Ahahaha! I say yay. Very nice colors n' composition there Smith, but then again, I think by now, you just have all but forgot how to make an ugly image. I saw you guys talking yesterday, but I wasn't expecting Daz to make good on their promise. Such great guys. I'm like a newborn, all wet and screaming.

"...all wet and screaming."

That about describes me right now. Gonna be hell on my keyboard...

Are you using HDRShop to make your HDR images, Agent Smith?

I DLed that the other day but haven't used it yet.

Are you using HDRShop to make your HDR images, Agent Smith?

I DLed that the other day but haven't used it yet.

I think I have downloaded almost every free HDRI there is on the internet, lol. That's what I use right now. But I do use HDRShop to convert some of the HDRI's I download because they are in a panoramical format that Bryce can't use.

I have made a page up that gives links to free HDRI's and other stuff (format's, link on how to convert, etc);

http://backroom.renderosity.com/~bryce/hdri/b6_hdri.htm

Also, near the bottom is a link to a tutorial on how to make a synthetically made HDRI in Photoshop, I have done that once and is available in the scene file example I put up for download;

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2669524

O.K. Thanks.

I was just about to post asking how to make our own, and here we are :)

It might be nice to make environments in Bryce, render them at huge times, then use those as hdri's :)

Already done it.  ;o)

Good idea. Spend a week rendering out a scene so you can try it out as a hdri in another image you don't like after the first preview.

I can see the up side, but when it goes wrong......

Has anybody else noticed Agents Smiths skin seems to be clearing up? Staying away from the DTE???

I've been staying out of the sun, lol.

Nah, you can render an image out of Bryce to be tweaked into a quick/dirty HDRI fairly quickly. Or, at least however long the scene might take to render. I can't find the forum post (it was over two years ago) but you can use techniques in the bryce world that people use in the real world to make a basic HDRI. ("photographing" a round sphere of the enviroment and going from there)

Quick question about the plug-ins that convert from BMP files.   They can't create HDRI files can they?   The information just isn't in the image to start with.   Don't you need to use (for example) bracketed images (three or more exposures) in order to create HDRI, otherwise it's just (as AS showed) an LDRI which is all very well, but needs additional lighting.

There should be a tutorial with the default content on using Bryce to create your own HDRIs that can then be converted to .hdr format using HDRShop.

If anyone knows of a program like HDRShop that Mac users can try, please let me know.
Unless I buy a shiny Christmas ball and take my own, for now I'm at the mercy of whatever free HDRI images I can find.

Please consider sharing the wealth peoples when you can and Phil, you have me drooling over your HDRI images! ;-)

OK - I'm going to ask a really dumb question here.  What is HDR/HDRI?

I'm sure it will be ridiculously obvious once someone tells me, but I'm drawing a blank.

Jayne

Ariannah, there are a couple for the Mac but they don't work with Bryce. If you have Photoshop CS2, the format it exports for HDRI will import into Bryce - at least according to the person I asked to check it out.

An HDRI is an image. It has some unique properties;
-It wraps around a scene perfectly spherical.
-It is actually made up 3 or more layers of the same image, photographed in different exposure stops.
-They are 48-bit color, instead of just 32-bit, which is what youo normally see (jpg, gif, etc)

Yes, you can take a jpg/bmp/etc. into HDRShop, save it as a .hdr and use it in Bryce, but it will not have the lighting complexity that a real HDRI would have. I have done this myself since there are some sites that have jpgs in a panoranical format to wrap around a sphere perfectly. Works in a pinch if it a specific image that you want reflected.

In the link I have in the Forum header (HDRI's for Bryce 6), on that page near the bottom is a link to make a synthetic HDRI in Photoshop, although it uses just a simple process, you could use that to process a full image into a more realistic HDRI.

I would assume you could do a similar process in HDRShop, although I have not yet had time to look that over in detail

Thank you.  Not something I'm familiar with, so I don't feel so bad for asking :)

Jayne

That page I made up will give you some of the quick/dirty points with HDRI and Bryce.

If there are any dumb questions, I guarantee you I have already voiced the best of them.

This is a very informative thread. I haven't gotten B6 yet, but I hope this weekend. It would be nice to see a side by side comparison of the different HDRI tools out there to the same SOW. I mean, I hear a lot how we can simulate HDRI with B5, that HDRShop is handy, and it's possible now in B6, but which tool gives the best result?

I would imagine having the feature in B6 would be the most convenient because it's right there. HDRShop seems to have a lot of power yet there's complexity. Which gives the best result?

--Death_at_Midnight

If I may jump in with some explanations... HDRI means High Density Range Image. As opposed to the ordinary 8-bit images (JPEG, BMP, PNG etc.) and as opposed to 16-bit images (TIFF, PNG), it actually has 32 bits per channel. So, ordinary images you see around are actually 24-bit, the so-called 16-bit images are 48-bit, while HDRIs is 96 bits. (I'm not going here into the representation of HDR data with less bits.) You don't need HDRShop to create HDRs. You can use Photomatix, for instance. Or even Photoshop CS2. (Although there's a way to fake HDRIs in Photoshop, too.) The process of combining different JPG or TIFF photos into a HDR has to be started in the camera. You shoot the photos at 1 EV stop apart. Then you combine them in an appropriate program which will merge all the different light data into one image - HDR - with the dynamic range unachievable in photos by ordinary means. Then, to use a HDRI in 3D, you usually need a panorama. The easiest way to create a panorama is in programs like Realviz Stitcher. Shoot the photos that will go into a panorama at... three, let's say, diferent levels of exposure, at least 1 EV apart. Combine each level of exposure into a spherical panorama and bring all the different panoramas into the program of your choice to combine them into a HDR panorama. Where HDRShop comes exclusively into play is that only it can create angular map HDR images, or angular map light probes. Bryce recognizes only that format and no other HDR program can output angular map light probes. I certainly hope the first fact will change soon and Bryce will be able to recognize ordinary spherical panoramas or the cross format or what not. Hope this helps.

BTW, a bit of info about HDRShop... The free version you can download is for non-commercial use only.

Quote - Ariannah, there are a couple for the Mac but they don't work with Bryce. If you have Photoshop CS2, the format it exports for HDRI will import into Bryce - at least according to the person I asked to check it out.

Jelisa, thanks for the info. 
I only have CS (not v.2), so will have to wait until I can afford to upgrade.

This is a good thread to go over the B6's new HDRI capability. Thanks AS for the info and links. By the way, were you on the Beta Team for B6? 

If you bring up Bryce 6 and go to "Help>About Bryce 6.0" you should see the names of the beta testers listed.

Attached Link: Boots

I also think that photomatix can create HDRI from a single RAW file, but I haven't tried that either.

Has anyone been able to confirm colour bleed/bounce illumination - i.e. radiosity?

Nope. And, I don't believe there is anything new that should allow it....?

Quote - I also think that photomatix can create HDRI from a single RAW file, but I haven't tried that either.

As it's on the other computer, cannot really check but IIRC, no. A single RAW image has only 14 bits at most. What you can do is create multiple exposures from a single RAW image in Photoshop with the free ACR plugin (Adobe Camera RAW). Just develop them differently and save each as a different JPEG or TIFF. And then combine them in Photomatix. When you try to do that in Photoshop, it will say there's not enough dynamic range to create a HDR.

Thanks guys for the info on Bryce 6.  I am keen to see a side by side comparison of a good Bryce 5.5 render compared with the same scene rendered in Bryce 6 using the new goodies...  Anyone care to post such a comparison?  I am interested in getting Bryce 6, this request is more out of curiosity than anything :-)

This image was done using a default Bryce sky.

All the difference. ;o)

Quote - If you bring up Bryce 6 and go to "Help>About Bryce 6.0" you should see the names of the beta testers listed.

Not all of them are listed.

Well...some of them must be secret agent beta testers....