[Micha]

Herve,

I'm not sure, do you use an emitter with the mxi texture or something other?

[rivoli]

as long as i can tell when converting a hdr image into a mxi you keep all the hd range.
i just did a quick test comparing a mxi generated from a hdr and a ldr image. the original hdr comes from here:

http://graphicslab.ict.usc.edu/skyprobes/

i first converted it into mxi, then saved it as tga and loaded this tga to be converted again into mxi. i ended up with the same picture for two different mxis, one from a hdr image and the other one from a ldr image.
rendering the scene with the same parameters (same intensity for the emitting mxis, burn, gamma, fstop, sspeed, same number of samples reached), gives very different results, both in terms of overall lighting and reflections (the image rendered with the mxi from ldr shows the bright reflected areas totally blown out for example):

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[tom]

oh great rivoli!
i was about to do such a comparison and not needed now
i think herve agrees now...

[rivoli]

my pleasure. don't think this is it though. i foresee another 40 pages "where the hell is my dynamic range?" thread coming this way.

[daros]

Only a cooment to dosh hdri's. Their are faked. First i think they don't have make more as 3 expositions instead of minimum 9 or 12 and they are low resution images interpolated to 3000 or 4000 pixels.

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[Mihai]

It depends how the different softwares interpret the HDR image....You have control in the hdr->mxi conversion, try to make it darker but boost the intensity at the same time, then you will have your contrast. I don't prefer such a big difference as the fprime image though....

you will mostly notice the difference from using hdr when you have objects that reflect very little. When using an ldr for illumination, you will hardly see the brightest parts of the ldr reflected in your object. When using an hdr, you will see the brightest parts reflected, because the range of intensities is so much bigger. So you get more realistic results.

[Tyrone Marshall]

I would recommend testing some HDRIs from here:

I think you can download a free one:

http://www.sachform.de/

[Hervé]

@Micha, yes I am using a dome inverted sphere as an emitter...

Great Test Rivoli... thanks.... OK I was wrong... I recognize..

Tom, yes I agree this is all my fault...

@ Daros, hummmm this is waht I thought, these hdri's were kinda Good with LW renderer, but when it comes to real Maxwell, they might show their fakeness...

@Mihai, you're right Mihai.... totally right, and again, I agree fully with you.
@Tyrone, yes you're right they look mucho better.. read first page, and see I already recommend it as well as spheron cams...

Let's bash Dosch design a little bit..... Bouuuuu badddddd... voilà... he he

Last but not least... where do you map the LDR version for the image to be seen in Background... if I just load the MXI in the emitter slot, I don't see anyting in background but grey.... also where do you control the intensity of the emitter that has the MXI... luminosity channel in LW does not work... but maybe you only read part of my posts...

Cheers, and thanks so much....

[tom]

Herve, I'm not sure what's going on in LW, but I think you're having difficulties with the plugin rather than the core. Know that MXI strength doesn't have a numeric control within applications. I simply try to say, your LW sliders etc. won't help affecting its strength. Illumination strength of MXI is hidden in every pixel of it and you can adjust it just before exporting it to MXI from the maxwell viewer for the camera parameters seen there.

[Hervé]

ahhh you explained right Tom... I thought you could play with intensity as with other emitters.... Okeeyyyyyyy ! now I feel better...

BTW, in the end, I like the Maxwell sky better...