Is there a way to Use HDRI background and turn off its light?

dracorn

I want to be able to use the background, i.e., sky from an HDRI, but I would prefer to use my own lights.  Is there a way to turn off the lighting and just leave the background, and then I can add my own lights?

There are some sunset skies I really like, but they add too much orange light.  Also, I don't want to have to fight with the lighting to make it look good for a portrait if I want the sky to show.

JVRenderer

I think you can open the HDRi file in an image editor like Photoshop, convert and save it as a new file with no depth information (a conpressed file) ie a .jpg file.

Use that new .jpg file in your environment,

richardandtracy

I can confirm that a jpg does not light the scene properly, but DS does make an effort to use it. You will probably need fill in lights rather than full lighting.

Regards,

Richard.

dracorn

@JVRenderer  Thanks.  I want to keep the 360 degree sky without the lighting.  

@richardandtracy  That's exactly what I'm looking for.  Some HDRI's look great for buildings but not so good for portraits.  I don't really want the light to compete with my own lighting.  

There have been cases where I rendered the background but my figure looked so horrible I ended up rendering him with no background at all and my desired lighting, then put the two together in Photoshop.  The limitation with that approach is that I have to cut off the bottom of the figure as there is no shadow cast by the figure on the environment.  

It's easier with still renders, but I also want to be able to do a graphic novel progression.  That's where the real challenge is.

onix

JVRenderer said:

I think you can open the HDRi file in an image editor like Photoshop, convert and save it as a new file with no depth information (a conpressed file) ie a .jpg file.

Use that new .jpg file in your environment,

Your terminology is a bit wrong as there is no such thing as a depth information  in HDRI files HDRI means high dynamic range images with 32bit rather than 16-bit color information and recompressing them into JPEG you just tone down super-bright areas.

It will not prevent DAZ from using it  as scene illumination it will just make it dimmer

I think  one quick solution is to block HDRI light is to use a big plane in a similar way as photographers do in the real-life

alternatively, if you decide to use photoshop you can just backen out the sun and flatten its dynamic range probably making it even better suited as background or otherwise using it as is often gives too much contrast