Anyone using hdri studio

[tom182]

Just looking at www.hdri-studio.com and was interested in getting the studio setup HDR image, (Neutral) but can only buy it in a pack of 6. Then there is licencing issues etc etc , seems a tad expensive/hassle for an HDR map, I though for a moment they were selling actual scenes as there was so waffle.
Anyways is there somewhere else I can buy hdr maps that are specifically lighted for studio setups?
Ta,
Tom

[suurland]

Why don't you just make those setups your self, takes 5 min as they are so damn simple.

/Thomas

[tom182]

Yeah thats what I was initially thinking but what software can I create them in? CS 2 and HDR shop will do it right?
Tom

[suurland]

You use 3dsmax... just make some planes and use output maps.

/Thomas

[tom182]

I understand but wouldnt HDR studio images would offer more environ options??
Tom

[suurland]

like what?

/Thomas

[tom182]

I'm not defending them, I am desperately trying to find justification for buying them, anyway, I could simply rotate the hdri map easier (in the ME) than the lighting planes (not that thats hard, but probably more time consuming) just looked at their site and they give this as a reason,
it refers to standard lights. I could set it to cylindrical, cubic etc



'What are the advantages of using your HDRI environments over just using standard lights? A:

The lighting available from our maps is based on a live photographic studio scenario where the photographer set up the lighting and balanced the exposures. Photographers approach lighting in a fundamentally different way due to real time feedback of the light interacting with the objects. The photographer's lighting skills are, in a sense, built into the maps as opposed to you having to create a virtual set-up yourself.

anyways I not sold on them.
Tom

[suurland]

If you ask me there is no justification at all in buying those maps, money out the window. Doing it with pure 3d gives you A LOT more controle and it looks by far as good. And rotaing the planes is not that hard, link it up to a dummy and it's just as easy as rotating a hdr map.

/Thomas

[Gijs]

The lighting available from our maps is based on a live photographic studio scenario where the photographer set up the lighting and balanced the exposures. Photographers approach lighting in a fundamentally different way due to real time feedback of the light interacting with the objects. The photographer's lighting skills are, in a sense, built into the maps as opposed to you having to create a virtual set-up yourself.

This is just marketing crap, especially that last sentence. There is no photograper than can build standard setup that can be applied blindly. Dark objects need totally different lighting that light objects, not even mentioning metals, glass etc.

[flipside]

I usually use vraylights for this task. This way, you get very good shadows too. If you don't want raytraced area shadows, simply tick the 'store with IR map' option and the shadows will be computed purely by the IR map (like with self illuminated boxes).

A hdri has no control at all, and rotation is more difficult because you need to do test renders, some planes or vraylights can be rotated while you check (with some common sense) how it will affect the scene.

If you really want a hdri, make a setup yourself, render a spherical cam image of the scene and save it with the splutterfish hdri loader.

[Metin_7]

Check out my HDRI-Studio review if you'd like to know a bit more about the product:

http://www.metinseven.com/review_hdri-studio.htm

Cheers,

Metin