Hi people.

In Poser 6, IBL often looked flat, with low contrast. In part, this was because we could not use high dynamic range images (HDRI). But also, Poser 6 did the math differently (I'll spare you the details) resulting in unrealistically low contrast.

So now we have Poser 7, with better math, and we can use HDRI. The result is that images can end up with way MORE contrast than you want.

Leaving aside whether or not the math and the great new images are producing "correct" results (I'm still not sure they are), let's just assume you don't like it and want to do something about it. Something simple.

Here's the trick. Add a second IBL, but don't use an image. Just leave it white. This will add a uniform amount of light coming from all directions - effectively this is an omnidirectional fill light.

Lower the intensity of your first IBL, the one with the image. Then raise the intensity of the second light until you get the effect you want. You can easily adjust the relative intensities to get whatever pleases you. We could also accomplish this with shader nodes in the first IBL, but this seems easier to use.

I will now demonstrate.

The contrast is really strong, and the lighting seems harsh and overdone.

Much better. 

Remember, there are no directional lights in this scene. Only the two IBL. You'd want to do some more stuff with specular lights, but the diffuse component is much improved.

Is it reality? Probably not. But it looks like daylight to me.

"But also, Poser 6 did the math differently (I'll spare you the details)" Interesting - you always bring something new to the table - thank you for your insight and the fact you share it so freely and a big thanks for sparing us the math ;) which I would never understand anyway ;)

Ah-ha! This trick, along with the investigation into cleaner and more effective AO in another, is really helping me for a 'mood piece' animation I am doing. Specifically I can light with litte or no depth shadows and get better IBL-ish "GI" going, as well.

Thanks BB

::::: Opera :::::

hmm .. I think that using this method you do reach the goal you were after. but in the sense of realism I dont think its a step in the right direction. In the hdri you can see that there are very light and dark areas.. light and shadows.. thus giving you the contrast in lighting, so I think poser is pretty close to reproducing the light in the image. If you want a smooth even light why not use a hdr say for instance of an overcast day. this will give you the even light.

Onnetz,

For once, I was being artistic instead of a realism specialist. My point was that you can take a painterly approach to lighting sometimes, and if the "correct" lighting isn't what you want, go ahead and fix it. Lord knows I've had enough "artists" in this community slam me for being all technical and demanding or only supporting realism, which they feel is an uncalled for restriction on their artistic merit.

I was pretty clear when I posted it that it is NOT real. But it let's you control reality to suit your whim. It may be that the harsh lighting from the Pond HDRI is "correct". Does that mean you're not allowed to use that as a tool? Surely not.

I'm trying to show how HDRI is not exclusively a tool for achieving realism. It can be used for desired effects, often more quickly than other ways. It is a tool which has artistic as well as scientific application.

Does that make sense?

See what ya get for trying to be different?.. j/k
I missed the part about not going for realism with this, but yeah hdr's have many possiblities and uses. The white fill light works great to even out lighting. Gives it a nice balance. 
In P6 I've been playing around with using 3 or 4 ibl lights to make up for the lack of contrast and it works fairly well. No noticable hit it render times like I thought there would be either. But I suppose that means its not doing any extra calculations either.

Thanks for this bagginsbill and for all of your great tuts, hints, and tips - they're wonderful!! :biggrin:

Its 10mb's 3000x1500 in .hdr format if anyone wants to download it and let me see how it looks in P7. Or you can download it and use it for whatever.. 

http://onnetz.spiritbones.org/downloads/dld.cgi?15

Bagginsbill - thank you for sharing the tip. 

onnetz, when i click on that link i just get a splash page...

I'd like to try rendering in P7 with your HDR

As you noted, adding an IBL with no image attached does not jack up render time; that's what I like about it.

:: og ::

Should work now. :-)
I had 4 extra ibl's all with images but no AO and the render time didnt increase.

Hi people.

IBL render times are cheap by their very nature.

There is an up-front cost when Poser prepares your IBL image for diffuse light. It does a math thing called "convolution" - basically in plain English it blurs it, but in a fancy way.

This step is pretty cheap because we always leave the IBL light's "Image_Resolution" at the default, which is only 256. So it prepares your nice detailed image by shrinking it to 256 by 256, and then blurring the heck out of it. That's why detail in an IBL probe doesn't matter at all.

You can demonstrate to yourself that the convolution actually can be very expensive, if done on a large image. Choose Image_Resolution 2048. Your render will not start for a long time now.

Once the convolution is prepared, using it for lighting is just a simple lookup based on the direction the surface is facing.

I did not tone map it or any other modification to the color/brightness of the image.

I attached the panorama to my automatic rotating angular map converter for Poser so I can rotate the environment. This is the first render, with everything just as it is without rotating.

On the left is a nearly chrome ball, reflecting the environment and other props. On the right are diffuse only spheres, a soft pale yellow, a sky blue, and a white, with Diffuse_Value = 70%.

Across the bottom

A white vase
Panorama on a rectangle (rotating)
Angular Map on a square (rotating, this is what is in the IBL)
Panorama on a sphere (rotating) - this is a small version of the environment sphere.

And of course the panorama is attached the large environment sphere surrounding the whole scene. We can see part of the environment in the background.

This is a very nice lighting image, but not so great for "seeing" it in the background. You took multiple images with bracketed f-stop, right? I think perhaps they are not perfectly aligned - resulting in loss of detail. I'm sure that trying to get the camera to not move between exposures is very tricky.

Thanks BB. The 1/4 and 3/8's turn look pretty good.   If they aren't aligned you can blame PhotoStitch.. :-)  I didn't get enough shots because of the batteries and the fact that it was raining when I took them didn't help either.  Look in the 1/4 turn scene and it looks like a ghost or somthing, I think thats the rain.. :-)  Realistically to create good sphere maps you should take pictures 360 degrees about 4 times.so you capture 360 degrees on both axis or as close to it as possible. Thats alot of pictures for just one map.. :-) This one was rather quick and dirty but produced fair results.