[caryjames]

Hi again everyone: I have a problem that I am trying to solve- I have some HDR images of softboxes that I am using to light my jewellery scenes. My problem is that I do not like the reflections on my jewellery coming from a black environment and white emitters- often they leave distracting reflections on my pieces.

I would like to position my jewellery inside a white diffused dome and then use an HDR for lighting. Everytime I try this I get the HDR's positioned outside the dome and none of their light enters.

Do any of you have any advice? Thanks in advance
Cary

[JDHill]

The Image Based environment is not actual geometry in the engine (well, afaik - conceptually it isn't, anyway), so enclosing your scene inside actual geometry (I assume that's what you meant) is obscuring the environment from view. One solution would be not to use an enclosure and instead create different HDRIs, replacing the black areas with some shade of grey.

[caryjames]

Thanks JD- I was hoping to be able to position the HDR inside my geometry but will have to come up with a workaround. Now I have to figure out how to create HDRI's . One thing after another with this program .
Cary

[JDHill]

You can open just open an image in MXCL, adjust the exposure, and save it out as an .mxi.

[caryjames]

Thanks JD- I had done that before with limited success a few weeks ago before I discovered HDRI studio set ups. I took a jpg of a softbox that Hyltom or one of the Guru's around here posted, I then saved as an .mxi and used that to light one of my scenes. It worked, but wasn't great - in reading up on what I was doing I came across a post about the studio hdr lighting and just purchased a few which work for some scenes and objects but not for everything.

I will have to go back to something like that the mxi based lighting and spend a bit more time fooling around with a metal sphere inside a simple environment. I think I am going to have to get a better handle on rotation and elevation of image based lighting if I am going to get better at rendering shiny objects .

Thanks for the ongoing help/tutorials !!!
Cary