Thursday, March 24, 2011

Blender Image-based Lighting Test (with .blend)


I've recently encountered a post on BlenderNation (http://blendernation.com) about HDRI Tools for sIBL in Blender. Though I haven't had the chance to test out the tools provided in that page yet, I refreshed my thoughts on HDRi (High Dynamic Range Imaging/Images) and IBL (Image-based Lighting) inside of Blender, which is a capable tool in this regard. Take note that I didn't use any lamps at all in this scene. All the shadow and lighting information comes from the hdr file which contains most of the illumination instructions.

You can find more some information here:

The HDR images I used on the examples below were from Paul Debevec's light probe image gallery which you can find at http://ict.debevec.org/~debevec/Probes/ and from Open Footage (http://openfootage.net) which offers very large hdr images very suitable for background rendering and scene illumination.

This review also brought up some issues which are as follows:
  • blender 2.5's internal raytraced ambient occlusion's samples couldn't be set more than 32
  • for higher quality reflections, shading, and lighting, use a higher resolution hdr image
  • render time gets very long with high AO samples







BONUS:

I've provided a packed blend file for you to test and play around.
Download the file here > http://www.pasteall.org/blend/5704

8 comments:

iKlsR said...

this looks great Reyn! fantastic job!

Satish Goda said...

Thanks for doing the research and posting the blend file as well :-)

Unknown said...

iKlsR: Thanks, pal. :)

Unknown said...

satishgoda: You're very welcome. I'm glad you like it. ;)

MikeBelanger said...

Yes, thank-you for the research. I've wanted to look into image-based lighting for some time.

siraniks said...

your right! Sir reyn, the higher the value of the samples the longer the render and only in raytrace mode but not in Approximate...

siraniks said...

your right! Sir reyn, the higher the value of the samples the longer the render and only in raytrace mode but not in Approximate...

grfxthought said...

Nice results!
Btw, you're talking about HDRI or SIBL? since if it is about SIBL I don't see any particular setup in your file as it should have other information as HDR for specular and a low res blurred HDR for diffuse lighting.
I'm still wondering if there's a way Blender can manage an SIBL setup.

Best