animating hdri maps

[dynaman]

not sure if this is meant to be supported by vray, but recently i have been attempting to animate an hdri map rotating across the background, to simulate the effect of a sun moving. i have found the animation process to be very buggy.
i have been following the standard key frame procedure in max, but when i enter a new rotational amount to the hdri map, it is totally hit or miss as to whether the key frame is registered. if i key in the rotational value (let's say it starts at 120 and the next frame is to be 180), often the map does not rotate to match the newly entered value - in other words, it is still frozen on the 120d rotation display. i have been able to eventually get this working by dragging the roll keys until the map displays properly. hammering my keyboard repeatedly also seems to help, although perhaps only as a stress release.
just wondering if anyone else has experienced this, and maybe if the vray guys would be interested in checking it out.

PS: i have never encountered this problem when adjusting hdri maps in a still frame situation, only when the key framing is active.

[Clifton Santiago]

Maybe put the HDRI inside a vray dome light and animate the rotation of the light?

[vlado]

Maybe put the HDRI inside a vray dome light and animate the rotation of the light?

This will not help, as the rotation about the z-axis of the dome light is ignored.

Best regards,
Vlado

[trixian]

This will not help, as the rotation about the z-axis of the dome light is ignored.

Best regards,
Vlado

Speaking of which, do you have any thoughts og changing this, as outlined here?

[vlado]

No, but I can probably an add option for this. The initial idea was to have the dome light approximate your normal environment map that you have already set up (including any rotation, shift and so on). I can add an option to ignore this and instead map it relative to the dome light itself.

As for the viewport preview, this is tricky... considering what happened the last time we tried to show maps in the viewports

Best regards,
Vlado

[^Lele^]

If you tie it to the BG map (this much i know first hand), you can then simply invalidate the viewport on scene change (as in a maxscript callback, of course) to refresh it.
I wouldn't know if anything similar could be done for the domelight in C, at least for the BG-tied option.
Of course anything too max-sdk specific is WAY over my head...