Hey there! I wanna put up a challenge for u bryceans I've finally, after LOTS of trial and error managed to set up an HDR studio lighting setup in 3dsmax. The rendering results look cool but there's one nasty problem! The shaders used for my setup cause some nasty artefacts in Mental Ray. Now ofcourse this made me think of good old bryce which has never thrown me any artefacts that couldnt be removed within reasonable render settings. And I started thinking, if bryce6 has HDRI capabilities, then an HDR studio light setup should be possible in bryce too! So here's my challenge for all u brycers out there. I'd like to see how hot u can get ur studio renders to look. Just put a key object in it, can be anything u want, preferably with some reflective value.

I'll give u a hint on my own setup, mine makes use of:

• Procedurally generated skydome texture. (dunno if this can be done in bryce, but you could generate a similar skydome for on an HDRI map for bryce's IBL i guess) This part is ofcourse bullshit in terms of mimicing reality because there is no skydome in an indoor studio but the (in this case rather dim relative to the entire scene) reflections give a nice touch.
• Cross-sections cut out of a sphere for them white screens that are in use at photography studio's with very bright self-illuminated textures on them (kinda the same idea as over 100% ambience)
• Spotlights are positioned to cast light from the positions of the white screens (the combinations of the HDR reflections and specular highlights create interesting glows to the reflections)

Now to make it easier on brycean rendertimes, i've decided to keep indirect lighting out of the equation (it has been left out in my 3dsmax render also)

Anyone think they can create something that gets close? Or make their own cool studio light setup? Interesting to see what y'all come up with :biggrin: My guess is that of the forum regulars, AS is probably about at the top of HDRI generation...

Ray, I don't touch Bryce much, I can do this easily with blender, especially if combined with indigo (which has great meshlight capabilities)

fine by me :-) give it a wirl