Fortinbras79 Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 (edited) I want to shoot and make my own HDRI environment maps for use with vray and max but I am having a hell of a time finding information on the web... Does anyone know of a good tutorial on how to create HDRI maps? Thanks I prefer written tutorials over video but I'll take anything and I am using spherical mapping Edited July 12, 2012 by Fortinbras79 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Christian Blochs 'HDRi handbook' would be a good place to start. There's more to it than you will be able to find on online tutorials Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fortinbras79 Posted July 12, 2012 Author Share Posted July 12, 2012 Surely it can't be that difficult as to need a book! Is it not just lacing images together in a panorama? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 You could try the double sided tape and thread method? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Surely it can't be that difficult as to need a book! Is it not just lacing images together in a panorama? Shooting and stitching a 360° panorama is hard enough, but try throwing bracketed exposures into the mix and you'll soon come unstuck if you don't know what you're doing! The HDRLabs website, home of the book Jonathan mentioned, is a great resource for all things HDR. http://www.hdrlabs.com/news/index.php The Gnomon Workshop also do a great dvd that has some invaluable information on shooting and stitching HDR spherical panos, it's well worth the investment. http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/131/Spherical-Panoramic-Photography On the other hand, if you want to do it on the cheap and just do the old-school chrome ball technique, you can find out how here: http://ict.debevec.org/~debevec/HDRShop/tutorial/tutorial5.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 I've created my own by taking one panoramic picture and then using Photoshop to save out 7 different images separated by 1 stop each. Then use the Photoshop HDR creator and put them all together, it's not a true HDRI but it does give you more information than a regular image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 I can see how you could maybe boost the exposure of the sky more than the landscape using masks, but that assumes you could capture the whole dynamic range in a single jpeg in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fortinbras79 Posted July 12, 2012 Author Share Posted July 12, 2012 I'm sorry, I was not clear in my questions. I have extensive experience with both stitching and creating HDR images. What I am unclear on is what settings are best to export? Are there any traps I need to avoid? Image mode/format? Thank you And I suppose I am asking, is it really so simple as making a panorama of HDRs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Export settings from what? What software are you planning to use? Best would be Hugin, which is free I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fortinbras79 Posted July 12, 2012 Author Share Posted July 12, 2012 I use photoshop CS5 for my HDR and stitching needs...I want to use the HDRI in vray for 3ds max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 I would definitely look into Hugin. Photoshop won't stitch the different exposures in the same way each time, so they won't overlap properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fortinbras79 Posted July 12, 2012 Author Share Posted July 12, 2012 Of course, couldn't you create the HDRs from your bracketed shots, and then stitch the HDRs together? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 (edited) Ah, yes. I didn't realise Photoshop allowed you to stitch HDRs. I still think Hugin would give you more control over things like keeping the horizon straight though. Let us know how you get on anyway! Edit: Actually no, you can't! PS won't stitch 32-bit images, I just tried it. Edited July 12, 2012 by stef.thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fortinbras79 Posted July 12, 2012 Author Share Posted July 12, 2012 Ok...so this is what I am talking about...so it is necessary to use 32 bit images? Regardless, I've downloaded hugin...so I thank you for that advice. Why does it have to be 32 bit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 If you are creating an HDR, then that is a 32-bit image format. But the individual images would be jpegs, say 3 bracketed exposure for each camera position. Theoretically you could let Photoshop stitch all the jpegs for each exposure, then merge the three panoramic images into one HDR. But as I said earlier, the automatic nature of Photoshop's photomerge utility means that the stitches wouldn't be exactly the same. Some elements would not be aligned, giving you ghosting in your final HDR. And for skies I reckon Photoshop would have a hard time actually doing the stitch anyway, as it only looks for visual features without taking the shot order into account. The nice thing about Hugin or Autodesk Stitcher is that you can actually stack your exposures and just run the stitching solver the once to get your final image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laszloadrian Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 the best and affordable stitching software is ptGUI. http://www.ptgui.com/ This is what I use. You can get a lot of info from Christian Bloch website as the others suggested. He has a free software to create sibl and one free software for tone mapping. For more info you should go to panoguide.com forum to learn about shooting panos. self promo. this is one of my most popular hdri environments http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=139041 oh yes there is no easy way, one tutorial that will answer all your questions or at least I did not find it yet. Mainly beacuse one software does that good but not the other one. You have to find your own best workflow based on time, budget equipment and skills you have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fortinbras79 Posted July 13, 2012 Author Share Posted July 13, 2012 Ok...so getting a little off topic, I have a shooting questions regarding the maps...how does one not get their feet/tripod in a photo when shooting the ground? A lot of these spherical images/sIBL's have a complete 3 axis set with no feet in the way! I'm sure this is a stupid question, but I've never shot one of these before, and I don't want to shoot a jobsite, just to get it back to the office and have my size 10's in the way. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 I've created my own by taking one panoramic picture and then using Photoshop to save out 7 different images separated by 1 stop each. Then use the Photoshop HDR creator and put them all together, it's not a true HDRI but it does give you more information than a regular image. This is not a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Ok...so getting a little off topic, I have a shooting questions regarding the maps...how does one not get their feet/tripod in a photo when shooting the ground? A lot of these spherical images/sIBL's have a complete 3 axis set with no feet in the way! I'm sure this is a stupid question, but I've never shot one of these before, and I don't want to shoot a jobsite, just to get it back to the office and have my size 10's in the way. Thanks The percentage of the spherial image covered by your feet/tripod is miniscule. You can retouch them out or leave them in. Doesnt matter either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laszloadrian Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 the size of your nadir hole depends on your camera, lens, the way you shoot. To eliminate the nadir hole you shoot down off center and then in your stitching software you mask the tripod legs out. Photoshop is not the best tool for that because it does not allows for manual control of your stitch - at least cs5. Even so, Photoshop is "heavy" especially if you have have to handle 100 raw images to get your HDR sphere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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