HDRI extremely dark and I'm stumped (Solved!)

arsmoriendimega

Hello,

Apologies in advance, I'm completely self-taught on Daz. I recently purchased iRadiance HDR Resources - Parks and Rec Vol 1 and want to use it as the background for indoor scenes. I have a scene already lit with a light or two, and emissive ceiling lights. When I add the HDRI, it looks pitch black compared to the rest of the scene. I found that if I drop the exposure value to between 1 and 5, which seems to be the equivalent of a 1/3rd second shutter speed at F8, I can now see the HDRI, but I have to drop the rest of the interior lighting to match it. Kind of odd, but the worst part is that it seems to strain the system and I'm getting way more noise than usual. I can't help but feel like I'm doing something wrong. Why would an image of a park on a sunny day need such a long shutter speed anyway?

I browsed through the surface settings panel for the HDRI but I'm not sure if there's anything useful in there and frankly I don't know what half of it means.

Or are these HDRIs just poorly made and that's why they were on sale

I have tried browsing the forum and tutorials on YouTube but haven't found an answer to this yet so I figured I would try posting about it.

Thanks in advance if anyone responds.

nemesis10

First question, iray or 3delite.... second question,  no sky domes in your scene?  
let's troubleshoot:

1. save your scene and give it a name
2. do a quick render; it should be pitch black
3. next go the top Daz menbu and Create>  Environment Options Node... repeat by creating Tonemapping Options Node,
4. Apply the HDRI again and render
5. If your background doesn't light up everything, click the default button and manually load the HDRI tothe Environment line of Render> Editor> Environment
6. render again and reoprt if this solves your problem

arsmoriendimega

nemesis10 said:

First question, iray or 3delite.... second question,  no sky domes in your scene?  
let's troubleshoot:

1. save your scene and give it a name
2. do a quick render; it should be pitch black
3. next go the top Daz menbu and Create>  Environment Options Node... repeat by creating Tonemapping Options Node,
4. Apply the HDRI again and render
5. If your background doesn't light up everything, click the default button and manually load the HDRI tothe Environment line of Render> Editor> Environment
6. render again and reoprt if this solves your problem

Thanks Nemesis10. I followed these instructions but that didn't seem to change anything. The only instruction I wasn't totally clear on was the last one. By manually enter do you mean to click on the thumbnail next to Environment map and choose the HDRI from the dropdown menu? I tried that if that's what you meant but it didn't change anything.

Sorry, I neglected to clarify, I am using iray. I'm using an HDRI environment sphere, no other sky domes. I have the environment set to Dome and Scene. Another odd thing I forgot to mention is that changing the values for Environment Map & Intensity don't effect anything, even if I plug in values in the tens of thousands.

function

I thought you talked about INDOOR, HDRI is hardly to do anything for indoor, except you use Iray Section Plane tool or hide the ceiling.

vwrangler

arsmoriendimega said:

Hello,

Apologies in advance, I'm completely self-taught on Daz. I recently purchased iRadiance HDR Resources - Parks and Rec Vol 1 and want to use it as the background for indoor scenes. I have a scene already lit with a light or two, and emissive ceiling lights. When I add the HDRI, it looks pitch black compared to the rest of the scene. I found that if I drop the exposure value to between 1 and 5, which seems to be the equivalent of a 1/3rd second shutter speed at F8, I can now see the HDRI, but I have to drop the rest of the interior lighting to match it. Kind of odd, but the worst part is that it seems to strain the system and I'm getting way more noise than usual. I can't help but feel like I'm doing something wrong. Why would an image of a park on a sunny day need such a long shutter speed anyway?

I browsed through the surface settings panel for the HDRI but I'm not sure if there's anything useful in there and frankly I don't know what half of it means.

Or are these HDRIs just poorly made and that's why they were on sale

I have tried browsing the forum and tutorials on YouTube but haven't found an answer to this yet so I figured I would try posting about it.

Thanks in advance if anyone responds.

The important question, which you didn't answer, is: are you using Iray or 3Delight/Studio Default rendering?

You can tell which renderer you're using by clicking on the Render tab, then seeing what the "Engine" option at the top says. (See attached image.)

If the render engine selector says "NVIDIA Iray", then Parks and Rec won't work for you with that setup. You would need to change to 3Delight, and that would likely mess up how everything else in your scene would render.

Studio comes with three render engines: Filament (the newest, and it takes a few steps to use, so you're almost certainly not using that), Iray (the second newest) and 3Delight (the oldest). "Parks and Rec vol 1" is old enough that it was made for 3Delight, not Iray. It doesn't have the right settings or application method to work in Iray. If you haven't changed the renderer/render engine, then you're using Iray, and "Parks and Rec" can't work.

They're not poorly made; they just came out well before Iray and can't easily be used with it.

Gordig

vwrangler said:

arsmoriendimega said:

Hello,

Apologies in advance, I'm completely self-taught on Daz. I recently purchased iRadiance HDR Resources - Parks and Rec Vol 1 and want to use it as the background for indoor scenes. I have a scene already lit with a light or two, and emissive ceiling lights. When I add the HDRI, it looks pitch black compared to the rest of the scene. I found that if I drop the exposure value to between 1 and 5, which seems to be the equivalent of a 1/3rd second shutter speed at F8, I can now see the HDRI, but I have to drop the rest of the interior lighting to match it. Kind of odd, but the worst part is that it seems to strain the system and I'm getting way more noise than usual. I can't help but feel like I'm doing something wrong. Why would an image of a park on a sunny day need such a long shutter speed anyway?

I browsed through the surface settings panel for the HDRI but I'm not sure if there's anything useful in there and frankly I don't know what half of it means.

Or are these HDRIs just poorly made and that's why they were on sale

I have tried browsing the forum and tutorials on YouTube but haven't found an answer to this yet so I figured I would try posting about it.

Thanks in advance if anyone responds.

The important question, which you didn't answer, is: are you using Iray or 3Delight/Studio Default rendering?

You can tell which renderer you're using by clicking on the Render tab, then seeing what the "Engine" option at the top says. (See attached image.)

If the render engine selector says "NVIDIA Iray", then Parks and Rec won't work for you with that setup. You would need to change to 3Delight, and that would likely mess up how everything else in your scene would render.

Studio comes with three render engines: Filament (the newest, and it takes a few steps to use, so you're almost certainly not using that), Iray (the second newest) and 3Delight (the oldest). "Parks and Rec vol 1" is old enough that it was made for 3Delight, not Iray. It doesn't have the right settings or application method to work in Iray. If you haven't changed the renderer/render engine, then you're using Iray, and "Parks and Rec" can't work.

They're not poorly made; they just came out well before Iray and can't easily be used with it.

The product is just a bunch of HDRIs. It doesn't look very good, but it absolutely works with Iray. Here I did literally nothing besides click on one of the presets and render.

meganappstate

vwrangler said:

They're not poorly made; they just came out well before Iray and can't easily be used with it.

Uh ... from the product description:

Parks and Rec Vol 1 was originally sold as "Reflection Map Resources - Outdoor Pack One".  All of the source images have been completely re-processed and re-stitched into fresh HDRIs with new software to produce the best updates possible for these scenes.  Fully updated with Iray presets this set now fits perfectly in any HDR library.

If you already owned "Reflection Map Resources - Outdoor Pack One" this set can be found in your downloads without additional purpose.  All original reflection map presets are included with the new maps for compatibility.

OP: have you installed the update, and are you using the indoor preset?

 

vwrangler

meganappstate said:

vwrangler said:

They're not poorly made; they just came out well before Iray and can't easily be used with it.

Uh ... from the product description:

Parks and Rec Vol 1 was originally sold as "Reflection Map Resources - Outdoor Pack One".  All of the source images have been completely re-processed and re-stitched into fresh HDRIs with new software to produce the best updates possible for these scenes.  Fully updated with Iray presets this set now fits perfectly in any HDR library.

If you already owned "Reflection Map Resources - Outdoor Pack One" this set can be found in your downloads without additional purpose.  All original reflection map presets are included with the new maps for compatibility.

 

Ah, OK. Didn't see that. Apologies for misunderstanding.

DrunkMonkeyProductions

My first guess would be wrong/bad shaders on the windows, if the set piece has any.

If it doesn't have any windows, then the hdri is going to be useless, without hiding a wall or ceiling.

If the shaders are not iray, or are just setup for a specific type of glass, it may not let sufficient light through the polygons.

Try adjusting the window's Opacity(Surfaces tab) to 0 and see if the HDRI starts contributing.

If it does, then, unless you need the reflections on the window, i'd leave it at 0 opacity,

If it doens't than there might be a bigger problem with the asset you are attempting to use and may need to redo surfaces.

 

 

Op, i think you've got a bit of misunderstanding on "tone mapping" values.

If you're using an EV of 1-5, your shutter speed is between ~32 and 2 seconds(no that's not a typo), not 1/3rd of a second.

As shown in the setting, Shutter speed, is 1/x, or 1(second) divided by X(the indicated value).

DS shows a shutter speed value of 0.031250 when the EV is set to 1.

This means 1/0.031250, or 32 seconds.

1/3rd of a second would have a value of 3 in the slider box.

 

In a bit of quickie testing, as shown in the attached images, your image should be, almost completely blown out with an EV of 1.

The HDRI, even on an interior render, should be just a white field.

 

 

 

 

 

 

arsmoriendimega

DrunkMonkeyProductions said:

My first guess would be wrong/bad shaders on the windows, if the set piece has any.

I appreciate you offering your insight. That's a good thought, and the set piece does have windows. But so to simplify the issue, I opened a brand new scene and imported just the HDRI and nothing else. I'm attaching a screenshot of the iray preview with the tone mapper settings in view. So as you can see, the issue appears to have to do with this dome itself. I've tried others from the set and they are all just as dark.

arsmoriendimega

meganappstate said:

OP: have you installed the update, and are you using the indoor preset?

 

Thank you for looking into this. I don't think there is an actual software update to install. I think the description just means that the product itself has been updated, and this is a fresh very recent install of this pack, so safe to say we are dealing with the updated version.

There are three indoor presets:  Bright, Brighter, and Brightest. None of them seem to do anything, unless I'm just not using them right. I've tried double clicking them, dragging them into the scene, etc. Nothing changes.

arsmoriendimega

function said:

I thought you talked about INDOOR, HDRI is hardly to do anything for indoor, except you use Iray Section Plane tool or hide the ceiling.

In that case, what do you use for a background visible through windows?

arsmoriendimega

DrunkMonkeyProductions said:

In a bit of quickie testing, as shown in the attached images, your image should be, almost completely blown out with an EV of 1.

The HDRI, even on an interior render, should be just a white field.

Are you using the same HDRI Parks & Rec pack? Wonder why we are having different exposure results 

arsmoriendimega

arsmoriendimega said:

meganappstate said:

OP: have you installed the update, and are you using the indoor preset?

 

Thank you for looking into this. I don't think there is an actual software update to install. I think the description just means that the product itself has been updated, and this is a fresh very recent install of this pack, so safe to say we are dealing with the updated version.

There are three indoor presets:  Bright, Brighter, and Brightest. None of them seem to do anything, unless I'm just not using them right. I've tried double clicking them, dragging them into the scene, etc. Nothing changes.

Also I just realized that choosing the different indoor presets does change the environment values for environment map and intensity, but the iray render preview brightness itself does not change. Very strange.

DrunkMonkeyProductions

OK, i think i know what's going on.

OP, which preset are you working off of?

Also, is there a DTRR-REFDOME in your scene tab?

Also, what file is present  in the "Render settings(tab)>Environment>Environment Map"?

 

 

 

 

 

 

arsmoriendimega

DrunkMonkeyProductions said:

OK, i think i know what's going on.

OP, which preset are you working off of?

Also, is there a DTRR-REFDOME in your scene tab?

Also, what file is present  in the "Render settings(tab)>Environment>Environment Map"?

- I'm not working off of a preset that I'm aware of. If you're talking about render settings I usually enter things manually. I did try using the presets that came with the HDRI pack but they don't seem to help.

- Yes there is a DTRR-REFDOME in the scene tab. It gets loaded there once I double click and import the HDRI.

- For the file present under Environment Map, I made it the .hdr file that corresponds to the environment I loaded into the scene.

DrunkMonkeyProductions

The Dtrr-refdome is a "skydome".

Delete that and your problem should be solved.

The HDRI, for render, is under "Light preset>Dimensiontheory>Iradiance>MerchantResources", those are, for the most part, the only files your need to use HDRI lighting.

As an alternative, if you're just wanting to use the dome, you'll want to turn it into an emissive surface.

 

arsmoriendimega

DrunkMonkeyProductions said:

The Dtrr-refdome is a "skydome".

Delete that and your problem should be solved.

The HDRI, for render, is under "Light preset>Dimensiontheory>Iradiance>MerchantResources", those are, for the most part, the only files your need to use HDRI lighting.

As an alternative, if you're just wanting to use the dome, you'll want to turn it into an emissive surface.

 

D'oh! I didn't think to make throw an emissive shader on the dome, and of course now that seems obvious. That gives me the control over lighting the environment. Thanks a million! That's just what I needed!