HDR Shadow Strength

[grimm]

-Grimm, are you referring to an in-app mixing of the daylight and HDRI? I apologize, but how is this done, I was not aware that you could do that. The closest I got to that was to try and place an image onto a vertical plane as a 'backdrop' along with the daylight. Thanks!

Yes, it's new in 2.0+. If you open up the environment tab and switch it to daylight, and there is a "Sky texture" node towards the bottom.

It's usually set to "No node", so change it to "RGB image" and load your HDRI into it. Then you need to match both the sun and the HDRI to each other by adjusting the sun direction and the UV transform on the HDRI. See if that helps.

[Notiusweb]

Postby grimm » Fri Jul 17, 2015 3:22 pm

Yes, it's new in 2.0+. If you open up the environment tab and switch it to daylight, and there is a "Sky texture" node towards the bottom...
It's usually set to "No node", so change it to "RGB image" and load your HDRI into it. Then you need to match both the sun and the HDRI to each other by adjusting the sun direction and the UV transform on the HDRI. See if that helps.

AWESOME!!!! Thank you so much for this!!!! I don't think it makes for reality, but this is what I was hoping for.

Here is a HDR only

HDR Only

But with Daylight and Sky Texture, you thus have a lot of options to try and make a shadow look 'normal'...

Daylight with Sky Texture

Or otherwise!...

Daylight with Sky Texture - Whackified Lighting :)

I do believe, as you all suggested, it's really worth experimenting with the HDRI's sun and lighting characteristic to attain a more natural overall result. So, again, thanks for all of the suggestions.
A lot of ideas to work with now. GREAT!

[bepeg4d]

hi,
if you are in standalone, there is a very useful scripted node graph realized by face_off for syncing the sun and HDR rotation:
http://poserphysics.blogspot.it/2015/04 ... xture.html
ciao beppe

[artdude12]

Here's some interesting HDRI edit info:
http://www.chocofur.com/hdr-maps-in-blender.html