Let us create dynamic HDRI lights with rotational properties in DAZ Studio.
vozolgant
Posts: 207
Imagine you load a base HDR environment map, but it's been stripped of its light sources. Instead, you create new HDRI lights inside DAZ Studio itself. What does that mean? You click "create new HDRI light", and it will actually modify the HDR and put a light type inside the HDR file, like you would in photoshop. The cool part is that we'd be able to dynamically control where the light goes, and in real time see the light changes in the scene. Basically, instead of having to use photoshop, all of the light editing occurs rapidly in DAZ itself. Imagine being able to rapidly rotate an HDR light; which is just essentally a light layer, like a photoshop layer that gets baked into the HDR before the IRAY render.
From there we can control the HDR lights properties, like exposure strength, size and where it exists in the HDRI, so while we move the HDR light around, we get to see the changes rapidly inside the DAZ scene.
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Comments
An HDRI is just an image with the sun in a fixed location. All light and shadows in the image are static. You could more another light around in Daz Studio, but tht wouldn't change the appearance of light and shadow on the HDRI image itself. I would think you would end up with a jarring mismatch between the background HDRI image lighting and the scene lighting. If you don't intend to use the HDRI for background (Show Dome) anyway, why not just rotate the HDRI to change your lighting in the scene? You can rotate in all three dimensions.
I didn't explain it right.
I'm talking about creating an HDR from scratch in DAZ Studio; perhaps using a base HDR.
1. Click New HDR
2. New HDR Light (like adding a light manually in photoshop)
Then you can dynamically move that light around; like you would in photoshop, but in 3d space. Dynamic Real Time HDR creation.
I can create new HDR lights in the HDR file in photoshop, but I have to move it, save it, render, move it, save it, render. It's annoying. If we could do this process in DAZ, it would be much much faster.
Let's say I want 5 lights. Instead of adding 5 super slow ghost lights, or 5 super slow daz lights, I instead add 5 HDR lights, put them where i want on the HDR sphere, which renders extremely fast.
You can create an HDR in daz with a render and I do that frequently for my VNs if I have a large number of renders to do with the same environment..
Maybe I am missing something, but I do not understand what would be the added value of such a product. Except if the HDR is an abstract or light only one, or if you do not draw the dome, the result will be weird. Of course, you could add a light and create an HDR with that, but all the objects in the HDR (trees, houses, etc) are inflluenced by this new light, cast new shadows, etc, and it is obviously impossible to modify the initial HDR take it into account. The only solution is to do a new render with the original scene to create the proper HDR.
How could you have five HDR lights? In any event, the calculation from mesh to HDR image needs to be done (and can be done using the spherical lense add on and rendering to a canvas for an EXR) so in general you would benefit only, as alainmerigot says, if making mulitple renders with the same surroundings.
In Photoshop, I can add 5 new HDR lights to the HDRI file, then save it as a Radiance file (HDR). My idea is to let us perform this process in DAZ, in real time. Basically we add a new light, which is like a new light layer in photoshop, then we can control its exposure, softness or sharpness, and size, then move it across the HDR sphere in the scene; the same way I move this light across the canvas in photoshop.
So the same way I can move a light on the XYZ, and change it's rotation, I want to move the HDR light across the HDR 3d sphere, and have the light update in real time for perfect positioning.
On a side note, how can we currently add lights?
1. Add DAZ light; SUPER SLOW RENDERING
2. Add Ghost Light; SLOW RENDERING; similar to a mesh emission based light.
3. Add HDR light to HDR file in Photoshop; super fast rendering, HDR renders super fast.
What i'm proposing is letting us do #3 in DAZ Studio, without the need for photoshop.
What make a light/emissive slow wrt an hdri is that the hdri absorbs all incoming light and you do not have to deal with multiple reflections. The render time of a room with light source is terrible because the light sends rays to the walls, that reflects them to other walls, etc. If the room is replaced by an HDR, all this long reflection process is suppressed. So it is not the lights/emissive that are slow, but the reflections in the environment.
IMHO the render time of a scene an HDR alone or with an HDR and a couple of extra lights should be very similar. I am on holidays and cannot experiment myself presently, but you should try to render a scene with an HDR with and w/o additonal lighting and compare the render times.