Two questions: Animation and HDRI

[Jon Berntsen]

Ok, so I am wondering how long rendertime you think is acceptable for a HD interior animation and an HD exterior animation with vegetation. Per frame. Anyone?

 

And, second. I have just aquired some new HDRI´s after using the same base for a couple of years. I feel that I have to improve lights a bit. However, how to you take on this? The intensity is certainly gonna be different between the HDRI´s. Would you change the Vray color mapping and by that step away from linear to decrease the highlights? Would you adjust the intensity on the hdri? Would you change the camera exposure? I mean, I have built an extensive library with own composed materials adjusted to my previous main HDRI setup, and I would really like the light to be a tiny bit brighter than before, but I still want to avoid having to adjust the materials to fit a very bright HDRI.

 

Specifically I am talking about going from the hyperfocal vhdri pack to vizpark skydomes, as I found them better looking. But when I tried today, the vizpark ones was really bright and also rendered slow. ...

[Nicolai Bongard]

If you use real world values on your camera, you should adjust the multiplier on your vray domelight that contains the hdri, so that the amount of depth of field and motion blur and all the other effects you can get from your camera makes sense.

[Jon Berntsen]

If you use real world values on your camera, you should adjust the multiplier on your vray domelight that contains the hdri, so that the amount of depth of field and motion blur and all the other effects you can get from your camera makes sense.

 

Hey thanks. Good point with maintaining the camera effects.

[Corey Beaulieu]

Ignoring the first question because every scene is different, I find it easiest to setup exposure with HDRI's by first using the Vray Sun/Sky. This will help you get the physically accurate settings and then you can replace the lighting with an HDRI dome. using the multiplier you can regain the exposure and know that everything else will work as it did in the Vray Sun/Sky setup. I find myself using the white balance a lot with HDRI's as they can be over cool or over warm.

[Jon Berntsen]

I find it easiest to setup exposure with HDRI's by first using the Vray Sun/Sky. This will help you get the physically accurate settings and then you can replace the lighting with an HDRI dome. using the multiplier you can regain the exposure and know that everything else will work as it did in the Vray Sun/Sky setup.

 

Totally worthy information! Thank you so much.

[Chris MacDonald]

I think they best way to get the correct lighting levels is to use a couple of 100watt incandescent bulb equivalents - around 1,200 to 1,800 lumens. Set your exposure based on that then tweak the HDRI to suit, depending on whether it's night or day.

 

The problem with HDRI's is as you said; they are all different but also in real life lighting changes constantly throughout the day - you're never going to walk out on every single day and be able to use the exact same camera exposure. The only constant in real world is artificial lighting. This is the benchmark by which you can set all your other lights.

 

Of course ultimately it's a 3D and you can go with whatever looks the best, but this setup works for me.

[Nicolai Bongard]

As for the rendertimes on animation, you might want to check out Bertrand Benoit's blog, he has a recent post with some animation settings.

[khaledbou]

I'm also using vizpark HDRIs, they're really great they produce quite sharp shadows, I don't see a noticeable difference in rendertime when using different HDRI's,

I don't advice you to play with output parameters of the materials, neither the gamma and color mapping parametrs (cause it can be very confusing) instead use the domelight parameters or you can even color correct the hdri as u need