Technical Questions

How do I use HDR in my Renderings?

With most higher-​​end 3d appli­ca­tions, you can load HDRs into either the envi­ron­ment or into var­i­ous light­ing para­me­ters. From there you would choose your ren­der­ing set­tings and process your images.

Since there are numer­ous appli­ca­tions which sup­port HDR light­ing, it is best to con­sult your prod­ucts help files or to do a search on the Inter­net. For exam­ple, if you used Men­tal Ray with 3D Stu­dio Max, you may want to search for “Men­tal Ray HDR tuto­r­ial” or “Men­tal Ray .exr tuto­r­ial” and so on.

I’ve pro­vided a free HDR tuto­r­ial using Vray in my tuto­ri­als sec­tion that should get most peo­ple up and running.

As much as I would like to pro­vide peo­ple with help regard­ing their spe­cific usage, there are far bet­ter resources and tuto­ri­als avail­able on the Inter­net regard­ing other applications.

What File For­mat of HDRs do you Provide?

There are two major HDR for­mats avail­able for use and are sup­ported by most major 3d graph­ics appli­ca­tions. These for­mats are .hdr and .exr. EXR (also known as OpenEXR) is a free for­mat pro­vided by Indus­trial Light and Magic and is widely accepted through­out the 3d indus­try. The EXR for­mat is used in all of ILM’s movie pro­duc­tions. It has a far greater range of fea­tures as well as loss­less image com­pres­sion algorithms.

Due to the wide-​​spread use of .hdrs, I am cur­rently pro­vid­ing the .hdr for­mat avail­able for download.

If you require some­thing other than the .hdr for­mat, please let me know and I will try to accom­mo­date you.

sIBL For­mat Support

I also pro­vide sIBL (Smart Image Based Light­ing) for­mats and libraries which will are avail­able for down­load with each pur­chase. sIBL is an open-​​source struc­ture that plugs into the most com­mon 3D ren­der­ing appli­ca­tions. Its ease of use and high opti­miza­tion (low mem­ory and file size over­head) makes it ideal for ren­der­ings using HDR. It’s essen­tially a “plug and play” oper­a­tion if you take the time to fig­ure out how to install it. It makes the entire HDR light­ing work­flow much eas­ier and I pre­fer this over any other cur­rent setup for my own 3D work.

If you haven’t read or exper­i­mented with sIBL, please visit the sIBL web­site and forums at:

http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/index.html

What Struc­tural Format/​Map Types of HDRs do you Provide?

I pro­vide the most com­monly sup­ported map type. These images are shaped rec­ti­lin­early. I have cre­ated these due to rea­sons of effi­ciency. Also, pro­vid­ing addi­tional for­mats for down­load will only result in decreased down­load band­width and much greater file sizes.

If you need to con­vert a for­mat over to a dif­fer­ent map­ping type, I would rec­om­mend a Pho­to­shop plu­gin such as Flex­ify or and inde­pen­dent pro­gram such as HDR­Shop.

What Size HDR For­mats do you Provide?

Cur­rently, I pro­vide 8,000x4,000 pixel angu­lar maps which is con­sid­ered high for most projects.

I have just updated my cam­era equip­ment and will pro­vide even larger res­o­lu­tion for­mats for down­load, time permitting.

How do you Cre­ate your HDR Panoramas?

This is a com­pli­cated ques­tion which is not eas­ily answered. While I could pro­vide some basic steps, I am afraid that most peo­ple will miss out on the more impor­tant details. There are entire books, pro­grams, user-​​groups, and web­sites ded­i­cated to HDR cre­ation as well as that of gen­eral panoramic pho­tog­ra­phy. Plus, if you want to take high qual­ity HDR panoramic pho­tos, it requires a con­sid­er­able finan­cial invest­ment, a deter­mi­na­tion to study and learn, as well as patience.