I use Terragen to create my environments, but this should be translatable to most “world” software such as Vue, Carrara, etc.  I picked up these tricks on the Terragen forums.

First, I open Terragen & set things up the way I want them. 

This is the view I want to use for my Poser render.  I render this out large as an image to put on the one-sided square in Poser.  Now for the Environmental lighting.

I go to the camera settings, and set the horizontal and vertical FOV (field of view) to 90 degrees. Then I set my camera rotation to 0,0,0 and render.  For the following renders, I used a 320x320 resolution.  The size can be anything you’d like, but make sure the height & width are the same.

Use the following camera rotations and save the render as an .hdr  file if your world generating program can do so; you won’t have to convert them later. Terragen cannot, so I’ll save them out as .exr files and convert them at the next step.

The file names need to end as “_ft” for the front view, “_lt” for the left, ect. for the Cube2Cross program to function properly.

“*_ft.exr” -  0,0,0 

“*_rt.exr” -   0,90,0

“*_bk.exr” -   0,180,0

“*_lt.exr” -   0,270,0

“*_up.exr” -   90,0,0

“*_dn.exr” -   -90,0,0

Once you have these 6 files, you can close your world generation program.

I understand some versions of Photoshop can open & convert .exr  to .hdr extensions, but I use Paintshop Pro 9, so I have to use (free) Picturenaut – http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut/  to convert the files.

Start picturenaut, open each file and resave as .hdr extension.  That’s it for Picturenaut.

Once you have the six HDR files, you need to run Cube2Cross in the same folder. http://www2.cs.uh.edu/~somalley/hdri.html

Just put the Cube2Cross executable in the folder in which you have the six HDR files. Cube2Cross automatically finds those files and stitches them into a cross and outputs a file called "..._cross.hdr".  

That’s it for Cube2Cross.

 Open the “_cross.hdr” file with HDRShop - http://projects.ict.usc.edu/graphics/HDRShop/. Go to the 'images' menu and select 'panoramic' and 'panoramic transformations'. For the source image side, make sure to set the format to "cubic environment (vertical cross)". On the destination side, set the format to “latitude/longitude” . Now just save the new image in HDRShop in an HDR format, or .jpg or .tiff if you want LDR and you are ready to take that file to the image map node of the environment sphere in Poser.

This is my WIP, with the correct lighting for the background…

Hope this is informative!

looks really good. I use vue and i can set it on panoroma to make a spherical render that fits on the BB dome nicely, and I can also set the output as HDRI

so luckily I don't need those steps.

Love esther

Very nice :)

Laurie

Quote - looks really good. I use vue and i can set it on panoroma to make a spherical render that fits on the BB dome nicely, and I can also set the output as HDRI

so luckily I don't need those steps.

Love esther

How exactly do you get that spherical render from Vue to look good on the environment sphere?  What are the Vue settings you use?  Which environment sphere prop do you use?

I tried doing this today, but I got only sky on the sphere.  I'm not sure why.

What am I doing wrong?

Quote - What am I doing wrong?

Your Vue settings are correct, so it's something you're doing in Poser.

Are you by any chance applying it to a DOME rather than a SPHERE? It needs to be a sphere.

An HDR image would normally appear dark in the preview window, so let's see your material room settings for the EnvSphere, and tell us which version of Poser you're using.

That's what I figured . . .

Quote - Are you by any chance applying it to a DOME rather than a SPHERE? It needs to be a sphere.

I've tried it on a dome.  That didn't work at all.  The render settings shown in the attached screenshot are from BB's Environment Sphere.

Quote - An HDR image would normally appear dark in the preview window, so let's see your material room settings for the EnvSphere, and tell us which version of Poser you're using.

Is it possible that my Gamma Out settings need to be changed, too?  I'm using Poser Pro 2012.

TarenShadowwolf,

Thanks, this information should prove useful.

AHA! Assuming you're using PP2012's inbuilt gamma, both gamma nodes for the EnvSphere should be at 1.0, i.e. both in and out.

Make that change and do a test render to see if it looks right.

Due to unexpectedly wide adoption of Poser Pro, I recently updated my instructions, which were originally written in Poser 7 times.

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/environment-sphere/environment-sphere-instructions

Quote - ADDENDUM FOR POSER PRO:

 

If you're using Poser Pro with render GC enabled, then set Gamma In = 1.0 and Gamma Out = 1.0. Poser will handle it and the shader does not need to.

Quote - Due to unexpectedly wide adoption of Poser Pro, I recently updated my instructions, which were originally written in Poser 7 times.

ADDENDUM FOR POSER PRO:

 

If you're using Poser Pro with render GC enabled, then set Gamma In = 1.0 and Gamma Out = 1.0. Poser will handle it and the shader does not need to.

Oh, that's at the VERY bottom of the page . . .  Now I see it.  Thank you!

:)

Since they look so dark in the preview, here's a tip: open the HDR image in photoshop, then Image > Mode > 8 bits / channel, make any necessary adjustments in the Image Toning dialog (I like to make sure the main light source is well defined), then knock the resolution down to something like 2000px wide by whatever.

Save the file as a JPEG or PNG alongside the HDR image. Then plug this into the formerly empty diffuse node, keeping the value at zero, as shown here.

This won't render but will make things clearer in the preview.

the vue image has usually already got gamma correction so you need to change in to 2.2 - this makes the image look darker in the material room but it doens't need correcting.  It doesn't look so dark in poser.

I'm finding that my Vue image looks really washed out, even if I set the Gamma In and Out nodes to 1.

try my 2.2 suggestion because vue images are already gamma-ed

If you're saving in HDR or EXR, the correct gamma is 1.0, not 2.2. If you save in 2.2 then it is doubly corrected, because Poser assumes it recorded with a gamma of 1.0. This will create washout, because the resulting gamma is 4.84.

TarenShadowWolf

Thanks- I always enjoy hdr topics- my favorite way to render!

Thanks CSpear- nice tips! Btw: the Rooster makes my eyes jump

Esther- I just used the BB Dome for the first time- a circular HDR works quite well with the dome. I've always been a BB Sphere fan.

Hi Eric,

I have only ever used the sphere.  did u have to render a dome to put onto the dome or did you use a sphere on the dome?

what's the advantage of dome compared with sphere?

Love esther

I have three props. Sphere, hemisphere, and dome. Sphere is a full sphere and takes a full sphere image. Hemisphere is a half sphere but still takes a whole sphere image. It only has polygons above the horizon. The dome is a half sphere and takes a half sphere image in its map. Many sky-only images are delivered this way. The hemisphere and the dome are identical polygons, but they have different UV mappings.

oh so if I rendered my spherical image onto your dome I would get to keep the poser ground?  eg when using a stonemason scene?

Your tutorial is very informative. However, I am a bit lost on your camera settings - "set the horizontal and vertical FOV (field of view) to 90 degrees." In Poser Pro 2010, I look for these parameters and I suppose I am not understanding what you are saying here. Also, the explanation of "camera rotation to 0,0,0." I fully admit to being no pro when it comes to PP 2010, but I am trying to wrap my head around this with no clue. Can you expound?

C~

Quote - Your tutorial is very informative. However, I am a bit lost on your camera settings

The tutorial is how to create these images in Terragen.

Quote - oh so if I rendered my spherical image onto your dome I would get to keep the poser ground?  eg when using a stonemason scene?

I'm confused by your question. Any ground prop is at ground level, midway between the top and bottom of the sphere. The sphere cannot cover the ground, since the bottom of it is below the ground - 750 feet below.

The reason for using a half-sphere is usually because you only have half an image (so you use the dome) or you have a whole image but don't intent to look at the bottom half, in which case those are wasted polygons.

Quote - Your tutorial is very informative. However, I am a bit lost on your camera settings -  

C~

I was using Terragen (which I use) as an example for making panoramas, the camera settings are from there.  I use BB's sphere & dome a lot, (especially now that I have 2012 with the IDL). On Bill's free stuff site he links to some really good panoramic references, but since a lot of what I do is commercial I can't always use a panorama I found online unless the license allows.  So now I create my own.

This was more for info on the Cube2Cross and HDRShop programs, & how to use them for panoramas.

Taren