Attached Link: GenIBL freebie

Follow the link to get a Poser prop set that you can use to render an IBL probe directly in Poser. You can then save the resulting probe image and load it like any other.

No it's not a mirror ball. It's much more precise than that. Mirror ball makes inaccurate IBL probes. My GenIBL prop for Poser makes accurate Angular Map images for you.

Attached Link: Environment Sphere thread

Will it work in Poser 5?
I was given a copy of Poser Pro for my birthday, so that I could import Poser scenes into 3ds Max, but I still prefer my old Poser 5 for regular stuff.
DPH

Poser 5 could be used to generate the IBL image, but you can't actually use the resulting image in Poser 5. Poser 5 doesn't support image based lights at all. So I can't see what use it is to render these in P5, unless you just enjoy making strangely distorted images.

Plus, my experiences with P5 and reflection/refraction were less than ideal.

Thank you! I was just thinking of trying to make one myself by following a tutorial I downloaded. Now I can take my time learning that procedure. :)

You have some URLs for panaramics listed on your EnvSphere pages but still I want to ask here... what are the easiest pages for getting hold of panaramics to use with your GemIBL?

Thank you for sharing these tools!

c h o m p

Bill - thanks - I look forward to playing with these

momodot - these might help. http://www.sparkyworld.co.uk/3d9own.htm

This is excellent, thanks. I like simple stuff which does clever things.

If you have any wisdom to share on procedural geometry generation some time, I for one would be interested to hear it. 

Quote - Will it work in Poser 5?
I was given a copy of Poser Pro for my birthday, so that I could import Poser scenes into 3ds Max, but I still prefer my old Poser 5 for regular stuff.
DPH

Ive read that MAX comes with Vray bundled in
is this true??

Quote - > Quote - Will it work in Poser 5?

I was given a copy of Poser Pro for my birthday, so that I could import Poser scenes into 3ds Max, but I still prefer my old Poser 5 for regular stuff.
DPH

Ive read that MAX comes with Vray bundled in
is this true??

Max comes bundled with Mental Ray.  Vray is a plugin that one must acquire seperately.
DPH

Quote - You have some URLs for panaramics listed on your EnvSphere pages but still I want to ask here... what are the easiest pages for getting hold of panaramics to use with your GemIBL?

Thank you for sharing these tools!

There is a very active and growing community of folks at flickr.com making equirectangular images. The search was listed in my EnvSphere links page. As I'm writing this, there are 7,982 such images on flickr. Is that not enough? LOL

Many of them are governed by Creative Commons licenses. I found almot 1900 such images that can be used free for non-commercial derivative works, as long as you give credit to the original photo author. Still, if you're going to post using one of them, I'd just email the author. Most of them are in it for the fun, and would enjoy knowing you found their work useful. (Same as me)

Use flickr's advanced search. Scroll to the bottom. You can then filter by license type.

Quote - Bill - thanks - I look forward to playing with these

momodot - these might help. http://www.sparkyworld.co.uk/3d9own.htm

FYI, many of Sparky's panoramas are incomplete. They are not full spherical panoramas. They will produce seams and distortion if you put them on an environment sphere.

Use one of the other thousands of images I've pointed you to.

Ohh...so have to remember to snag this when I get home.

Thanks BB! =)

many of Sparky's panoramas are incomplete
They are not full spherical panoramas
I know :) These ones are over 4-5 years old.

Do you know which ones would work OK on a environment sphere?  

These have no restrictions so they might still prove usefull to those folks with no time to chase down and get consent from the artist.

Hmm. Well with some effort on your part, they are all "useable". The issue is that these images do not cover the entire universe. Only a subset, both horizontally and vertically, is included.

By rotating the EnvSphere 180 degrees, and carefully adjusting the Image_Map node's scales and offsets (with tiling turned off), you can make a partial panoramic photo map onto the correct subset of the sphere, so that straight lines become straight. You cannot zoom way out, though because you'll see the edges of the photo at top and bottom. And you can't rotate 360 degrees, because large sections are missing. If you're using the photo as a background, I suppose this is ok, but you won't get much in the way of reflections of things behind the camera, because there is nothing there. And you can't try to make a full environment IBL probe from it - too much is missing, particularly the sky, which is 80% of the light.

A very unfortunate thing is that Poser preview will not show the scaled image in correct proportions or position. It ignores those parameters altogether in preview. So you have to guess and test render over and over to get it right.

Looking at the material room surface preview, you can see how very much is missing.

Thank you so much bagginsbill.
cheerio  lululee

Fantastic, bagginsbill.
Thank you so much !!
I really love your inventive tools !

Hi BB--

the enviro sphere and IBL tool work extremely well; i'll probly use them for all my renders :) from now on.

thanks so much-genius work!

roger

btw--

thoughts on the following and its effects:

1. make a scene, which includes both the envirosphere, a ground object, and some other objects.

2. make a fresh n' tasty IBL probe image from all this.

3. put a character in the scene.

4. create a new IBL light w/ the map you just created.  keep, but perhaps adjust your old lights.

5. do some renders.

i'm imagining that what this will do is add a sort of a radiosity lighting effect, just as if the environmental lights were bouncing/reflecting off objects in the scene and providing diffuse, coloured lighting onto the character.

seem right?  and thought about the usefulness of this method>?
i'm gunna do some tests and see if i can get neat results.

r/.

Thanks so much :)

Synthetic,

I've used the iterative IBL generation technique you describe. It works. I wrote about it more than a year ago. Can't remember the thread.

thanks--good info.

i'll see if i can do some nice renders to show it off.  keep ya posted.

i actually had been wanting to try and "generate" tailored IBLs for a scene to use in this way...so i am super glad you made the huge effort and tools to pull it off.  nice work, man!

gunna try a small "interior" first to for the radiosity test.  any tips on setting up the probe/camera so i can grab the inside of a smaller enviro than the big dome>?

r/.

nuthin' special going on there...but here's what i want to do (see next post):

now--i've done this before and it looks great with lights etc attached or coming thru the "windows."  you get great reflections on floor etc.

what would be a neat next step is to use your tool to generate an IBL/reflection map for the room.  then w/ a new ibl light, perhaps i could get a radiosity-like lighting effect coming off the glow-plates or windows???  or even a out-of-sight skylight above.  normally, raytrace does this for you--but i am thinking about putting a simpler 'colour casting' effect into the ibl map.  thoughts?

also--for quick render products for the general public, i could use this same approach to bake a lot of detail into a nice spherical reflection map which could give OK results w/o raytrace times for a typical user (my machine is very fast--but i know not everyone has such).

thoughts everyone on this approach (will it work like i think it does?) and also how to get the probe creation process into the little room instead of the big sky dome>

have a great night!

 quote:- "(Nice boat - I want one.)

Well if you start charging for some of these wonderful things you make, you could start saving for, hmm, well maybe the steering wheel at least.

Seriously, you should charge for some of your stuff.

Love esther

This is a fascinating tool to use -- way to go BB!

Still learning as I go along and your methods and tricks are very helpful.

I like the Environmental Sphere and the IBL Gen Tool.  I think you hit a goldmine here.

JB

Can I ask a couple of dumb questions, bagginsbill ?

... that is, if you want to load up an EnvSphere, and then load up the IBL Gen tool, what sort of lights should you have loaded up at the beginning before you load up the EnvSphere ?

.... then, once you have created your IBL probe, should you re-load the original light set as well as creating the new IBL light ?

You used my material? Did you change any settings?

**bagginsbill
you just have too much talent
this method for ibl probes works flawlessly
kudos to you
**

IIset the IBL Contrast from 1, to 3.

hi estherau - I think you should be changing the Gamma In value in the shader to 1.0 for an HDR image.

 you mean the gamma out value for the sphere?

I just checked bb's EnvSphere notes again... this is what he says for Poser Pro...

If used in Poser Pro, the use of PPro built-in gamma correction may produce undesirable results. If you're going to use Poser gamma correction, set Gamma In and Gamma Out = 1.0 in the EnvPanoramic and EnvPanoramicEffects shaders. The effects will produce different results in PPro+Gamma because it changes the interpretation of shader colors.

 I can't find an environments effects shader?
But I can change some settings in th envsphere prop materials.
Love esther

here's the IBL map generated from that scene w/ bill's tool.

i won't bother y'all with another upload--but suffice it to say that illuminated w/ just the base lights she doesn't look 1/2 as good.  the IBL adds nice modelling to the shape. 

best of all--while the pose it highly sensitive to the placement of the original lights--and actually looks bad from many angles due to the very striking lighting.  ...with the IBL added it--she's now pretty bulletproof--great in any pose and from any angle.

bagginsbill, thanks again for the great tools.  i will likely use this method for any fancy promo-type renders i do from now on....i've been wanting to try something like this....so this is cool!

question: can i make slight positioning tweaks to the tool object/camera so i can generate spherical reflection maps tuned to anywhere in the world?  dunno if that will even work.

r/.

Can I ask a couple of dumb questions, bagginsbill ?

... that is, if you want to load up an EnvSphere, and then load up the IBL Gen tool, what sort of lights should you have loaded up at the beginning before you load up the EnvSphere ?

.... then, once you have created your IBL probe, should you re-load the original light set as well as creating the new IBL light ?

Hi estherau - the second of your two screen captures above shows the Gamma In and Gamma Out settings that bagginsbill is referring to in his note, I think. If you are using PPro gamma correction (in your render settings) then these two values need to be set to 1.0, not 2.2.

:O)

Hehe - okay, it's not that then! Have to wait for the guru, in that case...
:O)

Quote -
gunna try a small "interior" first to for the radiosity test.  any tips on setting up the probe/camera so i can grab the inside of a smaller enviro than the big dome>?

I see you already figured this out, but all there is to do is make sure the dolly camera and probe are in the room. Move the camera, not the probe. Don't rotate.

Place the camera roughly in the same location as the focus of your subject will be.

Quote -
Can I ask a couple of dumb questions, bagginsbill ?

... that is, if you want to load up an EnvSphere, and then load up the IBL Gen tool, what sort of lights should you have loaded up at the beginning before you load up the EnvSphere ?

.... then, once you have created your IBL probe, should you re-load the original light set as well as creating the new IBL light ?

Lights don't matter to the EnvSphere. The EnvSphere is not reacting to light. If you point a flashlight at the sky does it light the sky? Nope.

If you're outdoors and have buildings and such, light them with an infinite and maybe some very mild even white IBL. Record them, load your probe into a light. Record a probe again. If it is very different the second time, load it again, and repeat.

Outdoor scenes should have one main infinite light for the sun. For sunny days, make it really bright - like 90%. For overcast days, reduce 40 to 60 %? I've not experimented with all cases yet.

Quote -  and your sphere

Looking at the sphere, it is not washed out too bad in preview. But the IBL you made is washed out.

Did you render with Poser Pro gamma turned on? Just turn it off - set it to 1.0, until you understand what's going on.

Also, if the incoming image is HDRI, set the "Gamma In" on the EnvSphere to 1.0.