[lghtstrm]

I'd love to find a definitive guide for how to use hdr's in Maxwell. I've found bunches of them that are plug-in, platform specific, but if you are importing your geometry.

I'm relatively new to the Maxwell world and I can't seem to find this in any of the manuals or tutorials.

1.If I want to apply an HDR to a spherical environment does the "sphere" need to come in with the geometry when I import?

2. Otherwise, what does Maxwell do with a spherical map. (or does it just look funny)

3. or am I better off just using a 6K horizontal hdr

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Bubbaloo]

I use HDRshop to convert spherical hdri's into longitudinal, then insert into the environment map slots. That's all you have to do. No need to use a large sphere with inverted normals unless you just want to...

[RonB]

As the nearly famous Bubbaloo said, no need to use an actual sphere, the HDRI's are "mapped" to a virtual sphere in Studio...all automatically.

What software package are you using? I use Lightwave and do all my setup there and run Maxwell through the plugin so I rarely use Studio. Somewhere in your plugin you will have an invironment dialog where you insert the HDRI into the Background, Reflection, Refraction and Illumination slots for the render.

I'll give you a tip...Use a high res HDRI for the Background and Reflection slots. But depending on how large your finished image will be you will rarely need to go to 6K, I usually do 3k myself and often times less. Now the tip...for the Illumination slot knock the HDRI image down to 360 X 180 px...that's right, 360 X 180...and apply a Guassian Blur of 7.0 to it. Use the little blurred image in the Illumination slot. It will render a well as the original hi res version but will clear about 5X as fast and give a cleaner render. Try it and you will see for yourself. That trick will work for any render engine that uses HDRI images for IBL.

Welcome aboard!

Cheers, Ron

[lghtstrm]

You guys are the best. Many thanks!

I'm using SolidThinking. which has a plug-in as well so I could go directly into Maxwell to render, but I'm so impressed with the mapping and materials editor in Maxwell that I'd rather import directly and apply my materials there. That has it's drawbacks however, since many formats do not import smoothly. Lots of crashing on imports.

Thanks again for all the info and tips.

[x_site]

Thanks guys, very useful tips. Any experience using this with sketchup? i also have huge troubles rotating them since i can't get a preview until i hit the button... any tips on how to control them? many thanks in advance

[RonB]

x-site,
Although not directly related to Sketchup, you might want to download the HDRI Image kit I posted awhile back on the Goodies forum and check out the included PDF. There is some info in it you might find useful.

Cheers, Ron

[Richard]

I'm a well experienced SU / MR user and have no tips to help!

Like you and possibly everyone I have issue correctly locating the HDRI for the correct lighting angle, I really don't feel any application has yet got this issue sussed out at all and yet it could be SO DARN SIMPLE!

I see it like this. When we load an image in the illumination channel we have the option to set the point of the main light source - a panel pops up with a low res largish thumbnail version of the linked HDRI we then locate cross hairs over the mainlight source which gives the application coordinates of that point relative to the image.

Then an option to set this point relative to the model could either launch a globe like the MR one now for positioning this relative to the model, or a wire sphere appear in the viewport window around the origin / model. An indicator on the sphere clearly defining where the light source is located and the user can rotate this to set it where they like or the option selected to match this to the current sun angle - this way you could set the sun angle in your export app and have it be replaced by the HDRI source!! So darn simple as I said!

[lghtstrm]

Thanks to Ron and Richard.

Good stuff. I will try it out and report back as soon as I get out from a mess of other projects. Thanks.

[x_site]

thanks Ron... I seem to have missed your post... will check it out and go through your instructions! Many thanks