My mind is reeling with al the possibilities. Thank you very much!

**Dear cobaltdream
I understand the prop part ... but I'm just trying to create a light set to go with my backgrounds.  I'm not looking to use any props at all and would like to have a "fake" IBL to go with it to somewhat match the image background, which is the primary element in my free stuff and my future commercial product. 

I will certainly use this for other projects though and am grateful for all the wonderful stuff that BB has.

Boni****
**

?  i'm not sure what you mean by "the prop part?"  if you mean the environment prop, you don't have to use it.  like i said, you can use a box with walls facing inward.  just put images on each side and the top.if you mean the shadow prop, i just wasn't sure if you were aware when you were suggesting people use the ground as a shadow catcher. a regular shadow catching ground doesn't take into account AO.  if you're going to give away or sell background images, it would probably be good to refer people to bagginsbill's shadow catcher.  but again, you don't have to.   do you mean his IBL generation prop?  because that's what i'm suggesting you use with your background images.  to generate images for your IBL.  but if the IBL generator is in a scene with a big empty space, where empty is the background color, the image won't come out right, and then your light won't come out right.

Quote - I have a question for you BB, I'm preparing a set of lights to go with some background images for poser to put first in freestuff with low resolutions then a larger package in the marketplace.  I don't have panaramic images to work from and use your wonderful tools with, I just want to set it up to utilize the provided image.  I want people to be able to just put a model in it, possibly use the "shadow only" ground plane (P6) and render.  There would be no objects other than the model(s) in the scene. How can I make an IBL using one reference photo? 

You may be surprised to learn that IBL lighting is pretty darn vague, and does not require much in the way of accurate detail. So it turns out that any sort of partial landscape, with nice broad horizontal strokes of color (sky, trees, ground) will work just fine.

Load your photo onto my environment sphere. Yes it is not a full panorama, but that doesn't matter - we're just trying to surround the figure with general colors.

Use my GenIBL tool to then generate an IBL image from that environment.

Then you can just discard the environment sphere. Load your background photo, and your IBL probe image. Of course, you need to tweak some directional light and do a good job with the shadow catcher. But that is true regardless of how you make the IBL.

I'll post a couple examples. I went on flickr.com and found a couple nice landscape photos that are free for use in derivative works. I will render with Simon and a few primitives. No great effort was made to match the shadows to the scenery. It should be enough to get the idea across.

Oh - I forgot one thing. Because the photo is only a partial panorama, intended for a background, when you wrap it around the e-sphere, left and right get swapped. For most photos this won't matter. But if there is significant differences in the environment left versus right, you might notice this in the lighting. To solve this, when you load the photo on the e-sphere, set U_Scale = -1 to swap left and right.

I didn't bother doing that for the above demos since there's not any obvious difference from one side to the other.

I used your Envosphere. I put this-----> img6.imageshack.us/my.php image into the Panoramic slot in the Materials room.

This is the outcome:

I'm stuck on this step:

Quote - Create an IBL light (if you don't have one already). Load the IBL probe image file into it like any other. In other words, the Image_Map should be plugged into the light shader's Color input. Set the Intensity of this light to 100% (or 1.0 in the material room). Make sure that the IBL Contrast is 1, not 3.

The IBL probe file? The one I just made?
Light's shader? Do you mean to make a new light, check IBL, then plug the new IBL (above) into the image map?
Color input?

My IBL is tilted.

why is it rotated? did you move the camera? 

Quote -

The IBL probe file? The one I just made?
Light's shader? Do you mean to make a new light, check IBL, then plug the new IBL (above) into the image map?
Color input?

yes. go in the light settings. made a new image node. load your IBL image. 

Quote - why is it rotated? did you move the camera? 

No I did not.

I first started out doing the Envosphere tut. In the tut, we were told to lower our focal length to 15. My default is 100. I did that at first and then just moved my camera forward using the controls in the document window.

Next I went on to do the IBL Generator tut. I deleted out of the old scene and made a brand new one. I made my document preview dimensions 400X400 as it's usually 1024X800.

I added my Envosphere, applied my image in the materials room, enabled raytracing and set it to two bounces. I then rendered.

Quote - > Quote -

The IBL probe file? The one I just made?
Light's shader? Do you mean to make a new light, check IBL, then plug the new IBL (above) into the image map?
Color input?

yes. go in the light settings. made a new image node. load your IBL image. 

Ok. Gotcha. Thanks!

dont change the camera settings when you are doing your own IBL.
he said this when you are using figures,props,.... this is for the final render.

start again. make a new document. delete the james figure. turn  off every light. load enviorment sphere. and then load the IBL generator . then go in the material settings and load your image.

Quote - dont change the camera settings when you are doing your own IBL.
he said this when you are using figures,props,.... this is for the final render.

start again. make a new document. delete the james figure. turn  off every light. load BB EVN sphere. and then load BB IBL generator. . then go in the material settings and load your image.

To clarify---when I followed the Generator tut, I started a new document and this time didn't move the camera. My focal is 100 by default. I moved the camera when I was following the Envosphere tut.

I didn't know we were supposed to delete all the lights though. Ok will start over and repost. Give me 2 minutes.

looks good to me

maybe i was wrong and this is how it looks.
i guess its like that because its a hill.

Ok.

Iceboy---when you collect Pan images at the sites BB supplied, do you download at preview size or at a larger size? I've chosen to download the larger sizes and it doesn't fit my scene. The rocks don't show. And if we're to use the smaller size, is it best to also use that size when creating your IBL?

This is the Envosphere with the background image applied.

The tilt is real, not some mistake you made in technique. There is a hill in the environment, so of course it shows up in your lighting - when there is a hill above you, you have green light coming down on you from the hill.

Yes they do if you look down. The rocks were under the feet of the photographer, not hanging out in front of him. So if you want to see the rocks you have to point your camera down.

As for size of the image, this is magically irrelevant. The environment sphere includes everything in the universe in all directions from one viewpoint. It does not matter how much resolution this image has, except to reveal more or less detail. The fact remains that regardless of image pixel density, it includes everything 360 degrees.

Getting a bigger or smaller version won't change how much you can see in a render. The only thing that affects how much of the image "fits" into your scene is going to be your camera focal length, just like real life.

When you use your camera, and you shoot a portrait of a friend, you cannot see what is above you, behind you, under you, etc. Those are all not visible no matter what the focal length is, unless you go to a fish-eye lens. Your Poser camera works just like a real one. Decrease the focal length, and you increase your field of view to include larger slice of the 360 degree pie.

Duh! I should've known. I completely understand now. Thanks BB!

If the IBL image is matched to the background of the EnvSphere do i need to make a new IBL image everytime i move or rotate the camera, or does poser take this into account and the IBL is rotated also to give a correct lighting in the scene...ie.... if i do and animation of a camera rotating round a person will the light from the IBL follow the camera or stay stationary so that it is locked to the lights position?????

shedofjoy:

Short answer: no you don't need to make another one if you move the camera.

You do need to make another one of you move (rotate) the environment sphere or any significant 3D objects big enough to influence the ambient lighting in a big way. Little things, like a tree or a fountain won't influence it. Even a big thing, such as a house, will only matter if it is really close to your subject.

I have to take apart your question, though, because the answer I'm giving is not caused by the reason you were asking about.

"If the IBL image is matched to the background of the EnvSphere do i need to make a new IBL image everytime i move or rotate the camera ..."

No.

"or does poser take this into account and the IBL is rotated also to give a correct lighting in the scene"

Here's where the wheels fall off. The answer to this is also no.

You presented the question as an either/or, with an expectation that I could answer YES to at least one of the elements of your question. But what you said in the second part is also false and the answer is no to both parts of your question.

No you don't need to make a new IBL image.

No it does not rotate to give correct lighting.

The reason the lighting remains correct is because it DOES NOT ROTATE at all. If the IBL rotated with the camera, then it would become wrong as soon as you moved the camera, which is what you're trying to avoid, but your reasoning would have PRODUCED the problem instead of avoiding the problem.

I hope I'm being clear - when a question is fuzzy like this, the answer may be more confusing than helpful.

its like in the real world. you dont rotate the world. you move the camera he he :)

Darn! that's what's wrong with my outdoor photography!

I can send my big friends home now. :biggrin:

Just read this again, and the last part has a problem in phrasing, too.

"if i do and animation of a camera rotating round a person will the light from the IBL follow the camera ... "

No.

"... or stay stationary  ..."

Yes.

"... so that it is locked to the lights position?"

NO! IBL probes do not stay locked with the "light position". The position of the IBL light (as if it were a spotlight) is not relevant - moving the light widget around does not move or rotate the IBL light projection at all.

I've seen a few posts recently where somebody talked about positioning the IBL light widget like that matters. If you move the light widget to front, back, side, whatever, it doesn't matter - it has nothing to do with where the light comes from.

i understand, the IBL light is fixed to the universe and not the camera (as in real life)...
thankyou Bill

 if you connect an image to the diffuse then you can see the image in the preview. but if you use lights you can not see everything .

i noticed that if you connect the image to the ambient and set it to 1 you see everything. so when you load your ENVsphere ,connect the image to the ambient and set it to 1. that way you will see the image when you set up your camera. before rendering turn ambient off.

Good tip.  Worth pursuing for preview work.  Thanks.

NO! IBL probes do not stay locked with the "light position". The position of the IBL light (as if it were a spotlight) is not relevant - moving the light widget around does not move or rotate the IBL light projection at all.

I've seen a few posts recently where somebody talked about positioning the IBL light widget like that matters. If you move the light widget to front, back, side, whatever, it doesn't matter - it has nothing to do with where the light comes from.

That much  I assumed, however i noticed that when playing with the intensity setttings  of "Preview" vs  IBL light  in the lower portion of that light's parameters panel,  it would seem  they throw the material node intensity settings out the window -
I am  trying to turn preview intensity down on the light designated for IBL, but it seems to throw the intensity of on the rendered IBL.

Yeah preview for IBL is crazy wrong. In preview, it behaves just like an infinite light and ignores the data in the image you have loaded.

lets say that there is a sun on my 360 image.  matching it with the infinite light by hand takes a lot of time and still is not looking right.

is there a way to match poser lights with the en-images? with the info that we have from poser lights? 

Preview with your Main Camera. Set it for a wide angle focal length. I usually use 20mm.

Load your environment sphere.

Depending on which way your lights are it may look dark and hard to see.

Now everything on the sphere is lit well in preview.

Don't forget to turn this light off or delete it later.

This will make the camera point at the center of the universe.

Orbit the camera until the sun is directly centered in your view. The grid lines on the ground will help with this.

If the sky is very bright, it may be difficult to see the grid lines. In that case, once you're near the sun, change the point light intensity. I used 50% here.

Increase the camera focal length to 40mm so you can be more accurate.

Continue refining the orbit, carefully position the sun centered on the center grid line intersection.

Now look on the camera parameters. Write down the xOrbit and yOrbit.

Mine is xOrbit=42, yOrbit=216.

Set the xRotate parameter to the negative of your xOrbit value from the camera.
For me, this is xRotate = -42 degrees.

Set the yRotate parameter to the camera yOrbit + 180.
For me this was yRotate = 216+180 = 396.

If the values are correct, the infinite light telltale indicators should line up. There are two.

One is a projection on the ground and should point straight up into the sun.

The other is a projection from the infinite light direction. This one is now viewed edge on. If everything is lined up right, it will form a perfect horizontal white line through the center of the preview.

Your light is now perfectly in line with the EnvSphere sun. Shadows will match perfectly.

Turn off your point light.

Set up your shadow catcher and render. For me this works every time.

this is f... mind blowing. amazing. it matches 150%
thanks

could we use this  also for  spot lights? i guess not?

A little time consuming, but fairly simple to execute!  I just wish there was some way to map the bright points of light to match up the lights to highlights and photon bounces to make a better cheat for a faux global illumination.

If I was smarter and more experienced, I'd be sure that there must be some kind of Python script that be written to do that.

what do you mean? i dont understand

so let's say this was an indoor scene with a huge window with the sun on one side and another big window without the sun on the other side.  this methods takes care of light from the first window, but light from the second window doesn't really have a good solution.  the simplest is to make it part of the IBL with the IBL generator, but that won't affect your specularirty, and probably won't have the falloff an area light would.   it won't cast shadows, either.

I guess Cobalt has the better idea of doing it.  I'm over thinking it, I guess.  Making light sets from 360 images is just too much work.  Doing a couple of lights IS much easier, and far faster.:laugh:

well, probably the best idea is to figure out how to script a lighting grid of point lights given an object.  one to make rectangular grids with n x m dimensions and y spacing, and one for objects where you can set them at every vertex.  and each having central control for color, turning shadows on and off, and intensity.  and of course using bagginsbill's inverse square falloff material.

but the IBLGenerator trick doesn't work half bad.

Attached Link: http://www.physicalc-software.com/tutorials/ibl/

HDRShop can go both ways. But GenIBL works with props and Poser lights, too, not just photos. Anyway, you can start with GenIBL, then HDRShop the result.

However, he links to the key element called the "light gen plugin" for HDRShop. The link is dead. I don't know if it is still around or not.

This is quite an involved process, so if you thought my sun-matching steps were time consuming, don't even bother reading it.

Follow the link.

Attached Link: http://http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/lightgen/

Attached Link: http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/lightgen/

Just because something is time consuming, doe NOT mean it ISN'T worth-while!  Anything worth doing takes time to invest..  I was just looking for quick and easy fixes.:laugh:  'Quick and easy solutions' DO exsist  for all manner of things out there.  Just because I don't know them means I must learn something, and I embrace that!

Thanks for all the info!  I'm off to go reading! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!