HDRI environment not showing up in viewport
Payat Parin
Posts: 1,028
Hello, I just used HDRI for my render but they are not showing up in my viewport. I am not able to position or rotate my characters to it. However, the environment and character appeared in my test render. The final render showed everything in my scene but not in my viewport! My settings for the environment are: Env Mode = Dome and scene, Dome Mode = Finite sphere, Draw dome = on. Tone mapping enabled = on. Engine = NVIDIA Iray. Auto Headlamp = never. I am using DS 4.10 Pro. What am I doing wrong? Did I miss something?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Is your viewport set to Iray as well?
Yes. I am amazed that it showed in my final render but not in my viewport! Do you have some theories perhaps?
I've searched the internet for some sort of explanation but none exists related to my case (or maybe I haven't searched enough). I got the settings right but there is something else that I can't seem to figure out. I will end up submitting a ticket to refund all the Mec4D HDRIs, they are somewhat pixelated in the final render anyway.
Remember that the preview is controlled by the Draw Settings pane, not rhe Render Settings pane. I don't see a Draw Dome option in Draw Settings.
Oh dear, I have not touched my draw settings at all. I only learned that HDRI is manipulated via the render settings. Now I see it! Thanks a bunch Richard, you saved the day. However, I am still concerned about the pixelation in the final render. It is like blurry but the character is sharp. Would adjusting the dome scale multiplier to a lesser number fix it?
I also can't seem to make the feet touch the ground even if i adjust the y translate in the parameters tab. Any suggestions? thanks
What resolution is the dome image? Remember that you see only a small slice, especially at higher focal lengths.
Have you played around with the ground settings in the environment panel?
for the other issue of touching the ground > Render settings > Environment > Set ground to manual and move the object/s down to meet the ground. Best done with Iray rendering in the viewport
I believe it's 8000 x 4000 (according to read me). Do I need to adjust something to fix it? My render setting aspect ratio is 247 x 331 and pixel size of 494 x 662.
Thanks Szark, I was able to make the feet touch the ground.
My HDRI is so pixelated, as if low res. The render aspect is already low. I am not sure if tweaking the tone mapping settings will help. Any suggestions?
sweet as for the HDRI being a little blurry well the size is okish, best if it was twice the size but from looking at it I would say it isn't a HDRI done with photographs but probably and rendered image made into a HDRI which generally won't be as sharp and crisp as photos in my experience. I am only guessing as you haven't provided a link to where you got the HDRI from.
It's actually Prehistoric HDRIs by Alessandro_AM here at Daz.
did you try the 16000 x 8000 version as per the product page states https://www.daz3d.com/prehistoric-hdris and as I guessed these HDRIs are jest renders turned in a HDRI and quality will depend on the quality of the render, same as using a low res camera taking low res photos for HDRIs
That's almost always using too low a res HDRI. keep in mind the resolution is for the 360 degree image so it is usually best to go for the highest resolution image that won't crush your system.
On the feet touching the ground thing, select the figure and press ctrl-d. That will drop the figure to the ground. It may require some manual fine tuning but it usually gets it pretty close.
oh and you could try and see if this makes things better. In the Render Settings Pane > Filtering change the Pixel Filter to Mitchell and set Pixel Filter Radius to 1.00 That is my defualt setting now and has been for some years.
If you are wanting quality HDRI's look at https://hdrihaven.com/ I use nothing else these days.
So this is the high res HDRI 16000 x 8000. I must be doing something wrong because it looks so blurry, but my character is crisp. The feet is touching the ground.
Another thing you can try is setting the Environment Resolution up to say 4096 go to Render Settings Pane > Environment > Environment Lighting Resolution (2 channels below Draw Dome) And to be honest I don't think you are doing anything wrong per se
So here it is: mitchel filter applied and env resol lighting up to 4096. No difference, still blurry environment but crispy character with feet touching the ground. I am beginning to conclude that this is not a good HDRI to use.
that would be my conclusion too given everything you have tried already.
oh if is less than 30 days since buying these HDRI's you can return the product and get your money back.
Thank you so much for your help. It made me understand and realize lots of things. Do you somehow get incentive from Daz helping people in the forum?
My pleasure Habulin. Nope I do it becase I can and when I have time. LOL I used to be a CV (Community Volunteer) for the forum some years back when I had more time on my hands.
Ok, we are fortunate to have you. Thanks again
Thanks, that is nice of you to say, very appreciated. I don't help as much as I used to, hell I don't do my renders for myself these days. I used to be prolific.
Did you have DoF enabled on your camera? If so, try turing it off.
I thought about that but from the looks it would have to be pretty low dof (higher than 22) for that tiny amount of DOF so I didn't mention it, but a valid q nevertheless
Here is another attempt. DOF is completely off. I would think that the ground closes to the camera should be clear even if the DOF is on.
Actually I'm not sure about this. In theory using a camera in real life always introduces a degree of DoF while when doing a render you can disable DoF alltogether, which should yield a perfectly sharp picture. Maybe I'm missing something, definitely not an expert on making HDRIs:)
Ok so in that case it's the HDRI being a bit blurry.
When using HDRIs with DoF infact the "ground" is not where the feet of your character are, because the image is projected onto a sphere, that's why you use a shadowcatcher to give an illusion of the character being grounded. So actually the ground is at a distance comparable to the distance to the horizon. That's why using only a HDRI as the environment never can be totally realistic IMO. A better solution is to have some actual mesh in the center of the scene that responds realistically to the character (light bouncing etc). Just my two cents;)