Rosemaryr opened this issue on Feb 04, 2008 · 59 posts
Rosemaryr posted Wed, 20 February 2008 at 9:29 AM
My general IBL /sky lab settings are as described earlier:
Usually the sunlight is disabled, and no other lights are in the scene. The IBL settings, usually:
Quality: 256 (about half)
Intesity: 5-15, (depending on how bright the image is to start with)
HDRI effect: 100
I am not using any reflective objects in my tests; these just show the pixelation of the HDRI far too much... and my focus was more on the effects of these colors on non-reflective surfaces. So the objects in my scene are all flat white diffuse color...from the 'Simple' category of the materials.
Most of my finished renders tend to be Poser people, rendered out in Bryce, so unless they are wearing or using glossy metal armor, the lighting information I need is more oriented to how these colors will look on skin tones, or leather/cloth/etc. What I've found is that the non-glossy/ matte surfaces will 'blend' the IBL image's colors into a smooth gradation. This smooth gradation can give me the effect I previously had to get by adding a whole bunch of colored lights...which slows down the render times. Now, with just the IBL, and maybe either the sun, or one added light for shadows, I can get the same results for much less work.