Dome light and environment background

[kenancakir]

Hi, there is use transform option in dome light options, so we can rotate the hdr by rotating dome shape.. Somethimes i check invisible and i add the same hdr for environment background for some reasons.. İt would be nice to have a way to connect both hdr, for example if i rotate the dome shape, the other hdr inside background can rotate too.. Of course it would be better to have a way to connect dome light and sketchup sun..

[Peter.Chaushev]

Hello,
Could you please describe the reasoning behind using a Dome Light and having the Background use the same hdri texture?

Kind regards,
Peter

[GD3DESIGN]

+1

I'm just shooting from the hip here because I'm not working on a project using hdri's at the moment. But I believe I can comment on this from memory, having run into this problem many times before.

I use the dome light to light the scene, then use the environment for the background. These two often need separate multipliers, higher for the dome light to light the scene correctly, then a lower environment multiplier to have the background look correct in the render. It is a real pain when using this setup to have to adjust rotation settings in each one while trying to get the scene set up. (in Max we just use an instanced VrayHDRI so we only need to change the rotation of HDRI once to have it updated anywhere used globally. Not sure what the best solution could be in SU, tho... Maybe something similar to the 'Binding' options in the material editor...? Or maybe possible to create a new vray hdri material, then add a way inside of Dome light options and Environment options to select that material. Similar to how you select materials with a multi-material or Two-Sided...? Thinking a little more about it, seems like the most straight forward method would be to have a switch inside the Dome Light options to 'link environment rotation to dome light'......? )

Sounds easy...if I could write programs, I'm sure I could knock it out real quick

[kenancakir]

There are seperate hdr images for environment and for background in some hdr sets.. As i understand from the videos i watched, sharp images don't give smooth lightning, so they use a lighter and blurred version of the same hdr as environment and use sharper image as background.. I usually leave the hdr as background and if i increase the dome value, the hdr gets brighter and it is not good for background, i add the same hdr to environment background, set the brightness i want.. I can get a good resault by rotating both dome and background from uwv settings, but it is easier to use both from dome shape rotation..

[GD3DESIGN]

There are seperate hdr images for environment and for background in some hdr sets.. As i understand from the videos i watched, sharp images don't give smooth lightning, so they use a lighter and blurred version of the same hdr as environment and use sharper image as background.. I usually leave the hdr as background and if i increase the dome value, the hdr gets brighter and it is not good for background, i add the same hdr to environment background, set the brightness i want.. I can get a good resault by rotating both dome and background from uwv settings, but it is easier to use both from dome shape rotation..

I think the use of two hdri's, sharp/blurred is outdated, is it not?

Yes, what you say about the background of dome light getting too bright, is what I was trying to describe. It is our typical workflow to use same hdri in domelight and envirement to be able to light scene properly and get correct exposure of background. And it is a pain to have to go in and change rotation in each once when trying to set up scene lighting. Would be great to have a way to link them.

[Peter.Chaushev]

Well, using an HDRI slotted in the Background can then be fine-tuned using the Environment Overrides multipliers.
If you slot it in a Dome Light, you can fine-tune its intensity and projection separately by applying different values to its Intensity and Affect Diffuse/Specular/Reflections settings.

Kind regards,
Peter

[GD3DESIGN]

Just to clarify the desired feature request we are talking about:

A way to link the rotation of HDRI's used for lighting & background,. Whether the background is used in environment or environment override, it would still be helpful to have a way for sync rotation of backround hdri to the dome light hdri, when using this 'two hdri' system. The workflow is to use the same HDRI image, one in domelight with 'invisible' checked, the other in environment or environment override to control the intensity of the background, independent of the domelight intensity which is adjusted separately for proper scene exposure.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but it is a lot of steps to click down in to the heirarchy of each the domelight and then environment to get to the bitmap settings then scroll down and expand the UV section to type in the horizontal rotation for each one. When doing a proof set to test lighting at every 45 degrees for a few hdri's... Anyway, when I read @kenancakir's post, I thought to myself, 'yeah man, I've frequently wished there was a way to link rotation of domelight and environment hdri's'.

[kenancakir]

Just to clarify the desired feature request we are talking about:

A way to link the rotation of HDRI's used for lighting & background,. Whether the background is used in environment or environment override, it would still be helpful to have a way for sync rotation of backround hdri to the dome light hdri, when using this 'two hdri' system. The workflow is to use the same HDRI image, one in domelight with 'invisible' checked, the other in environment or environment override to control the intensity of the background, independent of the domelight intensity which is adjusted separately for proper scene exposure.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but it is a lot of steps to click down in to the heirarchy of each the domelight and then environment to get to the bitmap settings then scroll down and expand the UV section to type in the horizontal rotation for each one. When doing a proof set to test lighting at every 45 degrees for a few hdri's...

I think the same way as yours, thank you..

Currently there is no way to seperate lightning strength and background brightness inside dome light.. Using dome light and environment background gives us a rotation issue.. Without dome light there is no good shadow of hdr image..

[GD3DESIGN]

I think the same way as yours, thank you..

Currently there is no way to seperate lightning strength and background brightness inside dome light.. Using dome light and environment background gives us a rotation issue.. Without dome light there is no good shadow of hdr image..

That's it! A great solution would be to add a setting inside Domelight to control appearance of HDRI as a background independent of the Domelight intensity, which is actually lighting the scene. That way you can keep the environment disabled, and control rotation through 1 setting but still be able to adjust global illumination and background appearance independently from each other.

[Peter.Chaushev]

Thank you for your replies!
Ideally, your request would be resolved by introducing texture instancing which is something the team would like to do implement.
For any other case, refer to my previous comment.
If you want to adjust a scene with a shadow catcher (MtlWrapper) and a Dome Light, use the Texture's Placement controls and then Copy / Paste as Copy the texture from the Dome Light to the Environment Background.
In case you want to have a Dome Light projection but no alpha in the background, use the Dome Light's "Affect Alpha" option.

Kind regards,
Peter