interior lighting idea

[andrewjohn81]

I often have the request to make a product look like it's inside a specific store. Let's say it's Staples, just for an example.


All this HDRI stuff is nice, but what's the scale? Aren't they just spherically mapped to the scene? So how far away are the lights?

I think that's what really messes me up. So what's the solution?


One idea I had was to go out to a store with my digital SLR and point it up toward the lights. (with their permission of course). I could create an hdr image of that and crop it down in photoshop, or hdrShop.

I was thinking, if I created a plane the size of one strip of lights with the hdri applied (probably as a vray light material) then I could place it the actual height and distance from the product I would want.

Do you guys think that would work? I could then duplicate the plane to be positioned wherever I needed the lights to be. I would probably add more lights in the scene just like I was taking a picture of the product right in the store instead of a studio, but since it would use that as ambient light it would look more like it's inside the store.

I'm hoping you guys have some insight on this.

[stef.thomas]

Realviz vTour 1.2 HDR studio would have been perfect for what you're describing i.e. creating a 3d scene with HDR textures from a single 360 degree image. I don't think Autodesk are going to continue developing this software though since taking over Realviz. Maybe Autodesk are looking to incorporate these features into Image Modeller at some point, I don't know, but you should still be able to get hold of a copy from somewhere.

[Neilg]

We have tiling hdri's of office ceilings that we use through glass on externals. Also some maps built from scratch with a number of layers, displacement, more masks than you can shake a stick at and some light material stuff.

Both work really well.

[stevesideas]

We have tiling hdri's of office ceilings that we use through glass on externals. Also some maps built from scratch with a number of layers, displacement, more masks than you can shake a stick at and some light material stuff.

Both work really well.

Say I was to shake a stick at those masks..what then ?

[Neilg]

You would have to shake it more times than is socially acceptable and may be stopped before you can do them justice I guess...

[andrewjohn81]

i had seen some of the realViz stuff before. It definitely looked promising, but I wasn't a fan of their licensing so was never able to try it.

I'm just wondering if light material is the place to be putting the hdri now. I wish you could use a piece/pieces of geometry as an environment map. That way you could have different sets for different objects. Of course, that would work also if you could include/exclude objects from reflections instead of just simply turning them on/off. That way you could have an object visible to certain materials, but possibly a different set of objects visible to other materials/objects.

Is that application you guys are using, applying the hdri to a light material and simply applying that to an object(s)?

[instinct]

i assume a vrayight would produce more detailed results at lower rendertimes.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Neilg]

Is that application you guys are using, applying the hdri to a light material and simply applying that to an object(s)?

Thats how i've been doing it, yeah. Not too sure if it actually lights the scene, but i've only needed it for reflections/more reliable range.

[andrewjohn81]

lighting the scene Would be ideal, but yes, for reflections is most important to me in this case as well. I'll have to try this out soon. Although, i'll probably try it out with our own ceiling/lights first since I'm always the guy who gets that store manager who wants to go on a power trip and cause all sorts of hassle even though I'm holding a letter from corporate saying it would be ok to do.