Alright....obviously I love the HDRI stuff (always have), I'll wind down and who knows...maybe even use Bryce 6 to make a landscape. I know, huh? It's a novel idea...just came to me....

HDRI : Debevec's "Building Probe"
Quality 0
Intensity 35
HDRI Effect 35
*Did NOT "Render HDRI as background" - so I could get that dark flat background.

800x600
1hr 12min 03sec

HDRI : Debevec's "Uffizi" 1500x1500
Quality 0
Intensity 40
HDRI Effect 40

800x600
4hr 03min 26sec

Superb lighting on th esecond one Agent!

Worth the extra 26 seconds!  lol

That glass + soft shadows is a time killer.

Btw...(anyone) never before have used the "Fast Preview Mode" Render button to such an awesome degree! I highly suggest you try it out to do preview renders with, when using an HDRI. Maybe not with glass...but with simpler scenes, works quite nice & fast to show you what your hdri is doing.

These tests look very impressive AS:)

Those render times are still very long though. It gets me as to why they (DAZ) have fine detail adjustments that are virtually useless.

Just imagine doing an entire scene with those settings "sigh"

Cheers for all the examples and demonstrations mate:)

Michael.

These tests involved either mutiple/complex reflective surface or a big piece o' glass, so the render times aren't bad considering that, imo. (but, hey if they can be made faster, all the better!!!)

In comparison, my earlier posted HDRI renders were completed quite fast, in between 4 and 30 minutes.

DAZ should be including more setting values to mess with in the 6.1 update. Don't quote me on that...but I believe I remember reading that over at DAZ somewhere.

Very nice.   Oh what fun we're all having.

How long until we get some HDRIs popping up in the forum header images? :biggrin:

AS,..are you using Lightning 2.0 (relating to the long, but very nice renders).  Im currently testing my setup now, but I only have 5.5c at the moment.

No, unfortunately my older (slave) computer needs a new hard drive, so it's completely out of commission. I need to get a new hdd and re-install the os, as that rig could speed up my render times by about 25%

Those test looks impressive. Btw is it really possible to use bryce as a landscape-generator?

Looking back at my own gallery...apperently not, lol...

it looks awesome, phil.
and AS is going to love all that rust. ;-D

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...................!

(that's f-ing awesome....no, seriously...)

lol , great render phill.

  
...MUCH brighter colors and SOFTER shadows with HDR- Bryce finally escapes its COLD and DARK look! ...(YES, I KNOW-- the color is NOT very SUBTLE, heh!)

HDR is the best thing to happen to Bryce since version 4.1...!

Thanks to AgentSmith also for suggesting some good HDR render settings so that I could complete this render within one hour!

Smith, Im not following your other atmosphere settings... Seems like no matter how I adjust the settings, I get serious white washout of the image... Any suggestions for the other sky controls? How should they be set?

Also, what about material settings?!? Is doing an hdri image the same process and method as any other scene we do?!? Are there other considerations/situations we need to be mindful of? Is it just a matter of "turning hdri -on-"?

...my guess as to why you are getting a "wash out" is that you have the INTENSITY set too high... try backing it off to a lower amount- and you should see your scene darken.... Once the light level looks right THEN try slowly increasing your Quality setting (which are the shadow details) up a few notches- like 15-20...

Loving this Stuff. Soooo cool!

Man, that Skull render is AWESOME!!!

Seems like no matter how I adjust the settings, I get serious white washout of the image

Like Veritas stated, the intensity is too high. All HDRI's are different. I have one freebie HDRI that I cranked all the way up, and its still always too dark to really ever use, and some other HDRI's have to be taken down to an intensity of 5-10.

Also, try experimenting with a very low "HDRI Effect" and a higher Intensity for different "looks" to the scene.

Also, what about material settings?!?

I have had to tweak them very little, if anything I'm raising my Ambience levels from my usual of 0-5 to now using 10-15 with some of the HDRI's. I'm getting some really dark/deep shadows on the meshes even though I usually don't normally take my Sun/Moon Shadow Instensity above 65.

Yet, when doing say a "promo" type of HDRI render that has a plane with a flat light color, I'll crank my Shadow Intensity to 100. The shadows hitting the plane look better imo.

Used here is the Debevec HDRI "Campus at Sunset", with an Intensity of just 10, Effect of 100 and quality of 0. I would have given this a better quality for softer shadows, but I'm just playing around, so it wasn't neccessary. 

I would like to see a landscape/outdoor hdri (test)render with trees, grass, concrete, metal, glass...please?  :-)

And, as always, think outside the box...

Ive been going through the included hdri scenes, and notice HUGE differences in how the sky is set, the materials, and even the type of render... You can just switch the .hdr files and see that theres no way to "pin down" whats going to happen... Or atleast I cant... Yet?!?!?!?

For me, I like the "look" of that image you did w/ the green ball in the knotplot object. I find that the "robot in room ibl9" is the best "starter" scene to achieve that look... Havent completed something serious as yet :P but Im working on it :)

The image here used a setting of 0,40,40, didnt take too long to render, but I didnt achieve the look i was going for.

Thanks MatC. I only wanted to see if the hdri setting can somehow replace Global Illumination yielding a pleasant, soft render; I won't buy Bryce updates until they implement GI.

Can you post or link to an example of the "look" youre going for or want?!? Would be interesting...

The image I attached is what 1 of the included scenes looks like... Nice work, whoever made it :)

I wonder what an all white HDRI would do?

That scene is by David Brinnen;

http://www.gallery.davidbrinnen.com/

Um... Youre the one w/ HDRShop :P

I'll have to try making a synthetic one in Photoshop.

I just tried taking a simple all white image, and using HDRShop to turn into into an hdr file. I get a falling shadow (pos z direction)...which I don' t know how that's possible, as it it should be light from all sides.....

MatC: Here is a Vue 6 GI render in my gallery http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1253918 ; I would like to have a similar, soft look in Bryce (I have B5) so that's why I ask how close one can get to it with hdri settings. Of course you're right about that the Bryce Community will crank out excellent hdri  images; no doubt about that. :-)

Ah, but I need more time :P

Attached Link: http://www.kenzden.com/tutorial/hdrtuto.htm

try this link.  This is a tuto I created a long time ago when Carrara first started supporting HDR.  It's a bit intensive with detailed images to start, but you can generate a fairly decent light map in short amount of time.

Just $.02 from a lurker...

Ken

...I did a number of render experiments with LDR when Vue 5 first came out- particularly using just a simple white tile as an IBL source- or a simple Photoshop gray-scale ramp... the gray-scale ramp lets you create a light source from a particular direction...

...the interesting thing about a simple LDR white tile is that it can "simulate" a Global Illumination effect (cheap GI)...and FAST... then run a second render with an HDR file and combine them "in post" (photoshop)... Doing Mult-Pass renders is a great way for getting very interesting light EFX at greatly reduced render times...

What Bryce 6 needs is a way to load a simple white tile or gray-scale ramp as an LDR  light source...

Being LDR- the render is quite FAST!  It would be nice if Bryce 6 would allow this type of illumination source for IBL. I can only guess they (DAZ) haven't yet because they don't want to "confuse" people- and let them get a grasp on HDR first...

Needless to day, LDR doesn't have the Dynamic Range of HDR- but it (LDR) is a really FAST and a SIMPLE way to light a scene!...

cckens, thanks for that link, I didn' t have that one. I have a tutorial on making an HDRI with just Photoshop, but had been looking for some HDRShop insight, thanks!

An HDRI in Bryce can still be used in conjunction with lights. So, as far as GI goes, that could still be faked with a light array.

In the past I have used light arrays (domes) that used anywhere from just a handful of lights to nearly 200. I normally will deactivate the shadows on the array lights, and then use a subtle shadow from the sun or another light, otherwise render times are imho, not even worth it.

Can anyone tell me how to do shiny but opaque plastics just using IBL?

If I use it straight I get a rather flat object and no nice shiny dot.If I use sunlight as well and manage to get the sun pointing in the right direction with soften shadows it looks better but the plastic looks translucent instead of opaque.
The only work around I've come up with is to reduce the diffusion in the materials lab to get something like a shiny but opaque plastic but using sunlight and HDRI. OK for plastic but not what I want if I'm using any other material and HDRI.

So has anyone else encountered this and how did/have they overcome it?IF they did.

Plastic...is hard. As you are finding out, you may get something close in one type of scene/light, but then it will look totally different in another.

I haven't been able to create a plastic that will look good in even just some different types of lighting. I've had to tweak the heck out of it everytime a new lighting scheme was used. 

So the answer is avoid using hard opaque plastics in your HDRI renders.

Actually I just tried using the globe lighting and shutting off shadows in the light lab.,adjusting the diffusion at the same time in the materials lab.It's not perfect but it might just work if you are using other shinier materials in the same scene.

Now to see if I can repeat it with another HDRI..

Nah, it just takes more tweaking to make it look right, imo. I find the hdri's oversaturate some of my colored plastics, and I have to start balancing everything out to cope with that.

Quote - I just tried taking a simple all white image, and using HDRShop to turn into into an hdr file. I get a falling shadow (pos z direction)...which I don' t know how that's possible, as it it should be light from all sides.....

I think there's a bug with that...

Attached Link: Treat

Switched to Bryce 6 now, i had some problems at first (stupid installer, stupid me), but that's cleared now.