HDRI Previewer

[jujubee]

I found this awesome little proggie at Debevec's website which previews several HDRI's in realtime:

http://www.debevec.org/FaceDemo/

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to instantaneously preview your own collection of HDRIs and see how light impacts your models? The fact is that I quickly lose patience constantly rendering and waiting to see the results. I don't have the fastest computer in the world so I literaly have to wait several minutes rendering with my current project. With this program I could possibly get a better 'idea' as to what my final results might look like in a scene. I'd like to be able to take this program and have a 'browser to' function which allows you to 'load in' your own set of HDRIs from the interface. It would be also handy if the 'ENV. Luminance' dial would accurately reflect Vray's HDRI 'multiplier' values. I guess even further wishful thinking would allow for 'horizontal' and 'vertical' rotation dialers which would match up with Vray's HDRI mat. A more complicated hack would allow for OpenEXR support.

I was wondering if anyone had the talent/desire to modify this program to encompass this wishlist. I personally feel that it would prove an invaluable/indespensible tool to any CGI artist's arsenal. I guess we would have to look at the licensing a little more closely in order to determine if we would be able to modify the source code (though they do ask for 'comments, suggestions, and patches...')

Please let me know what you guys think as well as any other suggestions.

-Jujubee

[percydaman]

wow thats cool.. I tried to use on of my own hdris but got an error message and forced closure of the program

[jujubee]

I just wrote their team about license restrictions- see if they'll reply but will probably have to wait until Monday when they're back at work.

Something else random in regards to 6 degrees of separation- Debevec (who's basically a forefather of Image Based Lighting) and Dan Maas (who created the NASA Mars Rover animations) are both listed in the credits of this program. I have been in contact with both of them in the past and didn't realize that they knew each other. What a small small world...