Questions on VRay Sun and IBL

[tekkwar]

Hi guys,

 

although knowing that sometimes helping from a distance can be a pain, I wanted to give it a try since I am getting more and more confused....

 

I have done the following image, rendered with a VRay enviroment with a nice HDRI map inside (6000x3000), same for the reflection override, low-res version of the same map for the lighting (VRay dome light, Intensity 4.0, shadows on, subdivs 16)....

 

but - since I got barely any shadows in my image, I tried adding a direct light with vray shadows for simulating the sun - turned out that I couldnt achieve the desired look with those damn area shadows, so I decided to use a VRay Sun instead and rise the sun size to get that soft shadow look.... and here comes my question:

 

is it totally wrong to use a sun instead of a simple direct light/target light ?

or can you mix sun and HDRI lighting? well, obviously you can - but is it any senseful?

since I got some really funky color splotches, just a few but they are never the same... if I rendered out a region just facing one the 5 greenish spots, then it would be gone, but would appear again in another part of the image... could this be caused by the usage of HDRI and VRay sun at the same time?

 

almost forgot my settings:

DMC sampler 1/10, Mitchell-Netravali,

IR map @ high settings, 60 HSubs,

LC 2000 subdivs, 0,01,

adaptive amount 0,85, Noise threshold 0,004

 

Would be great if you share your opinions on that one with me.... thanks and have a great weekend!

 

Greetings from Germany, Tobi

Edited September 10, 2011 by tekkwar

[tekkwar]

Thanks Brian, looking good.... I will check it out right away