using cloud bitmap for background with a vray sun

hi. i was hoping to override the vray sky in the environment to use an hdri of clouds/sky but still retain the vray sun/sky lighting.

i did find one person who used a vray light material applied to a sphere which encompassed the whole scene. it involved adding the same vraybitmap with hdri to the opacity slot and i think that works somewhat for hazy looking sky, but not quite as sharp as using the hdri as a dome would. the reason i would like to do this in the renderer is b/c it would save from having to composit in post, and i would still have minute control over the sun light direction from the vray sun.

is there another approach i might be missing?

thanks!

Try plugging the VRaySky in the Environment overrides (V-Ray>Environment) for GI, reflections, and refractions. Use the HDRI in the 3ds Max native’s environment slot for the background.

thanks. hey so that’ll give me the all the Environment from the vray sky. but i also just figured out that i can plug a vray bitmap into the 3ds max background>environment map and have better looking clouds rather than that other technique. nice.