Area shadows & HDRI ?s

[WWX]

Hi,

I am lighting my scene with one sunlight using Vray shadows and would like to know why is the shadows cast differantly with area shadows turned on and off and with option is closes to the direction the shadows would be cast for the chosen location and time compared to real life?

Secondly I am thinking of using a HDRI image to supplement my lighting, but is the a way to work out what the rotation of the HDRI file should be once in the material slot so that the sun in the HDRI iamge will line up with the location of the sun light placed in the model?

Hope it is clear what I asking, if not please let me know and I will try to explain.

Thanks

[RErender]

For the first the "sun" needs to be a long ways from the scene.


For the second, you can instance the hdr into the Max environment and then use 'viewport background' with use environment map to show where it is pointing.