Environment mismatch and non-parity

[fixeighted]

The same environments in Vantage/Max do not match up.
The rotation is not the same. It's not just that it's flipped but seems to be just off...could be due to the other things below I guess.
The projection is different, so the sun is in a different position.
The map is flipped between the two.

Naturally when it comes to matching my exterior shots it causes big problems, for which my only solution is eyeballing a Vray sun position.

Unless I am missing something that will magically correct it of course

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi, fixeighted

Can you please send a sample scene, because I am not able to reproduce it locally.

Beast regards,
Alexander

[fixeighted]

Hi,

Just rendering another shot, so will do after that ends

[fixeighted]

Ok, the process is (and this simpler test shows a small improvement):

I sent this static scene from Max https://www.dropbox.com/s/hahujgefdc...80621.max?dl=0, without anything but geometry to orient to.
In Vantage I chose an HDRI, specifically Day 34 from Cosmos....I set the rotation to 232 degrees.
I go back to Max and create a dome using the same HDRI.
This HDRI is flipped in Max, so I flip it to correct it to match orientation.
The same 232 rotation is not equal, so I eyball it into relative position and the rotation is 52.

Please bear in mind that this does not use LiveLink, as it intends to mimic the workflow we use.
Also I'm just now made aware there is an update, so this may be fixed in that.

I will now load the larger scene I spotted the incorrect projection in. This will take a while so I'll update...

EDIT: The projection I'm now seeing as just fine, so I think it must have been before I realised that the map is flipped, so it misled me.
So that just means the rotation and the flipping remain the problems

[Alexander.Atanasov]

I go back to Max and create a dome using the same HDRI. This HDRI is flipped in Max, so I flip it to correct it to match orientation.

If you try first in Vantage the HDRI and then you use that same HDR then you have to flip the image in Max. If you however export the HDR from max to Vantage you will get what is in Max. There is code inside Vantage where it reads if the scene is coming from max and swaps the flip input to match that in Max.

The same 232 rotation is not equal, so I eyball it into relative position and the rotation is 52.

No need to eyeball it. You just have to take whatever value is in Vantage, add 180 to it. So in your case the rotation in Vantage is 232 then in Max has to be 232+180=412m which if you convert it between 0-360 range is 52.

Also I'm just now made aware there is an update, so this may be fixed in that.

Sorry, different features and fixes are in the new version. You can check the forum post in the Announcement section for details. We have a logged Issue for environment image flip options in Vantage but no ETA on it. Will try to bump priority for it so that it will streamline the process.

Best regards,
Alexander

[npg]

For whatever reason spherical images in 3dsmax are mirrored by default (best seen when there is text in the image) and V-Ray reproduces this behavior. So when Vantage loads a vrscene (or livelink) from 3dsmax it knows to mirror the bitmap so that it looks the same as in Max. But if you load the same HDRI directly into Vantage it will be loaded in its proper unmirrored orientation. If your camera is not oriented toward the center of the environment image it will be hard to match the angle. Otherwise if you align it with the central axis you can calculate it by 1) subtracting 360 if the angle is >180; 2) flipping the sign of the angle. So if it was 232 you get 232-360 = -128 --> +128. But in the general case the camera won't be aligned so I'm not sure how usable this workflow is. (never mind, read post above)

To recap: 3dsmax is weird, but we're not forcing its weirdness to the whole world.

edit: pf, Alex posted while I was typing...

[fixeighted]

Thanks for that guys.
My maths is just awful, so I could not have begun to calculate that rotational black magic stuff...it will be useful
For our purposes this will work fine with the flip.

That's a great update by the looks of it. Just have to decide if I can spend more time and adjust my scenes to use the features.....or maybe just head to the pub.....voting is now open