I’m finally trying to get on the HDRI bandwagon. I have most of the concept down, but to do my first experiments I was wondering if there was a way I could simply take one of the images here: http://www.schloerb.com/Dreamscape2/ and make it into an HDRI file with the sun specified as being extra bright.
Thanks.
You mite be able to use HDR Shop from http://www.debevec.org/ is free 
and it may do what you want.
-dave
You cannot make hdr images from a single low dynamic range image. You need a series of images with varying intensities.
You can fudge it if you really need to with multiplier maps:
take your image into photoshop, make a new layer, paint a white spot over where the sun is, fill the background with black so now you have a black image with a white spot (a multiplier map).
now go into max, make an RGB multiply map. In one slot put your original image, in the other slot put your multiplier map. IMPORTANT: In the output settings of the multiplier map set the RGB offset to 1.
So now the original image gets multiplied by 1 where the multiply map was black, and 2 where it was white (so the sun is now twice as bright).
you can put the Mult map into an output map before piping it into the RGB multiply if you want an even higher range: Leave the Mult map’s RGB offset as 0, but set its RGB level to 100, then in the output map change the RGB offset to 1. this gives you a 1-100 range in your multiplier map, so now the original image will be 100 times brighter wherever the mult map has been painted white.
It’s a fudge, but I’ve used this technique to generate a reflection environment for some water effects when the on-set supervisor had neglected to take HDRI maps.
Matt
im using HDRI map in the vray refract/reflect slot, with simple glass material :
http://www21.brinkster.com/gembreng/prob-02.jpg
how can i make it like this, it seems like the HDR doesnt affect the refraction part of the glass :
http://www21.brinkster.com/gembreng/X-ranger2.jpg
im sorry, my hosting is sucks, so copy the link above and paste it into ur browser.
can’t view your images, but here’s the basics:
use a Vray material, not a standard max material.
put the HDRI map in the environment slot
turn up the reflection or refraction, turn on fresnel reflections if the surface you’re simulating warrants it (non metals)
done
Using HDRI maps in materials is really only useful for:
fresnel reflections for glass, polished stone, paint, plastics etc
blurry reflections/refractions
getting nice bright motion blurred streaks off reflective, moving objects.
Matt
yes, i use vraymaterial :
diffuse black
reflection 129, fresnel checked
refraction white
HDR in vray environment slot.
did i miss something?
I used a std material (non vray) and then put a vray map in the reflect slot and one in the refract slot. Now you can use two different environment maps for reflection and refraction. I used the kitchen hdri for reflection and a simple white bitmap for refraction.
The right sphere and glass have a vraymaterial with the kitchen hdri in environment slot. It seems you cannot use a different map for reflection and refraction with a vraymaterial.
You also cannot have transparant shadows with a vraymap…
Any other suggestions?
materials are the only real weak point of vray.
i would love to have brazils great shaders and materials (for chrome and glass). that + vrays speed and displacement mapping would make vray my absolute no. 1.
i used a simple trick to ignore the refraction, i put a large white plane or flipped sphere behind my object
ps: why did you upload that x-ranger image to your hosting anyway? why didn’t you paste the link from my site?
oh i’m sorry… now i get it
you couldn’t have painted the red line on it… dumb me
*slaps himself on the forehead*
but then the sphere will also reflect in your object?
where can I get a hold of the famous kitchen.hdr? Can’t seem to find it anywhere. 
here : www.debevec.org
nope it’s a huge white sphere with the faces flipped towards the inside and with a plane at the botom so it catches the light of the hdri environment an the object is contained in the sphere… take a look at suurlands site at the beetle in his portfolio… he gave some explanation on how he did the scene setup
oh yeah, you have to adjust the properties of the sphere that it’s excluded from the reflection
cheers, CBAS
Yeah but when you exclude it from reflection it is also excluded from refraction. And that was the problem, he wants reflections from the environment hdri and white refractions.
The explanation is for finalrender, and there you exclude the sphere from the msp tree, and you also will see the hdri refracted in glass. The angle of the beetle is so that through the glass you see the groundplane
nobody can solve this? sigh… 
