VRayHDRI Self-Illumination and Tiling/Distance

[nhanimator]

Hello and thanks for helping out. I'm new to VRay and have not found the answer to either of these questions:

Using a VRayHDRI image for my background. It is of a field with a trees and a forested treeline in the background.

1. Is there any way to apply a self-illumination to an HDRI image without affecting its lighting on the scene (or otherwise simulate this)? While the lighting is where I want it, the trees in the background image are almost black. Adjusting the Overall Mult and Render Mult don't do the trick as they affect the entire scene's lighting.

2. I read some older posts about people having problems with tiling the background image and I can't get it to work myself. I only need about 50 degrees worth of the image (my camera is stationary) and would like to either tile the image (to x2 or x3) and/or make the image seem more distant than it is by default. In other words, the trees in the HDRI image are too large/too close. Making them smaller via either tiling or increasing the apparent distance of the image from the camera would solve this.

Thanks much,
NHAnimator

[Morbid Angel]

for your question 1, yes you can do that. If you want to use hdr for just environment you must split off the hdr into vray environment, and for camera environment to be separate. This way the camera environment would see the brightness of one hdr but render illumination of the second hdr.