Attached Link: http://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/features_basic.html

Looks interesting but does it write to .hdr files? (it doesn't say so in the list of features, only .exr). Mark

Yes Mark, it write hdr file (in fact the maps that i've used is created only with Photomatix), maybe it doesn't say nothing about because it's the default format... -TOXE

That's great, thanks TOXE. The averaging feature could be very useful for other things too. Mark

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. Mark

I DL-ed the latest Terragen beta v0.9 for mac and the free HDRI plugin for it. It saves images to .hdr files so I saw a oppertunity to look at this feature. I rendered the image 1024 x768 and the image was so blurred and zoomed at that camera angle.

I don't know much about HDRI, but I thought that the background should be visable and not only work for reflections.

Should the resolution be very high? Like to know before I test render.

Snekkis

I've seen HDR maps like that look fine when reflected off of rendered objects because the reflections typically appear as small highlights on curved surfaces.

You can use an HDRI for both background and lighting, but for background it will need to be much higher res than 1024x768- since it is being stretched all the way around your scene. . . your camera is only seeing a small portion of the image. For lighting the image size is much less critical, unless you are rendering a big mirrored ball. ;-) Markd

I forgot to mention that the HDR map is not meant to be viewed as a background in a rendered scene. It is for lighting your models. You can throw in a non-stretched corner of the HDR as a backdrop though to tease the viewer a little.

Two links on creating pole-less spherical maps.This should be handy for making home make HDRI maps. http://lizardlounge.com/Pages/C4D/tutorials/c4d/sphericalMap/index.html http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2004/12/lollipop_mappin.html#more

The options keep increasing! Good info aydoejiosokoya. FYI, for using Photomtix Basic for images without EXIF camera information,.hdr map images will not give off the lumens you might expect (for example, maps created using the spherical camera in Carrara). However, increasing the intensity of the map by sliding the Carrara HDRI map controller to 800-1,000 will produce the effect more typical of HDRI images created with EXIF information. Mark

This program is amazing! I am looking forwards to getting back to my PC at uni and having a real tinker with this!!!