Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=460813

Hi everybody. I've just posted another HDRI fake in my gallery. If you feel to, go take a look. Once again, I dropped the idea of using TrueAmbience. While the difference in light quality was minimal, the estimate rendertime at 64rpp was 2 days and 4 hours. In the picture linked above, I used only softshadows and DOF and, with a setting of 256rpp, the final rendertime was only 6 hours and change. Just for info, at 64rpp the estimate was about 2 hours: 26 times (twenty-six!) faster than the TrueAmbience render. Have a wonderful weekend. Stefano

Awesome work, Stefano. The texture adds much to the scene. Very well done!

Great image Stefano! I guess fake HDRI is next on the list of things to learn for me, hope I do as well....:)

Stefana: Great idea on the reflection map cloud idea. Is there a way to have one image control the bump and a second image control the reflection?

er ... Stefano

Yes, Jason, it's exactly what I did. I used the tiled ground photo texture by Lemog in channel A to drive diffusion and bump, and then another ME cloud texture in channel B to drive reflection and specularity. I'll make a screenshot. S.

Here's the screenshot of the Material Editor. BTW, you're right about the spheres, LOL :) I promise that in my next HDRI fake I won't use any sphere at all. Take a look at my first one, there's no sphere in it ;-) S.

Thanks, Stefano. I'll try it.

I tried your reflection technique. Does this look wet?

yes

Yes. You can try to increase a bit the reflection and play with the frequency of the cloud tex to variate the "puddles". Glad you put it to use. S.