JPEG sky image in environmental setting

[archirog]

Could somebody instruct me in detail step by step how to use JPEG sky image in environmental setting?
Thank you.

[jrockhill]

Re: JPEG sky image in environmental setting

You first need a sky image that can be spherically projected.

Now, clouds are pretty amorphous things... so distortion caused by taking any image and forcing it to be mapped spherically won't be as noticeable.

You have two options-- making your own projection or finding one online (for free-- super rare).

Making your own requires you piece together various cloud pictures forming a long band of continuous sky at 10240 X 5120 pixels (divide by two if you need a small file size... or as long as it is proportional.

The trick with this is you need to obscure your models edges or use an infinite plane.

The other trick is to not put in any clouds or objects near the bottom or top (within 300 pixels of the image).

Like a map, vray is going to shrink and distort this image to fit onto a sphere and anything in the very top or very bottom of the image will be basically destroyed.

You know take your huge sky banner jpg and enter it into the "background slot"under the options -> environment tab. Use the bitmap option instead of vray sky...

... and you have a passable sky picture!

Also, if you're going to continue to use the vray sun... make sure you photoshop out the sun of your background image.

[jrockhill]

Re: JPEG sky image in environmental setting

Should mention while your assigning the image in the options tab for bit map, there's a drag down manue for mapping and you want to select environment (spherical will be the default).

[bradkha]

Re: JPEG sky image in environmental setting

When I set this up, my background jpeg image for the sky renders very dark and washed out. What am i doing something wrong?

[rspierenburg]

Re: JPEG sky image in environmental setting

I've noticed this too. Without a background image everything is nice and bright, as soon as I introduce a jpg in the background everything gets very dark and dreary. Any solutions to this?

Rob

Edit: I found in the Color Mapping settings section a place to untick 'Affect Background' Then with proper use of the Background Intensity number you get a MUCH better background.

[bradkha]

Re: JPEG sky image in environmental setting

I found a workable solution:

The gamma is set to 1 by default when you import the bitmap. If you set it to .2 or .3 and then set the background color slider to 15-20 you can get a very accurate representation of the original.

Hope this helps