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At the moment I only know how to render with physical sky (which looks boring and washed out). I'd like to place a picture of a sky (with clouds etc.) in the background. I've tried to follow the directions of Mihai in the topic "adding a background photo", but I can't follow.

Could someone please help me?

Thanks,

-Jeremy

You can use image based background in the environment settings or you can render your scene with the alpha box checked and then use the alpha for a mask in photoshop for compositing your background image.

Using image based backgrounds in the environment settings always results in a completely black render. What am I doing wrong? Don't have photoshop. -Jeremy

1. Change you're environment type to image.
2. In the background slot only, add your image.
3. In reflection, refraction and illumination channels, click "disable".
4. Make sure "Sky for disabled channels" is set to Physical Sky.

That should do it.

You could also open your background image in mxcl and save it as an mxi and use that in all of the image based environment channels. But it won't look as good as a true 32 bit hdri or mxi.

Bubbaloo,

I've tried it as you've directed in steps 1-4. I've inserted a dosch.hdr image file in the background slot (tried with "screen mapped" unchecked, then checked). The render comes out as a standard physical sky image, as if the hdr file were doing nothing. Not a black render, but still no background.

Any ideas? -Jeremy

is "alpha" clicked? it's usually on by default

Could you post a screenshot of your settings?

I can make a screen shot but how do I attach an image? I click the "img" button and the line show up "Insert image: [img]http://image_url[/img] (alt+p)". -Jeremy

upload to imageshack or similar

I uploaded to imageshack. Now I can't figure out how to include the link.

-Jeremy

Hate having to figure out "XY&Z" to find the solution for "A" but here's the link to view the screen shot, to help me try to get a background happening in this rendering. I have tried to render with alpha channel checked as well as alpha channel unchecked. Thanks for everyone's patience with me. I'm used to using very basic rendering software. Thanks, -Jeremy

http://profile.imageshack.us/user/jeremynewell/

the setup in the first image will lead to two images produced: the render itself with a black sky and an alpha image.

if you want the hdr image to show up in the render image, uncheck the "alpha" channel

is that a model of Kentuck Knob???

lebbeus is right, turning on Alpha will black out the background.

Thanks Lebbeus,

But when I uncheck the alpha channel I simply get the physical sky (no hdr). I can render with the alpha channel on to get a black sky, no problem.

I take it that basically everyone uses photoshop or other beyond MXStudio to apply a background image. It seams really silly that I can't simply apply a background scene to the render itself, but guess that's the way it is.

Does anyone know where I can get a free/good application for MAC Leopard in order to insert backgrounds. It's pretty important for my house designs to at least be able to throw some clouds into the scene.

Thanks, -Jeremy

See, here it is with alpha channel off. I'm using a standard dosch hdr that came with Maxwell. -Jeremy