how do you make photos into the bubble warp used by IBL lights?

i thought picturenaut was gonna be the answer, but it doesnt' seem to be the answer, after all.

Hdrshop is what I use. Its free :-) The format is called angular.

When you ask about converting photos, it implies you plan to convert ordinary photos. There is no point to doing that. You will not match or reproduce the lighting of objects found in the photo. You will light the world with those objects.

The angular map format used by IBL is a recording of global illumination, coming from all directions.

Whereas an ordinary photo is a tiny slice of the 360 degree world, the IBL is the whole thing. By converting an ordinary photo to angular map and using that for lighting, you're telling Poser to imagine that the image is the entire world, and to light everything in that way.

If you have a generally wide angle image, with the sky/ground horizon exactly halfway down the picture, then you can get a general idea of the lighting above versus below. But you will not get the proper gradation of light coming from the sun (sun-filled sky) versus opposite the sun. (empty sky, clouds, etc.)

The usual input to the converter is an equirectangular image - a spherical panorama covering every direction.

My environment sphere accepts equirectangular images directly. In conjunction with P8+ IDL, that is going to match the lighting, without bothering with IBL.

On the other hand, if you don't have P8+ and want to convert, you can do it entirely in Poser. Load the equirectangular on the EnvSPhere, then get and use my GenIBL tool. This will generate the angular map format of whatever is surrounding the tool in Poser. This means also you could capture the bounced light from large props, such as a nearby house or building.

Thanks!

found the d/l here

http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/

Quote - When you ask about converting photos, it implies you plan to convert ordinary photos. There is no point to doing that. You will not match or reproduce the lighting of objects found in the photo. You will light the world with those objects.

The angular map format used by IBL is a recording of global illumination, coming from all directions.

Whereas an ordinary photo is a tiny slice of the 360 degree world, the IBL is the whole thing. By converting an ordinary photo to angular map and using that for lighting, you're telling Poser to imagine that the image is the entire world, and to light everything in that way.

If you have a generally wide angle image, with the sky/ground horizon exactly halfway down the picture, then you can get a general idea of the lighting above versus below. But you will not get the proper gradation of light coming from the sun (sun-filled sky) versus opposite the sun. (empty sky, clouds, etc.)

The usual input to the converter is an equirectangular image - a spherical panorama covering every direction.

My environment sphere accepts equirectangular images directly. In conjunction with P8+ IDL, that is going to match the lighting, without bothering with IBL.

On the other hand, if you don't have P8+ and want to convert, you can do it entirely in Poser. Load the equirectangular on the EnvSPhere, then get and use my GenIBL tool. This will generate the angular map format of whatever is surrounding the tool in Poser. This means also you could capture the bounced light from large props, such as a nearby house or building.

thanks!

poser 6 came with a couple of hdr lights.  followed the link to their website and found some free hdr images, but they aren't set up for poser

http://www.hdrvfx.com/index.html

IBL archive

http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html

i can't afford a SLR camera, maybe next year's tax return.  supposedly there's a method of taking a few jpg photos at different exposures, and a hdr software can merge them into a hdr image.

a hdr image is 32 bits

i've been trying to figure this out for a couple years now.  slow progress

http://ict.debevec.org/~debevec/HDRShop/tutorial/tutorial5.html

Here's a couple I took last night and am finishing them up this morning. The one on the right is not so great but wont be noticable once they are assembled.

so far, i opened an image. 

Quote - When you ask about converting photos, it implies you plan to convert ordinary photos. There is no point to doing that. You will not match or reproduce the lighting of objects found in the photo. You will light the world with those objects.

The angular map format used by IBL is a recording of global illumination, coming from all directions.

Whereas an ordinary photo is a tiny slice of the 360 degree world, the IBL is the whole thing. By converting an ordinary photo to angular map and using that for lighting, you're telling Poser to imagine that the image is the entire world, and to light everything in that way.

If you have a generally wide angle image, with the sky/ground horizon exactly halfway down the picture, then you can get a general idea of the lighting above versus below. But you will not get the proper gradation of light coming from the sun (sun-filled sky) versus opposite the sun. (empty sky, clouds, etc.)

The usual input to the converter is an equirectangular image - a spherical panorama covering every direction.

My environment sphere accepts equirectangular images directly. In conjunction with P8+ IDL, that is going to match the lighting, without bothering with IBL.

On the other hand, if you don't have P8+ and want to convert, you can do it entirely in Poser. Load the equirectangular on the EnvSPhere, then get and use my GenIBL tool. This will generate the angular map format of whatever is surrounding the tool in Poser. This means also you could capture the bounced light from large props, such as a nearby house or building.

I'm on P7. 

so, i don't need a bubble image? 

head-scrch

 i d/l the EnvSphere and GenIBL. 

so now i can make IBL ready LDR images using my photography?

i have thousands of nature photos from the last few years.  all without a mirror ball.

Quote -  i d/l the EnvSphere and GenIBL. 

 

so now i can make IBL ready LDR images using my photography?

No - the point I'm making is that a photograph of, for example, your hand, cannot be made into an image based light that produces the lighting at the time that surrounded your hand. It produces light made of your hand as if you wrapped a glowing photo of your hand around the universe.

Now a photo of some trees and ground and sky might produce some light that isn't completely nonsense, but it isn't the same as a full 360 degree sampling of the world.

So - converting any normal photo to angular map format (what you call bubble) is not doing anything useful.  I'm saying you can use any photo you want for lights, including you can use a photo of your bookshelf or your tonsils, but converting that to bubble format isn't going to make it into a realistic light source. It's just going to re-arrange the distribution of the colors a bit, but they're still pretty much random lighting. The effort involved isn't going to produce anything meaningful.

The conversion in HDRShop expects that you're starting with a full 360 degree panoramic image (100% capture of the scene lighting), or a mirror ball image (85% capture of the scene lighting.) Your typical photo captures about 1 to 5% of the scene lighting and is useless as a simulation light source.

You could get what you want quicker by just drawing some smears in a drawing program.

Try playing with the colors in the Blender. The HDR "sun" intensity in this "image" is in the upper right Math node - the 5 means 5 times 100% brightness. Change it to 0, 1, 2, 10, etc.

The details in IBL images do not matter. IBL lighting is about averages. Imagine that you are standing outside and you take a photo. Then you go cut down one of 30 nearby trees, exposing a bit more sky and take another photo. Is there any meaningful difference in the lighting except close to that tree? No.

So having detailed pictures of leaves or just a smear of green - it's the same thing.

Detailed sky, or just a smear of blue, same thing.

Here is the before picture

found the flex here: http://www.flamingpear.com/flexify.html

oops, the hdrvx lights came with p7, not p6

Quote - > Quote -  i d/l the EnvSphere and GenIBL. 

 

so now i can make IBL ready LDR images using my photography?

No - the point I'm making is that a photograph of, for example, your hand, cannot be made into an image based light that produces the lighting at the time that surrounded your hand. It produces light made of your hand as if you wrapped a glowing photo of your hand around the universe.

Now a photo of some trees and ground and sky might produce some light that isn't completely nonsense, but it isn't the same as a full 360 degree sampling of the world.

So - converting any normal photo to angular map format (what you call bubble) is not doing anything useful.  I'm saying you can use any photo you want for lights, including you can use a photo of your bookshelf or your tonsils, but converting that to bubble format isn't going to make it into a realistic light source. It's just going to re-arrange the distribution of the colors a bit, but they're still pretty much random lighting. The effort involved isn't going to produce anything meaningful.

The conversion in HDRShop expects that you're starting with a full 360 degree panoramic image (100% capture of the scene lighting), or a mirror ball image (85% capture of the scene lighting.) Your typical photo captures about 1 to 5% of the scene lighting and is useless as a simulation light source.

Oh.   so, my photography won't work for IBL.

I didn't say that. I said there's no point in converting those images to angular map format, since they are not equirectangular to begin with. They are just ordinary photos.

If you have any kind smear of blue above, and green below, photo or not, it can be used to create the impression that there is blue light from above and green light from below.

What I'm saying is that the fancy, detailed conversion you're trying to do is pointless. I am not saying that using colors from photos is pointless.

I have been able to get very credible "bubble" photos using a 4" silver glass Christmas tree ornament, on a wooden dowel, stuck in the ground to raise it up some, and using a $100 (USD) camera with a telephoto lense. The camera was on a cheap tripod to keep it stable.

Larger mirrored balls can be bought at garden shops because some people (in the southern United States) like to put them on stands in gardens. This will cost more, but give better photos.

The free IBL producing set-up thoughtfully provided by bagginsBill lets you craft an IBL light specifically designed for the scene you have created in Poser using all of the items in that scene and its lighting.

I like IDL better. In the end, Poser Pro 2010 (or the eventually up-coming Poser 9) will be cheaper than a (really good) SLR camera. Though as BB points out, high resolution of detail is wasted effort for IBL lighting, because the light is averaged.

Now, if one invested in a camera and software that could produce high resolution panaromic scenes, then one could make the equirectangular images used on the inside of an environmental sphere.

lmk

Not sure if this is the type of image you refer to, but using the same image as above, I did this with Flexity using the equirectangular default setting.

Sigh. How many times do I have to say 360 degrees for people to notice that I'm saying it?

These conversions are pointless unless you have a FULL, THREE HUNDRED SIXTY DEGREE recording of the entire universe around the observer.

360 deg. in both altitude and azimuth (longitude and latitude).  in case they are still confused about it.

Quote - Sigh. How many times do I have to say 360 degrees for people to notice that I'm saying it?

These conversions are pointless unless you have a FULL, THREE HUNDRED SIXTY DEGREE recording of the entire universe around the observer.

I'm sorry :(

Quote - 360 deg. in both altitude and azimuth (longitude and latitude).  in case they are still confused about it.

360 degrees longitude and in 0-180 in latitude (in case you are still confused about this). :-)

ahzo, this what equirectangular means

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection

Quote -  

ahzo, this what equirectangular means

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection

Flexity can make those too.

Here is an image of a angular map, that shows the major directions front (center circle), back (outer ring), ceiling, right, floor, and left (blue, red, green, violet resp.), left side of the illustration. You can overlay this on top of your angular environment map to roughly determine, which direction is where in your environment map. As long as the trees are mostly within the outer ring and the blue area is the sky it cannot be totally wrong (right side of illustration).

Milighost, thanks a mil.  I'll be using it! 

Misty, I took the liberty of making a screenshot of your sphere and applied it to one of my V4's.  It looks great!  Jan  

I do not know if it was mentioned, but smith micro has a tutorial on makeing your own IBL images. http://poser.smithmicro.com/tutorials/lighting_making_ibl_images.html

Bill

Before PP2010 and IDL, I was experimenting with finding a way to make my own IBL images. This is a picture I took with a $100 (USD) camera, a one leg camera support (monopod), and a $2 (USD) 4" silver mirrored glass Christmas tree ornament. The glass ball makes better pictures than the plastic one used in the link to the smithmcro tutorial.

You would need good megapixels, and at least some telephoto capability (so that you do not have to stand close to the glass ball. A bigger glass ball would cost more, but give better results. However, it would be heavier, and harder to stand it up off the ground with a dowel or a pole.

BB indicates that this will represent about 85% of the environment. This is better than warping a single flat picture into a round form.

This is a picture I took at the parking lot of Wall-Mart.  It's free so us it and let me know how it looks.

lmk

For those who like to search the internet for resources:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lightprobe

Caution: Don't borrow these for use in products, unless the owner released it, but they should be fine to use in renders.

lmk

lmk

lmk

lmk

lmk

lmk

These photos took 1/2 hour to shoot and edit. It took about the same amount of time to write these messages, and upload them. I had to use a tripod, and the ball was only 3". Alarger ball will take better quality pictures. I will have to figure out the settings for better quality, and less movement blurr. Take a lot of pictures one of them will be good enough to use.

It may be that some cannot make photos like this, but some of us could do it and share. Maybe if this thread lasts a while, or if someone wouldn't mind screening packaging and uploading them to FreeStuff, we could build up a little library of usable "light probes" (as these are often called on the net).

Does anyone know where there is a tutorial for making HDRI "bubble" pictures as mentioned in the SM tutorial, and what in the world are the HDRI variety used for and what advantage do they offer?

lmk

I posted a link to a tutorial on the first page of this thread. The images you posted are good for ibl but are not what I would call a "light probe".

To create an actual hdri light probe using the mirrored ball you need to take multiple exposures and two different angles of the mirrored ball. Somewhere between 45 and 90 degrees apart.

There are several programs for assembling the multiple exposures into a single hdri. Hdrshop, photomatrix, and photoshop to name a couple. FDR tools is also a good one.

Once you have your two hdri images you can then use hdrshop to rotate one to match the other. You then combine the two with a mask to remove bad sampling and the camera from the resulting image.

Hdri as in .hdr and .exr offer a much higher dynamic range (32 bit) over other image formats. This gives you much better lighting information of the scene.

As you can see, to do it correctly there is a lot more to it than just taking a photo of a mirrored ball.

I did a comparison with a hdr and jpg image using idl in this thread.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3776668&ebot_calc_page#message_3776668 

Sounds like it needs a bigger and better mirrored ball. This is a good time of year (Spring in the USA) to find them in garden shops.

lmk

What you have will work fine as long as your camera has a wide enough range on the exposure setting. I go from -2 to +2 with 1 stop in between 5 exposures.

The mirrored ball I have is plastic but has a 12" diameter.  I've had it a while so it has a few scuffs on it.