Light intensity in HDRI /iRay

synechodus_b7d65b3411

Is there a way of increading the lighting entensity in an HDRI envireonment based iray render without increasing the brightness of the background? When I render in a sunny environment the character looks as if they are in shade, with very little shadow on the ground or body, even though the background is well lit. Environment map and intensity brighten both so when the character is OK, the background is not.

Szark

This is where Photoreal gets in the way IMHO. What I do it to turn off the backround, save render as PNG thus preserving the alpha and them insert my own sky via postwork.

synechodus_b7d65b3411

Thanks; 

Annoying though, having a sunny shene and a character stuck in the shade and having to postwork it

reelyor

Try rotating the dome along the Y axis 90 degrees or 180 degrees to see if the subject gets brighter due to sun placement.

 

fastbike1

Your HDRI probably doesn't have enough lighting dynamic range. A lot of the HDRIs on the web have indaequate lighting range (information).

aspin

I modify almost all HDRIs in Photoshop to give them a higher light range.

Without modifying it, most of the scene looks dim.

synechodus_b7d65b3411

Thanks; I think you are right about the light range. I wanted to try it out with free ones before spending good money on somethng i can't work.

Is it simply a case of increasing the contrast and brightness of the sun area in Photoshop? 

JimmyC_2009

Have you tried any of these free HDRI images, I find they are excellent : http://noemotionhdrs.net/

synechodus_b7d65b3411

JimmyC_2009 said:

Have you tried any of these free HDRI images, I find they are excellent : http://noemotionhdrs.net/

Thanks for that, they are really impressivr.

I tried altering a few; cloudy and dim light worked excellently, but full sune still cound not give off enough light.

 

aspin

Yes, it's very simple in Photoshop. Somebody put a short tutorial on Youtube: