One vanishing point:

 One vanishing point is seen in roads rail tracks and any objects that are made up of lines either directly parallel with the viewer's line of sleepers)

Two-Point Perspective:

Three-point perspective:

Part 1: Preparing the Background image in Photoshop:

For this tutorial I am going to demonstrate the process on a simple 1 point perspective image so that it is easier for first timers to follow but generally the rules apply to all forms of perspective.

Fig 1: The background image used

First of all create a new file in Photoshop, the size isn’t too important (I have a 2000x2000 template that I use whenever I need to).

Then create 3 horizontal guide lines (top, dead centre, and bottom), and Shift drag your background image into the Photoshop file so that it sits dead centre.

Fig 2: The set-up file with guides

Drag your top and bottom guide lines so that they snap to the top and bottom of your image (as shows in fig 3a & b).

Fig 3a & b: Adjusting the guides and image

Now you need to shift and drag your back ground image up or down so that the horizon/eye level runs along the centre guide line.

Readjust the top and bottom guidelines so that they are once again snap to the top and bottom of the background image.

Using the select tool select the region between the top and middle guide (note if you needed to move your image down you would need to select the region between the middle and bottom guides) and move the selection (select > transform selection] to the opposite side of the middle guide.

Fig 4: Transforming the selection

Introduction:

In this tutorial you will learn to create a fly-through of a realistic cloud tunnel that renders relatively fast, using 3D Studio Max with no plugins or 3rd party renderers.

But first, a little theory... the rest of the tut is based on this, so no fair skipping ahead!

The problem of ray-marching and volumetrics:

Cloud particles are translucent, and will be visible from all sides when illuminated.

However, light decays in strength as it passes through.

This will make the backside of a cloud illuminated only by how far through the cloud the sunlight has travelled.

Note that the angle of a cloud particle’s surface is completely irrelevant, contrary to “normal” polygon lighting.

We will now move on, knowing that the photorealistic look of a cloud is dependant on decaying, non-polygon lighting.

The cotton teapot:

1.1. Create a teapot with a radius of 40 in the Perspective viewport. Right-click, choose Properties, and de-select “Renderable”. Press CTRL+C to create a camera in the viewport.

1.2. Press “6” to open Particle View. Create a flow with a Birth event, Position Object, Shape Facing and Material Static.

1.3. In the Birth Event, set Emit Stop to 0, and Amount to 1000. In Position Object, select the teapot as Emitter Object. In Shape Facing, select the camera in the scene as Lookat Object, set Size to 20 and select Random orientation. In the Display event, set Type to Geometry.

1.4. Now, in your favorite paint program, use a soft brush to make a popcorn shaped blob that looks something like this. Make sure it’s white on black background.

1.5. In 3ds Max, create a material with a solid white color, that uses your popcorn image as Opacity Map. Drag this to the Material Static event in the Particle View.

1.6. In the Material Editor, make sure the popcorn map is open. Click on “Bitmap”, and select Mask from the Map Browser. Choose “Keep old map as sub-map” in the “Replace Map” dialog. In the new Mask material, your popcorn map is set as Map, so drag that do the Mask slot, and choose “Swap”.

1.7. Click the Map slot, and choose Gradient Ramp from the Map Browser. Set Gradient Type to Radial. Right-click the left flag, choose “Edit properties” and change the color from black to white, right-click the center flag and choose “Delete”, and right-click the right flag and choose “Edit properties”.

1.8. Press the None slot to open the Map Browser and choose Smoke. In the Smoke Map settings, enter Size 5, and Exponent 1.

1.9. Create a Target Direct light in the top viewport, so it lights the teapot from behind, and place the target in the center of the teapot. On the light’s “Intensity...” rollout, activate Use Far Attenuation, and adjust the Near and Far values so the range covers the whole teapot and the particles. Under Directional Parameters, adjust the Hotspot/Beam so all the particles are covered. Now for the magic: in the light’s Advanced Settings rollout, click “Ambient Only”. This will make the light ignore the polygons’ angles, which is exactly what we want.

1.10. Render that out to see the fluffiest teapot!

(hint: switch to Mental Ray to double render speed)

What we’ve done here is fake ray-marching. The fake part is that we ignore how far the light has travelled inside the cloud, and instead concentrate only on how far the light travels in space. For our purposes, it’s close enough.

Flight path:

First, we’ll create a camera that chases an airplane through a tunnel. Later, we’ll turn that tunnel into clouds. If you think you’ve already spent too many hours of your life creating tunnel effects, move onto chapter 3, but skim chapter 2 to make a note of the dimensions used.

2.1. Delete the teapot and the light from before, but keep the camera, particle system and the material.

2.2. Create an s-shaped spline like this, using four bezier points. Note the shape in the Top and Left viewports. Be careful with the bezier handles – no sharp corners! And since we don’t want any jittering in the camera, increase the interpolation to 20, and de-check Optimize. (actually, we do want jittering, but not this kind... more on this later!)

2.3. The first point in my curve is at 0,0,0, and the last is at 50,400,-100. This isn’t crucial, but the closer your scale is to this, the easier it will be to match the sizes of particles and procedural maps later in the tutorial.

2.4. Select the camera, and add a Path Constraint by going to the Motion rollout, expand the Assign Controller rollout, click Position, click Assign controller and double-click Path Constraint.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.

For most of my rendering work, I use 3ds max 8 and V-Ray 1.5. Although Mental Ray, Brazil, and finalRender all support rendering with HDRIs, I have found V-Ray to be the most intuitive and manageable. However, I will be writing tutorials in the future regarding the use of HDRIs with all the major rendering engines.

So let’s get started. First, create or import the model that you would like to render. In our case we went to www.turbosquid.com and downloaded a free model of an F-5E Tiger II (a model from the www.meshfactory.com collection - a great resource). The next thing we need to do is create an invisible ground plane onto which our object's shadows can be cast, and from which our object can receive additional reflected light. The "VRayPlane" is the perfect primitive for this job. It will stretch to infinity when rendered, while only taking up a small amount of space in the viewport.

Under the Create tab's Geometry section, choose VRay from the drop-down list. Select the Object Type called VRayPlane. Click near the origin in your viewport and you will see a small square plane with a vertical arrow at its center. This visible object actually represents a plane that extends in all directions to infinity. The plane resizes as you zoom in and out of the view, and always appears to be the same size. Right-click on the VRay Plane and select V-Ray Properties. In order to make this primitive work for us, we will need to change a few settings:

I occasionally reduce the Generate GI setting if the VRayPlane is reflecting too much light on the underside of my model. Do this if you need to, and then close the dialog. Although this object is invisible in your renderings, it will still reflect light. For this reason, it is a good idea to assign a material to the VRayPlane that is similar in color and reflectivity to the ground above which your model "appears" to sit in relation to its environment map or background plate. In our case we used a dull grey to imitate the carrier flight deck.

Next, we need to go to the Render Scene dialog and make sure that the VRay renderer is selected under the Assign Renderer rollout. Then, under the Renderer tab in the Global Switches section, turn off "Default Lights". Then, change the GI settings as follows:

For test renders, you will want to set your Irrandiance Map preset to Medium and HSph. subdivs: to 20. The key here is to make sure that you have turned on your GI. Otherwise, the HDRI will not be able to contribute light.

Now that the scene is prepared and the basic lighting parameters are set, we will finally start to work the the HDR image. The first thing we need to do is assign our HDRI to the GI Environment and Reflection/Refraction Environment Override slots:

Turn on both the GI Environment override, and the Reflection/refraction Environment override. Click on None in the map slot for the GI Environment and select VRayHDRI as the map type. Drag an instance of this map to the Reflection/refraction map slot beneath it. Now, in order for us to be able to manipulate this map, we will need an instance of it in the Material Editor. Drag from one of these two map slots to an empty material slot in the material editor. Click on the Browse button for your new map, and navigate to the HDR image that you would like to use. Now you will see a thumbnail of your HDRI map, as well as a number of new parameters to work with.

The first thing you will need to do if using the Rectilinear/Spherical style HDRI map employed by HDR Mill is to select the Spherical environment map type. The next item to address is the Gamma setting. Depending on the method of image capture, some images will look fine at the default 1.0 gamma setting, while others will look dark and oversaturated. If your image appears incorrect, then its gamma has not been pre-adjusted for viewing on monitors. The setting of 2.2 is the typical correction used for viewing these images in monitor color space.

Now, if you do a quick test render you will see that your model is nicely lit, but that the background is still your default Max environment color. We could simply drag an instance of the HDR image from the material editor into the Environment Map slot of the Environment dialog. However, in order for the background map to look decent, you would need to use a very large hdr image. This would consume a large amount of your computer's resources, and slow down the rendering process. Instead, we can use a larger low dynamic range (ldr) image such as a .jpeg to fill this slot. This ldr image will usually be a tonemapped version of the hdr image, but with higher resolution.

Go to your Rendering>Environment dialog and click on "None" in the map slot. Choose Bitmap map type and navigate to the regular image that matches the scene in your hdr image. Then, drag an instance of this map from the Environment map slot to another empty material slot in your Material Editor (select "instance" when prompted). In this new material's Coordinates rollout, make sure and select Environ mapping, and Spherical Environment type.

Now, if you are using an hdr and ldr of the same scene, you would expect the two respective thumbnails to match. They do not, so go into the Parameters rollout for your VRayHDRI map and enter a horizontal rotation of 90 degrees. This rotation amount works nine times out of ten, however, if it does not, you may have to experiment a little.

If you do another render, you will see that the lighting on your model very closely matches the lighting of your background environment. You may find that your model appears to be unnaturally placed, such as having a car sitting in a treetop. You will need to rotate, pan, and tilt your camera around your model to get a good match between your background map and your model. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Views menu and select Viewport Background.

Using the settings above, the background of your perspective viewport will show the ldr environment map. In this way, you will be able to see your models relationship to the background in real time, and adjust camera position accordingly.

One issue with hdri lighting is that when using a background scene taken in full sun, the hdr lighting appears to be too dim. This is caused by the fact that the sun is up to seventeen stops brighter than the rest of the sky. It is extremely difficult to capture an hdri with such a broad range of light. Another issue is that hdr images do not cast hard shadows. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to both of these issues, if you don't mind cheating a little. The use of a direct light with a low multiplier and hard VRay shadows, positioned to match the sun in the hdr image, will solve both issues with little effect on the realism of the output. The hdr will still provide most of the direct light and all of the reflected color from the image, and the direct light will provide the hard shadows and the extra direct light for added realism. In addition, you can use the Multiplier in the VRayHDRI maps rollout to increase the level of light added by your hdr map to the scene. I hope this is helpful. If you have any usage tips that you think would add value to this tutorial, please email them to info@hdrmill.com.

If you would like to add this tutorial to your website, please give us proper credit and a link to www.hdrmill.com. Thank you.

The Staff at HDR Mill.