HDRI Intensity Question

[igendreau]

Using V-Ray Next for Sketchup Pro 2019.
Just looking for a little explanation if I'm doing something wrong. Seems whenever I bring in an HDRI as my light source, I have to crank it up to surface-of-the-sun type intensity to get any light. Example: Here is my exact simple work process to get these images:
1. Create a new document with just 2 faces, one for floor and one for wall and drop in a chair for reference.
2. Render
3. Turn off the sun and render again
4. Add a dome light and assign an HDRI Map. Intensity is set to 1. Render again.
5. Crank dome light intensity to 50. Render again.

You can see how different my preview of the HDRI light in the Asset Editor is from the rendering. With an intensity of 1, my rendering is darker than it was without sunlight.. even though the preview looks totally different. If I crank the sunlight up to 50, I start getting better light, but my preview looks like everything is completely washed out and has insanely intense light.

Is this normal? I feel like time spent looking at HDRI's to use is wasted, because I don't get results that remotely match the HDRI previews.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

[kenancakir]

Use hdr rotation, sun position in hdr is important..

[Brett]

Also, all things being equal, you'll have to adjust your camera's exposure for the lighting, before cranking up the power of the HDRI. An evening sunset HDRI is going to be a very different camera exposure than Noon, for example.

[igendreau]

Thanks for the tips. Yes, I know exposure and rotation will play a role.
But what I'm trying to get at is why such a difference in the default? See this couch I've attached? I did this by opening 3DS Max, add a V-Ray infinite plane, add the same HDRI dome light that I used in the very dark pic from my original post and rendered. Voila... the lighting on the couch definitely reflects a result similar to what you'd expect based on the HDRI preview. With no customization of any kind... just straight "out of the box". My question is, why is HDRI in Sketchup so drastically different. Same simple workflow, same HDRI, drastically different results.

Didn't know if there was an easy fix, or formula to use (like "light multiplier value of 1 in 3DS Max equals light intensity 30 in Sketchup"). Just trying to speed up my ability to make really well lit quick environments in Sketchup, and if HDRI defaults worked more like they do in 3DS Max, that'd certainly help. Thanks for all the input.

[kenancakir]

In fact, somethimes i use Blender and the same question came to my mind also..

[GD3DESIGN]

Didn't know if there was an easy fix, or formula to use (like "light multiplier value of 1 in 3DS Max equals light intensity 30 in Sketchup"). Just trying to speed up my ability to make really well lit quick environments in Sketchup, and if HDRI defaults worked more like they do in 3DS Max, that'd certainly help.

I know....what a pain,right?! Just another thing to make the day more fun.....