New HDRI Collection - www.aversis.be/hdri

[flipside]

Hi,

I created a bunch of HDRI maps, which you can buy at http://www.aversis.be/hdri/index.htm.

I still have the free ones too (mirrored ball), but the new ones are created with a fisheye lens and a decent camera, so the quality is 100 times better.

There are full 360 degrees maps and skydome maps (180°), all 3000*1500px in latitude/longitude format. All can be downloaded one by one, but there's also a selected pack for a cheaper price (http://www.aversis.be/hdri/hdri-packs.htm).

It's the first time I'm selling something online, so any constructive comments are more than welcome.

I hope you like the maps!

Regards,

wouter

[Clifton Santiago]

Very nice. I might buy them if they were higher resolution.

[flipside]

Very nice. I might buy them if they were higher resolution.

Hi!

Do you often use hdri maps directly as a BG map too? I usually end up using a normal flat image as a bg map, and use the hdri for reflections and lighting only.

[Clifton Santiago]

I like to use them for backgrounds as well. I do a lot of arch viz stuff where I don't have proper background photos. The background may only be seen a bit on the edges, or above a building, but it needs to be crisp to be believable. And they need to be hi-res for reflections in a building facade. I find that 8000 px wide (in a spherical pano format - from Sachform) is the minimum I need. I recently got 10,000 px from Dosch, but the image quality is not as good as Sachform. If Sachform offered 12,000 px wide urban collection I would buy it in a second. The only issue I have with their stuff is it all seems to be shot in Germany in the winter and the sun is always too low.

I have been considering hiring a photographer I know in London with a Spherocam and have him shoot about 10 panoramas in various places around London, in the summer. I think he said he can do 12,000 px with 22 EV steps.

[instinct]

Even if not used as a background 3k is fairly low. Reflections get blurry pretty fast. Spherocam has some serious issues (like various artifacts, time needed for taking a sphere etc). We use at least 10k maps usually.

Regards,
Thorsten

[flipside]

Yeah I can't do that resolution... You will indeed need a spherocam, or stitch more pics from a not so wide angle lens together, but then you'll probably get stitching errors here and there.

[flipside]

Even if not used as a background 3k is fairly low. Reflections get blurry pretty fast. Spherocam has some serious issues (like various artifacts, time needed for taking a sphere etc). We use at least 10k maps usually.

Regards,
Thorsten

It all depends on the type of objects you're rendering. The flatter the surface, the more resolution you need. I end up using blurry reflections on almost all materials anyway, so resolution isn't an issue at all anymore.

But you should note that my maps are fairly crisp, while many available maps of the same or higher resolution are simply more blurry. I can easily scale them to 5000px and sell them as high res too... The original size of my maps is 4000+, but viewed at 100% it isn't super sharp (no picture at 100% is as sharp as for example a rendering at 100%). So I scale them down to 3000px, almost no detail is lost and file size is reduced a lot.

I get a lot of good response even on my free maps, which are made with a mirrored ball (scratches and dents, light flairs) and only 750*750px. So compared to that, the maps that are for sale are super quality

[Clifton Santiago]

Yeah, no doubt. I tried making my own a couple years ago, only at 4k px wide (spherical format), using a fisheye with about 9 faked EV stops (3 actual, each stepped up and down in Nikon Capture). It was a mess. I got them stitched quite well in Realviz Stitcher, but things were fuzzy because of slight misalignment of pixels due to slight camera movement between bracketed shots. After that I decided to only buy catalogs, or hire someone with a Spheron.

Is there anything better yet? Like a camera that shoots six 90 degree shots simultaneously, with multiple bracketed shots to about 24 EV steps? That would be awesome.

[instinct]

There's various panoheads out there.

We do most of our Panos ourselfs and the original maps are WAY beyond 10k. So they are fairly crisp too.

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

[flipside]

I wish there was a camera that could shoot hdri's, so you don't have to mess with the exposures. That is the biggest issue I think, because the time shift between exposure 1 and 20 can be a real hassle.

18 EV steps is going from 1/4000 to 30 seconds exposure. I never understand where they get these very high EV's from (maybe if they count in 1/3 steps instead of 1 full EV). There's no use in making a 30s shot on a sunny afternoon. Only the lowest exposures make more sense to capture the sun, but I don't know a cam that can shoot at 1/256000s to get 24 EV's

Usually the outdoor hdri's are 12 to 16 EV, and could only use a few shorter exposures. I shoot at f22 with the longest exposure on a sunny day 0.5s, which makes the image almost completely white.

[Clifton Santiago]

@ instict: How do you avoid pixel misalignment between shots? Heavy tripod and remote? I guess CS3 extended helps align stuff when making HDR composities now. I did it in HDR shop back then.

And what camera are you using? My D80 only does three bracketed shots. After that you have to manually change exposure, which introduces movement.

[instinct]

A decent tripod and we hardly do much more then 3 brackets if i am not mistaken. Spatial resolution over Color resolution :P There's a bunch of cameras that have SDKs to set Settings via USB/Serial if i recall right.

Regards,
Thorsten