this site (https://www.hdri-hub.com/hdrishop/freesamples/freehdri) and tried it out and it works much better, as I would've expected from an hdr. It must just be that the Yosemite sets are pre-Iray so they weren't made with Iray in mind, I guess.

Am I correct in thinking that all hdr lighting emits from the Iray dome when you have the .hdr or .tiff file in the environment map? That would seem logical. So any geometry that gets in the way of the dome is going to obscure the lighting.

Fishtales

Put the .tiff into Photoshop and treat it like a washed out image from a DSLR. I did that to this image.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/907733/#Comment_907733

Have you deleted the Doubedome and Uberenvironment as these don't do anything?

Kerya

Fishtales said:

Put the .tiff into Photoshop and treat it like a washed out image from a DSLR. I did that to this image.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/907733/#Comment_907733

Have you deleted the Doubedome and Uberenvironment as these don't do anything?

Page Not Found

The page you were looking for could not be found.

 

Fishtales

PC Members only 

Here you are.

Click on image for full size.

Oso3D

It is EXTREMELY hard to create HDRIs to provide actual light.

The easiest approach I've found is to use Picturenaut and use 'under exposed' images that are nothing but a sun disk I drew where it should be.

 

Kerya

Dramatic!

(No, not a PC member anymore since my grandfathered subscription ran out in August. It DOES save me money. LOL)

Kerya

http://snowsultan.deviantart.com/journal/Old-school-HDRI-lighting-in-Iray-523712116

MN-150374

tl155180 said:

Thanks. Yeah, I know the jpeg won't give any light - I'm using the .tiffs in the enviroment map (such as DT-YosemiteHDR2.tiff). It is providing HDR lighting to the scene, but the image on the dome is bright and washed out, while the figures in the scene are dimly lit by the HDR lighting.

Both Yosemite-ProSets come with .hdr-files. If you take a look in your Product Library, download the Poser-Installer. There you will find the .hdr-files.