I've been looking all over the internet for several months now, looking for bar/pub interior HDR environments. I've looked in most, if not all of the free areas that have been posted up here and other places, but have yet to find a suitable file. Anyone have any good leads?
Ron Bates Thanks! The "Cave Room" environment is nice, and I may be able to use that for a few of my future renderings. I'm still on the look out though for a good bar/pub. Since I create quite a few beer and liquor bottles, it would be nice to have a traditional looking bar scene to render them in context.
You could check these two posts out about how to create your own background....just need a picture.
How to Make your Own Custom Background for SolidWorks - SolidSmack -
SmackHACK! Custom SolidWorks Scenes without PhotoWorks - SolidSmack -
Thanks Dan. As a matter of fact, I have quite a few background images that I have used in Photoview 360. I've looked into creating my own HDR with some of these images for Visualize, however the quality isn't quite up to par with the true HDR environmental files that are out there. I guess I'm still looking for that golden ticket, you might say. Yes, I could use an image as a backplate, but then I'm stuck with trying to recreate the lighting. Since Visualize is pretty heavy with the HDR environments, I feel it would be best to try to find one of those.
Do a Google Image Search for "Man Cave"
I haven't had any real issues finding suitable images for backgrounds. I have quite a few of them and always keep adding more to the collection. I'm looking for the true HDR environment files that have the proper lighting affects.
As a plan B, I'm working through some tutorials to make single images into HDR environments using Photoshop. So far my results have been lackluster, but I'm sure with some practice it will get better.
I've even priced out what I would need to do to make my own files from scratch (my own camera), but since I don't have a camera, and I don't need a large number of these files, it's cost prohibitive.
I've been to the cave bar at the Mt. Washington. It's very cool.
If you have HDRLightstudio, you can use a picture as your base /for reflection) and tweak your environment with
additional lights.
Very clever workflow, Peter. I would recommend this as well.
HDR Light Studio opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
That's all I've used the past several years to light all my projects.
HDR Light Studio provides a unique real-time lighting interface and includes a wealth of procedural and image based lighting content. You can create your own HDRI map which gives you the choice to create array of lighting environments. HDR Light Studio will allow you to have perfect HDRI map for every render. Only a custom HDRI map made with HDR Light Studio can bring out the best in an image by allowing infinite levels of adjustments to control the shot. It takes the pain of searching and testing out of the system. Visit Lightmap - HDR Light Studio to know more.
That's all well and good, and I understand that many people have used that software here, but I had a hard enough time convincing my company to move to Visualize Pro. I can't image what it would take to convince them that I now need another software title just to do lighting in my rendering software.
Hello Shad,... heck,.. just buy a 360 camera and software (some include it).. to create your own bar room hdri?
Thanks Paul. I've actually looked at that camera and have considered doing just that!
I've taken full 360 degree panos with my phone and converted them into custom-made HDRIs and it costs next to nothing (assuming you have a phone, computer, and a butt-ton of software):
I use (free) Google Camera's "Photo Sphere" software to stitch up a 360 panorama. Make sure you photograph as close to a nodal point as possible, especially for indoor environments. Although, for reflecting off of brown beer bottles, it's probably not much of an issue.
The generated pano is nothing more than a .jpg that you can then edit in Photoshop, followed with Google's (free) Nik Collection's HDR Efex Pro 2 to convert into a full-on HDRI.
Google camera used to be free and easily available, but now you'll have to find a mirror site from which to download. As for the Nik collection, that's still available through Google (after a dedicated user base raised holy hell when google went to de-activate it).
Good luck!
Edited to add:
I spent a few minutes duplicating the process and dropped a chrome sphere in a HDR I created from a photosphere I shot last year in the mountains behind town. FYI, there's no backplate. Oh man, rotating this thing is way more fun than I expected!:
You shouldn't have any trouble place a bottle of booze on a bar! Post up when you're done!
Rich,
I think I'll give this a shot! Thanks for the information. :-)
hey btw,.. (geez, i did not notice it).. but, check it out,.. they actually have a Pub scene shown on the first image!
YES! I grabbed that image some time ago and tried to make it work for my application. I might be able to get it to work with the Nik Collection though. That was a piece to the puzzle that I didn't have before.
Hi everyone,
this is not meant to answer the initial question on a pub environment but I would like to share thoughts on a workflow that was made available with the new 360 camera in Visualize 2018.
You can obviously render out spherical images using the 360 camera. When choosing OpenEXR as image format, the image will contain high dynamic range information. This image can then be re-imported as an HDR environment.
In combination with the newly added Area lights and its placement methods (Pick Target and Pick Position), this could be used as a way to create your own HDR environments or tweak existing ones.
AMAZING suggestions here!
Rich - those 2 images from your self-shot custom HDR look dope! How did you squish the chrome sphere into the snow if it's just the HDR? Even if you flattened the ground, I don't see the distortion where the dome meets the flattened floor...ahh, I assume you just moved the sphere below the ground plane in Visualize, to give the look of it sitting in the snow. SMART thinking!
I Shad ,
if you have a flat background you want to use , visualize can actually make the HDR for you. the below blog is a section of my SOLIDWORKS World presentation this year that might work for you.
https://www.javelin-tech.com/blog/2018/02/solidworks-visualize-tips-and-tricks-part-one/
Thank you Scott. I'm constantly impressed with you Javelin folks :-)
This seems like a very easy process to go through. How does this compare to a true HDR environment with regards to lighting?
Scott,
That's a great tutorial. I have a question about the setting you chose when rendering the HDR. You used Preview, which is fine for a demo, but wouldn't we want a better quality HDR for "production" work?
Brian Hillner wrote:
How did you squish the chrome sphere into the snow if it's just the HDR? Even if you flattened the ground, I don't see the distortion where the dome meets the flattened floor...ahh, I assume you just moved the sphere below the ground plane in Visualize, to give the look of it sitting in the snow. SMART thinking!
Yeah, got lucky at that one spot....even the grass is appropriately splayed!
Tried the same stunt somewhere else in my HDRI and the sphere ends up squished into the tree tops!
when rendering the blank Plate as an HDR is should not matter , the resolution of the Image used as the plate will have more of a bearing than the mode because the mode controls the quality of the model shading and there is no model for the HDR trick
I have been experimenting with it quite a bit and it seems pretty good , the lighting I have been able to achieve is enough that my models look like they match the setting.
Check out: www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html
Search for "Cave Room" from "HDR Source Promo Library."
Not a complete bar scene, but it is the adjacent room to the "underground bar" at the famous Mt. Washington Hotel in New Hampshire. It might do for what you need????