Recently I've been making a script to automatically set everything up in Poser to work with "Smart IBL", aka sIBL.

(See http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/index.html )

The setup involves two linked environment spheres, one with HDR for raytraced lighting and reflections, the other with JPG to look at as a background, plus a matching setup for the sun. I have the Poser Python script working but no UI yet - I load things using the Python shell.

At some point I wondered how close to the original world lighting I was getting - and whether I could make smooth transition from the photographic image world to the virtual rendered world.

So - here's a scene using an sIBL from HDRI Hub: You can find these sIBLs here: http://www.hdri-hub.com/hdrishop/freesamples/freehdri

Part of the tile ground cover is real, part is Poser. Obviously the pawns and Andy are Poser. Not bad, eh?

The tile is a procedural shader applied to the Poser ground plane, made using a plugin I've been working on.

I then went into that shader and wired up an edge fader to compensate for the fact that I just could not get the tiles to line up with the Environment Sphere image.

Here is the same image, but I've darkened the "world" so you can see how the tile shader edges fade and mix with the world image.

Great - the forum software didn't clue me in that the second link was invisible. I don't know how it got like that.

And now I am not allowed to edit it because you can't edit the first post in a thread. 

I want to scream. Really. This forum software is massive suckage.

Here's the link I was trying to supply: http://www.hdri-hub.com/hdrishop/freesamples/freehdri

     Whoa - fine job there, BB!

Hello bb, nice work man.

Question : Most issues with combining is when the light comes from to front, and the shadows go to the rear.
What happens if you put the sunlight in front of the figures, with the shadows extending to the rear. Especially at the "break" between the procedural ground plane and the rest?

Hello bb, nice work man.

Question : Most issues with combining is when the light comes from to front, and the shadows go to the rear.
What happens if you put the sunlight in front of the figures, with the shadows extending to the rear. Especially at the "break" between the procedural ground plane and the rest?

So because my projection has to stay right, I can't move the camera. I'm using the dolly camera and it has to stay exactly in the center of the sphere or else the projection changes. Instead of orbiting the camera, I just turned it in place (because it's the dolly camera) and then I moved Andy and the props to the other side.

In this direction my shader looks slightly darker than the real ground - I suppose the real-world material has some effect involving rough-surface diffuse reflection that I have not taken into account. I should have been using the Clay, not Diffuse node.

Vilters I made another render and I answered with some explanation. But the forum destroyed my post.

Fuck it.

it looks great anyway.  sorry about forum snafu!

Really impressive work, BB.  Damn shame about the forum screwups, though.  :(

WHAW, thanks for responding. bb

Yeah, the forum, :-(
Hard to believe they keep it this way.

But very inventive work you post, well done.

Great - the forum software didn't clue me in that the second link was invisible. I don't know how it got like that.

And now I am not allowed to edit it because you can't edit the first post in a thread. 

I want to scream. Really. This forum software is massive suckage.

Here's the link I was trying to supply: http://www.hdri-hub.com/hdrishop/freesamples/freehdri

Actually, you can edit the first post. It's just that the edit buttons are at the top of the post body instead of at the bottom.  Future reference. 

I fixed the background color on the link for you. Whenever you copy-paste text, it copies the color of whatever you copied it from, so you have to use the "Set to transparent" option under the font style menu (the capital A hi-lighted in yellow - 5th button over from the left) - setting the background to transparent will make it so that the background color of your copied text (or link) does not override the background color of the post body. 

Thank you bagginsbill for sharing this ... we appreciate it very much.  I am sorry for the difficulties.

Great - the forum software didn't clue me in that the second link was invisible. I don't know how it got like that.

And now I am not allowed to edit it because you can't edit the first post in a thread. 

I want to scream. Really. This forum software is massive suckage.

Here's the link I was trying to supply: http://www.hdri-hub.com/hdrishop/freesamples/freehdri

Actually, you can edit the first post. It's just that the edit buttons are at the top of the post body instead of at the bottom.  Future reference. 

I fixed the background color on the link for you. Whenever you copy-paste text, it copies the color of whatever you copied it from, so you have to use the "Set to transparent" option under the font style menu (the capital A hi-lighted in yellow - 5th button over from the left) - setting the background to transparent will make it so that the background color of your copied text (or link) does not override the background color of the post body. 

I'm just curious, Shane.  How is it forum users are supposed to know these things?  Is there some user manual somewhere that we're supposed to be using to post on this software?  Because, quite frankly, I've never seen anything like it.....you're copying the background color from a text editor into a forum post?  Whaaaaaaaaa?  That's as convoluted as anything I have ever seen in my life. You should also probably keep in mind that half of us don't even have any real icons to use, just the missing icon symbol across the top row of any forum post....whether through preference or browser compatibility.  One thing is certain.....guessing isn't working.

@Glitterati - so that we don't derail the thread I'll post my response to your question in Clark's thread. 

Despite the forum problems, I'm very interested in what you're showing BB!

I use  the HDRI Lab in LightWave, fantastic if it would work in Poser too.Great stuff again BB.

Smart thinking there, batman. I've never thought of 'extending' the backplate photo downwards like that. I tend to just use an invisible shadow catcher plane under the model, but that limits the choice of backplates a bit. Many don't include enough close-in foreground for figure shots, they work for car shots which are further away, but if as you bring a figure closer in the feet will often go out of frame. This opens up a bunch of possibilities, assuming one can always fake the ground surface as successfully as you have done here.

This is excellent BB.  Do you plan on selling this as a plug-in?  I'd certainly buy it, hopefully before the pirate scum grabs it and spreads it all over the Poserverse.

@Baggins
For fuck sake, make a safe copy of your post before you hit the submit button.  I know we shouldn't have to, but until they make some major advances, I've stopped trusting it by default.

Anyway, the tests look excellent!

Are you also putting in Poser lights with position, direction and intensity as per the sIBL control file?

great news ...........we have this in blender and I've thought once or twice about asking if someone here would make an addon for sIBL don't have to ask now ;-)

@Baggins
 make a safe copy of your post before you hit the submit button.  I know we shouldn't have to, but until they make some major advances, I've stopped trusting it by default.

That doesn't help if you can't paste what you copied - you'd have to type it again anyway.

Good Work Sir

we have had a "Smart IBL" plugin with a preset browser for C4D for a few years now and I use it quite often

Good to see someone bringing  it to poser pro..  Bravo!!

Thanks everybody. Yes my script is loading the sun color, intensity, and position as well as loading the two images onto env spheres.

Here's a demo using the shadow catcher I released when Poser Pro 2012 came out. It works correctly with IDL, unlike the Poser built-in shadow catcher.

I also incorporated camera "exposure" control so you can change the effective exposure. It works by re-scaling the brightness of the images and of the sun intensity.

Unfortunately, changing the "exposure" requires that the shadow catcher be recalibrated. I am going to see if I can automatically adjust the shadow catcher calibration as well. That would make all this truly easy to use.

Here is a re-render with the same sIBL loaded with exposure adjustment one "stop" lower.

with sIBL sets, you get small file that gives UV-coords of sun, in case there's sun visible in hdri.

then is easy to convert UV to poser inf lite altitude/azimuth (xrot/yrot).  ignore zrot.

Indeed - here is a fragment of my script.

Assuming that the envsphere is mine (where the middle is behind the camera and the seam is in front of the camera) I use:

yr = 180 - self.p('SUNu', 0) * 360

xr = -90 + self.p('SUNv', 0) * 180

sun.SetParameter("yRotate", yr)

sun.SetParameter("xRotate", xr)

self.p refers to parameters (by name) within the sIBL file that ends with .ibl.

sun refers to the Poser infinite light representing the sun.

lol  i had to look it up - 

noun 1. the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability: The play lacked verisimilitude. 2. something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of 

ibl file also gives sun colour and sun multi (can't cut-n-paste).  colour usually yellowish in these.

no poser-specific correlation yet between sun multi and inf lite, but hdrlabs has minimal descr., and they want us to use directional lite.

harbor_3_free has multi=1 (bright, high in sky) whilst hdr_112_river_road has multi=1.782 (overcast, sun near horizon). 

p.s. should have said "zero zrot", not "ignore zrot".

Lovely job :-) Thanks for posting BB!

Fantastic. This is really a huge step for Poser. Can't wait to see it finish and released. You sell it here or somewhere else?

I'm assuming that this can't be accomplished with a "master" shader that you can adjust accordingly.  I'm still playing with your matmatic settings from your site ... so ... is there something there you could post.  I'm really interested in trying this.  I may just be missing some from your posts.  I'm a step-by-step kinda gal.

load BB's envsphere, load hdr_ref onto BB's envsphere, check if visible unblocked sun, if so load BB's latest refractive shadowcatcher and adjust inf lite xrot/yrot/colour (zero zrot) using ibl file sun variables as per BB's script segment above. may also be work-round for using inf lite w/partially blocked/cloudy sun. 

Miss Nancy! Thank you.  You can simplify the most complicated things for me! :)

here's one using above technique.

was concerned inf lite wouldn't work coz it was cloudy, but it worked anyway.  inf lite specular washed out in this case due to large brite area in hdr.

I had no idea this sort of thing was available/possible and after downloading and installing it for Blender, I stayed up way too late the other night playing with it.  This sure beats the stink out of fiddling with lights the traditional way.  We discussed this on another forum where I learned that Reality 4 from Pret-a-3D uses Sibl sets.  What's the difference between Reality 4 and what your doing BB?  Reality 4 is a very reasonable 34 bucks at RDNA which I consider to be good value, especially considering the results it achieves.  Should I wait for your script?

The script will allow Poser to use Sibl's inside Poser using Poser's material room and render engine.  No, you won't obtain the same results as you would get from an unbiased render engine. 

in this one I turn up sun to 100%.  doesn't change droid lighting much but produces sharper shadow and gives lens flare fx on sphere.