"Must Have" HDRI

[Repenseks]

Hi all,

I need to get/buy some quality HDRI. I was looking around and found too many CD compilations, for interior exterior. I need some bounle with most for exterior, without snow, and some for interior too. Anotherwords, some "must have" HDRI. Any suggestions?

Regards
Srdjan

P.S. I downloaded some free HDRI, and without some good results, very dark images, images whitch i can not put as a background too.

[jonnybefree]

hi Repenseks,
what about the Dosch collections?

www.doschdesign.com

[studioDIM]

I would suggest you to steer away from any collection that doesn't mention the number of exposures gone into the creation of HDRIs.

Paul debevec showed the way (very high contrast ratios), and people took the 32bpc storage type for HDRI.

Well, hdri is about the quality of the image taken, not the fact that the image is saved with an HDR extension at 32bpc.

We have a few dosch collections at the studio, and we can reliably use SO FEW images we quite feel ripped off.

As an example: kitchen.hdr from debevec's site casts beautiful shadows coming from the apertures and lights.
Of the dosch probes, probably a couple of any collection cast some very very faint ones...

just my thoughts...

Lele

[panthon]

As an example: kitchen.hdr from debevec's site casts beautiful shadows coming from the apertures and lights.
Of the dosch probes, probably a couple of any collection cast some very very faint ones...

just my thoughts...

Lele

You can take any low-range hdr and help the bright points of the image just painting them on a hdr app, like idruna photogenics.
This way, u will get sharper shadows. Although the best way for that would be waiting till hdr mapped domelights, because they will give you nice illumination plus great shadows, with no lights at all.

Anyway, here´s a tutorial for painting a sun in a hdr image:

http://www.cgtechniques.com/tutorials/synthhdr.php

[studioDIM]

sure.
We experimented with a few apps, and managed "physical" skies with a contrast ratio of over 1B:1 (ie. the sun color values were around 1.000.000.000,000, the darker spots were a mere 1,000), and those do cast shadows .

But that's beside the point of spending money to buy a ready made collection.

I can't recall off-hand the name and site of that guy that does beautiful renders with both vray and maxwell (he has nice comparisons on his site), but our next shopping spree will definitely go his way: his hdri collection looks really well done.

Lele

[panthon]

I haven´t thought of buying a collection so far. You can usually create your own hdrs with no great effort. Creating a hdr collection shouldn´t take too much time...

I´ve created some myself, but they are only used to mimic real lighting and integrate some cg in real footage thus being useful only for 1 particular shot.

Nevertheless, Debevec and his team presented a different approach to capture the ultra high range of the sun using seven photographs, here´s the link:

http://gl.ict.usc.edu/skyprobes/skyc...igraph2004.pdf

I haven´t tried it yet, because i use a cheap spherical sugar container instead of a fisheye lens. Plus im no expert at using ND filters and stuff.

[gadzooks]

i heard these were reall good. Havent tried them my self..

http://www.sachform.de/index_EN.html

[jujubee]

Dosch's 'Radiant Skies' appears to be digitally created with the same programs I used to create my HDR library over at www.hdrsource.com. If this is the case, the number of F-Stops is far greater than what most people produce manually.

As for Sachform, they produce very good quality HDRs for interiors and exteriors using the Spheron camera system. If I had a choice in buying a library for interiors, I would definitely check out some of their free downloads. If background is not important to you, I would just look on the web for free ones since they can do an adequate job.

[cpnichols]

I would suggest you get as many as possible from as many sources as possible. Dosch and Sachform both make great ones. The key in my opinion is to have a rich palette of them.

Sachform is great because they have great subjects great environments

If you get the Dsch Design ones, make sure and get the extreem high res. ones. Pretty much can't beat the quality of those. They are made with the spheron camera and those HDRs are not only big they are very very deep (very high dynamic range).... somthing like 26 stops.

Anyway... collect them... Most of them cost only around $100. So once a month or so, buy another DVD.

[Repenseks]

Thank you guys for nice inputs!!! I got much clear vison on HDRI matter. I really appretiete your response.

Regards
Srdjan

[Repenseks]

After all, I must admit, I am still confued and don't know what to do, I need some HDRi, asap. I downloaded some trial hdri from Dosch, and as i could see they did not influence scene much, or rather not at all
Chris, I can see you like Dosch's very high res ones. If I am not mistaken, you have used one of them in your scene in your first DVD
Only thing about buyng that particular one is that most of the time I do exteriors architecture and can not see them lighting my scenes, i coul be wrong. I have seen skies from the same manufacturer, could be ideal, but as Lele said, they are not so good
About Sachform, I have seen only few which I could possibly use, not sure which one will work good with exteriors

Regards
Srdjan

[RErender]

and as i could see they did not influence scene much, or rather not at all

This seems unlikely, what method are you using with them? Maybe show us an example of your results.

[Repenseks]

Moving to OFF-Topic

Thanx RErender for reply,

I will Post something bit later on. Sorry for uncoviniance guys, I am moving this thread to OFF Topic section.


Regards
Srdjan

[cpnichols]

After all, I must admit, I am still confued and don't know what to do, I need some HDRi, asap. I downloaded some trial hdri from Dosch, and as i could see they did not influence scene much, or rather not at all
Chris, I can see you like Dosch's very high res ones. If I am not mistaken, you have used one of them in your scene in your first DVD
Only thing about buyng that particular one is that most of the time I do exteriors architecture and can not see them lighting my scenes, i coul be wrong. I have seen skies from the same manufacturer, could be ideal, but as Lele said, they are not so good
About Sachform, I have seen only few which I could possibly use, not sure which one will work good with exteriors

Regards
Srdjan

I used the Sachform ones as well. One thing to keep in mind, that you can't really tell how the HDRI will look until you try it. This mean that even if you think that the HDRI will not look good, it may look great. Since it is what I did this weekend, it is a lot like picking paint colors for a room. Looks ok in the store, then with all that darn GI, it looks very different in the room painted. So it is always good to have a bunch of HDRIs to pick from.

On "I, Robot" we used some HDRIs that had nothing to do with the space that the character was in.... HDRIs of the set are sorta useless when the whole set is green

[ene.xis]

HDRIs of the set are sorta useless when the whole set is green

lol
u got a point there!
hehehe