I have a scene that is lit with a VRayHDRI material and it looks good, but I don’t get good shadows. I tried to add a light to my scene to give me some shadows, but the light interferes with how the VRayHDRI material is lighting the scene. Is there a way to add a light and tell it to just cast shadows without any light or some way to get better shadows using a VRayHDRI material as a light source?
thanks
The easiest way I find is that you can play with the multiplier, change the horizontal rotation, or just find a better quality HDR image to load up. I often find that higher quality HDRs give better shadows (less splotches.) Alot of the shadows also depend on the overall lighting of the HDR environment you have chosen to use.
jujubee, I’m stuck with the beachprobe.hdri. I don’t find any other hdri file that suits my needs as this one, and at the same time it makes me feel like my images tend to look the same because of that. Do you know any other hdri file that you use a lot, or some website where I can find new ones?
The Uffuzi probe seems like it is the most adept all around and I’ve heard from fantastic animators that they swear by it. For some reason it’s just perfect overall lighting. Check out http://www.debevec.org for his probes. It’s an awesome website. Debevec is the pioneer in creating HDR IBL.
Also, there’s other free ones floating around the net. Just do a search for HDR and/or HDR probes.
Forgot to mention that generally, the higher the resolution, the better the quality of shadows you will get. Also be sure to check your Min Max levels if you are using Irradiance map. Higher values will eliminate some of that noise.
Hi
Maybe you can try to place a light and turn it off, sorry lower the multiplier to very low just to get the shadow effects, so it wont effect you lighting and it will cast the shadows. :?:
One solution is to edit the HDRI.
--Jon
Arghhh, I was thinking about purchasing Photogenics and I just read that it was discontinued…
http://www.imaging-resource.com/SOFT/PGEN2/PGEN2.HTM
Anyone know of another cheap solution for painting HDRIs?
--Jon
Hey Eric 
Last time I used hdrie it seemed a little lacking but I’ll have to see if it’s been updated much. Wonder if/when Photoshop will be full functioning with HDRIs.
Thanks,
--Jon
BTW, Chris called me the other day and it sounds like he really likes it there with you guys 8)
Yeah, it is more like MS Paint than Photoshop, but atleast it is free 
Got to go shoot Chris in Call of Duty now, ttl…
I use mix maps to combine multiple hdri maps together.