I really like the ease of use that comes from using HDRI dome lights to create studio setups, but found that they are a bit limiting and always end up having to add at least a few extra lights or tweak them in Photoshop to merge a few, things like that, but figured out a good trick today that makes using them way easier.
I started out with a studio HDRI that has 3 lights (softboxes) and a black background. I split that out into 3 separate lights on black backgrounds (using Pshop). Now I have a top light, and two separate side-light spherical HDRI maps.
Then loaded them up one at a time into VrayHDRI maps, but put *those* into VrayCompTex maps, set to additive. Now I can place that in a VrayLight texture and I have HDRI softboxes that I can easily move around separately using the invididual image rotation controls. I can also add them on top of any generic background image I like using the same trick. Very easy to move them and each one can be adjusted separately for brightness and even colour (using other mix map types etc.).
If you need more lights just keep nesting more VrayCompTex inside of themselves and you have quite a few. So far I've only done 4, but that should cover a lot of bases already.
This might be one of those things everyone else is already doing, but it's new to me anyway and very handy so thought I'd share.
b
I started out with a studio HDRI that has 3 lights (softboxes) and a black background. I split that out into 3 separate lights on black backgrounds (using Pshop). Now I have a top light, and two separate side-light spherical HDRI maps.
Then loaded them up one at a time into VrayHDRI maps, but put *those* into VrayCompTex maps, set to additive. Now I can place that in a VrayLight texture and I have HDRI softboxes that I can easily move around separately using the invididual image rotation controls. I can also add them on top of any generic background image I like using the same trick. Very easy to move them and each one can be adjusted separately for brightness and even colour (using other mix map types etc.).
If you need more lights just keep nesting more VrayCompTex inside of themselves and you have quite a few. So far I've only done 4, but that should cover a lot of bases already.
This might be one of those things everyone else is already doing, but it's new to me anyway and very handy so thought I'd share.
b
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