Skydome HDRI environment lighting
Illuminate the scene with a high dynamic range image for material "look" development.
Tutorial resources
These downloadable resources will be used to complete this tutorial:
Transcript
00:04
In order to accurately develop the look of materials,
00:07
we should have some environmental lighting in the scene.
00:10
Currently, there are no lights in this scene.
00:12
And if we render we'll get default lighting,
00:14
but that's not really suitable for material testing.
00:18
We'll create an Arnold sky dome to be used as the environment
00:22
and will illuminate the scene with a high dynamic range image
00:26
first so that we don't color this scene with
00:28
the random color of our floor or ground plane.
00:32
Let's change the color of that ground plane, select it
00:36
and in the name and color roll out.
00:38
Let's first rename it. We'll call it floor,
00:41
then click on the color swatch and set that to a neutral gray
00:45
click. Ok.
00:47
All right. We can create a light now.
00:49
So go to the crate panel
00:51
to lights
00:52
and from the pull down list, let's choose Arnold,
00:56
click the button labeled Arnold light.
00:59
And before you create the light
01:01
go down into the shape, roll out
01:03
and set the type
01:05
to skydome
01:07
and then click anywhere in the top viewport to create that Skydome
01:11
and then right click to exit the light creation mode.
01:15
So let's see what we have so far,
01:17
right click in the physical camera view to give it focus,
01:21
go to the menus and choose Arnold
01:23
Arnold render view
01:26
and then click the red triangle to initiate an interactive production rendering.
01:31
We can see that it's so overexposed that we just get a pure white silhouette.
01:37
Let's adjust the intensity of the sky dome
01:40
with the sky dome still selected, go to the modify panel
01:44
and in the color
01:45
intensity roll out
01:47
near the bottom will see intensity and exposure
01:51
intensity is a linear value.
01:54
Exposure is an exponential value
01:57
that works in powers of two,
01:59
just like F stops on a camera.
02:02
If we increase the exposure by one whole number,
02:05
we'll double the amount of light given off.
02:08
So we want to reduce the exposure here.
02:10
If we bring this down to a value of seven, we'll cut the light in half
02:14
and we see a resulting intensity down here.
02:17
If we bring it down to six, we're cutting the light in half. Again,
02:21
we actually need to bring this all the way down to a value of zero.
02:24
In order to get a well exposed shot
02:27
with this sky dome.
02:28
At this point, the sky dome is just putting out white light,
02:31
let's store this in the Arnold render view as a snapshot.
02:35
So we can compare it to other renderings
02:38
to prevent the Arnold render view from updating.
02:41
We can first click on the button here
02:43
which is to hold scene updates,
02:46
click on that and it gets a little slash through it.
02:49
And now if we make any changes in our scene that
02:51
will not trigger a refresh to the interactive production rendering.
02:55
So let's create a snapshot.
02:57
Click down here on the little camera icon
03:00
that's going to store this image in memory.
03:03
One more thing about the Arnold render view
03:06
in order to ensure optimal performance in the interactive view ports,
03:10
we can reduce the amount of CPU usage by the Arnold render view.
03:15
And that's done in the Arnold render view menus,
03:18
go to the render menu,
03:20
choose save U I threads
03:23
and you can set that to a value of two.
03:27
And now the armed render view will use all of your available core equivalents
03:32
minus two.
03:34
So it's going to leave two threads available for interactivity in three Ds max.
03:38
OK. Let's go back to our Skydome parameters
03:41
with that Skydome still selected back in the modified panel.
03:44
Let's rename it.
03:46
We'll call it Skydome.
03:47
And by default, the light is set to only one sample.
03:51
We can increase the quality of that light
03:54
scroll down in the modified panel
03:57
and in the rendering roll out set the number of samples to three. I
04:01
recommend that for all Arnold lights in order to avoid graininess.
04:06
Now we're ready to assign a high dynamic range image.
04:09
Currently, we just got a white color coming out from the sky dome,
04:13
set the color to texture
04:16
and then click on the button labeled no map.
04:20
We get the material map browser.
04:22
We want to navigate to maps
04:24
OS L
04:26
environment,
04:28
choose HDR I environment
04:31
and click. OK.
04:33
Then we need to browse for the image file.
04:36
We need to go to our current projects scene assets images.
04:40
In my case, that folders on a desktop
04:43
and here's my project folder product viz,
04:46
I'll go into scene assets
04:48
images
04:50
and choose the file labeled
04:51
modern buildings four K
04:53
monochrome dot HDR.
04:56
This is a modified version of a free high dynamic range image.
05:00
I've desaturated the colors
05:02
so that it's a monochrome black and white image
05:06
and that's very important for material testing.
05:08
We need a neutral colored light for an accurate material preview.
05:12
So choose modern buildings
05:14
four
05:14
K
05:14
monochrome dot HDR
05:16
and click open.
05:18
OK. Let's see what that looks like
05:19
with focus on the physical camera viewport
05:23
in the Arnold range view, we can restore the scene updates, click on that button
05:28
and we will automatically see a new rendering.
05:31
It looks a bit too bright.
05:33
So let's reduce the intensity further.
05:35
We can set the exposure down to negative two.
05:40
And now we've got approximately the same exposure that we had
05:43
with a pure white color.
05:45
Once that's finished, we can store another snapshot,
05:48
click to create a new snapshot
05:50
and then we can compare these
05:52
snapshot.
05:53
One shows the Skydome with pure white light and
05:55
snapshot two is the Skydome with an HDR I panorama
06:00
to go back to a live interactive production rendering,
06:03
we can click on the button down here in the lower right.
06:05
That now looks like a little eye.
06:08
If we click in the perspective view,
06:11
we will automatically see the rendering from that camera viewport because
06:15
Viewport camera is chosen as the current camera up here.
06:19
I just want to preview that HDR Panorama.
06:22
So let's back out on the perspective view
06:24
dolly back with control alt and middle mouse
06:28
and select the Skydome light. Then back in the modify panel
06:32
in the shape, roll out,
06:34
we have a section labeled shape rendering.
06:36
Let's turn on light shape visible.
06:40
And once that's on, then we can actually see that panorama
06:43
in the rendering
06:45
and we can navigate around in the perspective you
06:47
middle mouse to pan
06:49
and halt and middle mouse to orbit.
06:52
That's just to give us an idea of what that environment looks like.
06:55
We're not actually going to render that environment.
06:58
So in fact, we can turn light shape visible back off again.
07:01
OK.
07:02
Now we've got our HDR I environment set up
07:05
and we can begin our process of developing materials.
00:04
In order to accurately develop the look of materials,
00:07
we should have some environmental lighting in the scene.
00:10
Currently, there are no lights in this scene.
00:12
And if we render we'll get default lighting,
00:14
but that's not really suitable for material testing.
00:18
We'll create an Arnold sky dome to be used as the environment
00:22
and will illuminate the scene with a high dynamic range image
00:26
first so that we don't color this scene with
00:28
the random color of our floor or ground plane.
00:32
Let's change the color of that ground plane, select it
00:36
and in the name and color roll out.
00:38
Let's first rename it. We'll call it floor,
00:41
then click on the color swatch and set that to a neutral gray
00:45
click. Ok.
00:47
All right. We can create a light now.
00:49
So go to the crate panel
00:51
to lights
00:52
and from the pull down list, let's choose Arnold,
00:56
click the button labeled Arnold light.
00:59
And before you create the light
01:01
go down into the shape, roll out
01:03
and set the type
01:05
to skydome
01:07
and then click anywhere in the top viewport to create that Skydome
01:11
and then right click to exit the light creation mode.
01:15
So let's see what we have so far,
01:17
right click in the physical camera view to give it focus,
01:21
go to the menus and choose Arnold
01:23
Arnold render view
01:26
and then click the red triangle to initiate an interactive production rendering.
01:31
We can see that it's so overexposed that we just get a pure white silhouette.
01:37
Let's adjust the intensity of the sky dome
01:40
with the sky dome still selected, go to the modify panel
01:44
and in the color
01:45
intensity roll out
01:47
near the bottom will see intensity and exposure
01:51
intensity is a linear value.
01:54
Exposure is an exponential value
01:57
that works in powers of two,
01:59
just like F stops on a camera.
02:02
If we increase the exposure by one whole number,
02:05
we'll double the amount of light given off.
02:08
So we want to reduce the exposure here.
02:10
If we bring this down to a value of seven, we'll cut the light in half
02:14
and we see a resulting intensity down here.
02:17
If we bring it down to six, we're cutting the light in half. Again,
02:21
we actually need to bring this all the way down to a value of zero.
02:24
In order to get a well exposed shot
02:27
with this sky dome.
02:28
At this point, the sky dome is just putting out white light,
02:31
let's store this in the Arnold render view as a snapshot.
02:35
So we can compare it to other renderings
02:38
to prevent the Arnold render view from updating.
02:41
We can first click on the button here
02:43
which is to hold scene updates,
02:46
click on that and it gets a little slash through it.
02:49
And now if we make any changes in our scene that
02:51
will not trigger a refresh to the interactive production rendering.
02:55
So let's create a snapshot.
02:57
Click down here on the little camera icon
03:00
that's going to store this image in memory.
03:03
One more thing about the Arnold render view
03:06
in order to ensure optimal performance in the interactive view ports,
03:10
we can reduce the amount of CPU usage by the Arnold render view.
03:15
And that's done in the Arnold render view menus,
03:18
go to the render menu,
03:20
choose save U I threads
03:23
and you can set that to a value of two.
03:27
And now the armed render view will use all of your available core equivalents
03:32
minus two.
03:34
So it's going to leave two threads available for interactivity in three Ds max.
03:38
OK. Let's go back to our Skydome parameters
03:41
with that Skydome still selected back in the modified panel.
03:44
Let's rename it.
03:46
We'll call it Skydome.
03:47
And by default, the light is set to only one sample.
03:51
We can increase the quality of that light
03:54
scroll down in the modified panel
03:57
and in the rendering roll out set the number of samples to three. I
04:01
recommend that for all Arnold lights in order to avoid graininess.
04:06
Now we're ready to assign a high dynamic range image.
04:09
Currently, we just got a white color coming out from the sky dome,
04:13
set the color to texture
04:16
and then click on the button labeled no map.
04:20
We get the material map browser.
04:22
We want to navigate to maps
04:24
OS L
04:26
environment,
04:28
choose HDR I environment
04:31
and click. OK.
04:33
Then we need to browse for the image file.
04:36
We need to go to our current projects scene assets images.
04:40
In my case, that folders on a desktop
04:43
and here's my project folder product viz,
04:46
I'll go into scene assets
04:48
images
04:50
and choose the file labeled
04:51
modern buildings four K
04:53
monochrome dot HDR.
04:56
This is a modified version of a free high dynamic range image.
05:00
I've desaturated the colors
05:02
so that it's a monochrome black and white image
05:06
and that's very important for material testing.
05:08
We need a neutral colored light for an accurate material preview.
05:12
So choose modern buildings
05:14
four
05:14
K
05:14
monochrome dot HDR
05:16
and click open.
05:18
OK. Let's see what that looks like
05:19
with focus on the physical camera viewport
05:23
in the Arnold range view, we can restore the scene updates, click on that button
05:28
and we will automatically see a new rendering.
05:31
It looks a bit too bright.
05:33
So let's reduce the intensity further.
05:35
We can set the exposure down to negative two.
05:40
And now we've got approximately the same exposure that we had
05:43
with a pure white color.
05:45
Once that's finished, we can store another snapshot,
05:48
click to create a new snapshot
05:50
and then we can compare these
05:52
snapshot.
05:53
One shows the Skydome with pure white light and
05:55
snapshot two is the Skydome with an HDR I panorama
06:00
to go back to a live interactive production rendering,
06:03
we can click on the button down here in the lower right.
06:05
That now looks like a little eye.
06:08
If we click in the perspective view,
06:11
we will automatically see the rendering from that camera viewport because
06:15
Viewport camera is chosen as the current camera up here.
06:19
I just want to preview that HDR Panorama.
06:22
So let's back out on the perspective view
06:24
dolly back with control alt and middle mouse
06:28
and select the Skydome light. Then back in the modify panel
06:32
in the shape, roll out,
06:34
we have a section labeled shape rendering.
06:36
Let's turn on light shape visible.
06:40
And once that's on, then we can actually see that panorama
06:43
in the rendering
06:45
and we can navigate around in the perspective you
06:47
middle mouse to pan
06:49
and halt and middle mouse to orbit.
06:52
That's just to give us an idea of what that environment looks like.
06:55
We're not actually going to render that environment.
06:58
So in fact, we can turn light shape visible back off again.
07:01
OK.
07:02
Now we've got our HDR I environment set up
07:05
and we can begin our process of developing materials.
