The HDR file is called "Chrome Studio" and is a free Dosch sample HDRI. It is a REALLY good one!

Attached Link: http://www.doschdesign.com/products/hdri/

One final note: The TOP image DOES have some Spot Lights in it, but they are not lighting the scene. The lighting is coming from the HDR file. The other images do not have ANY lights in them, as well as no SUN either...

Looks great ! How did you adjust the overall exposure of the background ? All controls I found only affect the foreground lightning but not the brightness of the back. As far as I understand this should be the real advantage of HDRI compared to JPG panoramas. - Norbert

Sorry for being dumb...where's the free sample ?

cool images Veritas777! gillbrooks/ you can find some nice free hdri resources at: - http://hdri.3dweave.com/library/ - http://www.sachform.de/download_EN.html - http://www.debevec.org/Probes/ - http://www.evermotion.org/images/free/noc4.zip - http://www.evermotion.org/images/free/evermotion_hdri_sample.zip - http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~danix/hdr/results.html - http://www.realtexture.com/hdri1.htm and so on...

Thank you :-)

Veritas I have to let you know, that your HDRI renders got me interested in Vue again (I had looked at it release 3 or so). I'll probably end up getting Vue 5 Pro. :) I know I've given you flak before because I was po'd at DAZ (and still am) but thought you ought to know.

water, lighting, and character look great. How was render time?

The major adjustments for your HDRI scene are:

1.Sky Dome Lighting Gain. This is like a Camera aperature which allows more or less light in your Global Scene. Usually you have to adjust it UP.

2.Overall Skylight Color. This is the SECOND most important adjustment that controls "Color Temperature"- or basically the color tone of your Global Light- Warm, Cool, Sunset, etc. For POSER SKIN a subtle dark brown is a good color as it matches the general lighting used in POSER. (Poser defaults to a general Warm-Brown lighting setup.)

1. ROTATE your scene. By selecting the entire scene you can ROTATE it until the particular lighting you like hits your model they way you like. This is more tricky as every HDRI file is different and the main light comes from any number of places- or is very diffused- depending upon the HDRI file you load.

I render everything in FINAL at 1024 x 768 and they average about 20-24 minutes per image.

great lighting but whats up with the head lights? They wouldn't be that dark.

That's just a first time test render. I'm NOT posting "Master Pieces" of my artwork here... These are just to give other people who are interested in HDRI a opportunity to see what can be done with HDRI and HDR files. I don't mean ANY of these images to be FINAL works of art... Any FINAL (personal or commercial use)render I do of the '61 Vette will have a lot of things different than how this Test Render looks. Same goes for the other images I am posting here.

These are great! I am planning on getting into HDRI this Monday. Maybe I'll buy a Volume from Dosche. Veritas777: What kind of a PC do you have? I love your render speeds!! Just wondering what I can expect for the same render, on my P4 2.8GHz 1GBRAM WinXP machine.... Thanks, Norm

Hehehe. Why do I get the feeling Dosche is going to see a massive increase in sales from Vue 5's release? I've been using Dosche HDRI's for years now in other apps. Great products. Some of the best you'll find online.

dosch should give veritas a nice little kickback :) anyway,keep your hdri renders comming veritas

norm1153- I don't think you will have any problems with your system. Sounds very good- E-on recommends ATI (like Radeon) or nVidia (like Geforce) graphics cards for best results. Plus, make sure your software drivers are the most current- the new Vue 5 Open GL is HUGELY better that Vue 4's. I'm using a 256MB nVidia Geforce on an Athlon 64 and have to admit its very SMOOTH SAILING for me in Vue 5. As for Dosch- it was also nice of E-on to include a great free Dosch HDR file with Vue 5. Quite frankly I completely skipped over that one for over a week before finally trying it (ChromeStudio) but it has become my favorite. In fact, I just purchased the complete Chrome Studio and Skies sets from Trinity3D- good price- $107 a collection. I feel they will pay for themselves pretty quickly with some of the things I now have in mind for HDRI in Vue 5.

Veritass777: Yes, I also have the same thing -- 256 MB nVidia Geforce FX series card. So maybe I'll get some pretty close render times. Now THAT I will look forward to! I think a little slower than you, but still maybe not too bad, based on what you say. I think I can only afford one set now, and it will also have to be Chome Studio. If I can swing it, then Skies really should be next. I think the Extreme might be overkill for Vue 5. Thanks for your reply! Norm