Create landscape HDRI with C3D

How to Create landscape HDRI with C3D

Open a new scene.
Set the camera:
position: 0 - 0,35 - 0
rotation: 0 - 0 - 0
projection: Panorama
Output resolution: W 2000 - H 1000

Go to render - render preference
and select Cache HDRI from Special File Export

Insert a Relief in the scene, set the Height Y to 0,5
and deselect Edge at the sea level

Add a new material for the relief
Set diffuse to 25 % brightness ( color slider - grey scale)
Set specular to 0 % brightness

Insert a Sky Light in the scene

Hit the render button

Save the render in hdr format

THAT'S IT!

Use it in a scene with no lights, camera light off, Ambient Occlusion
and light and reflections will result like the first example

You can use the Sky Light settings to change everything you need to create different lights and color
in your HDRI image (second example)

And of course you can make the relief editable, play with Magnet tool to create
mountains and lakes (insert a plane for the water).
Insert trees, clouds, rocks and/or structures (third example)
With some good textures on the relief
you can switch from a desert to a grassland HDRI in a second.
I suggest you to do all this from the Perspective view
leaving the camera where it is.

I hope will be helpful for someone
Thanks for watching
 

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Thanks WEEDO, I've used the built in hdrs so much and can't find
to many really good ones online so, questo è molto apprezzato.

 
Great stuff Weedo, so cool :cool: it's short and to the point, now that's what I call 'a little something for the weekend'.

Thank you for the tips :icon_thumbup: Pat
 
To brighten up and improve dramatic effect before you render your new hdr image add in another Skylight with slightly different settings, Cheetah seems to only let you see one of the suns, but you get the light from both it seems :)

Also try turning Camera 180 degrees for another viewpoint. Now just gotta use them in practice.
 

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Thanks guys,
I am glad that the tutorial has been appreciated.
In practice, once set the camera can be made the same way images of interiors and studios.

I was going to make a tutorial on this but I think once you know the method, personal taste, imagination and (render) time are the only limit.
I think that Novolume has done a good job on this :icon_thumbup:
https://gumroad.com/l/JrFW
that can save you a lot of time to make and store a package of studio set up like the one that he produced and sells for only $ 1 (or more if you want :redface:)

Maybe in near the future could born a thread as the legendary decorated pig where we can share (in low resolution or not) our experiments with this method, showing its effects on the pig, Geko, Marty .. or who knows?!
 
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Thanks Weedo! Could someone explain two steps more fully?:

Add a new material for the relief
Set diffuse to 25 % brightness ( color slider - grey scale) < Not sure how to set this
Set specular to 0 % brightness < Not sure how to set this.
 
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Thanks Weedo! Could someone explain two steps more fully?:

Add a new material for the relief
Set diffuse to 25 % brightness ( color slider - grey scale) < Not sure how to set this
Set specular to 0 % brightness < Not sure how to set this.

Hi Greg

I set mine up like this...

Make your procedural material, set Diffuse at top to whatever, set Specular to light grey, make Reflection solid black, see screenshot.

This makes your highlight areas nice and bright, without any reflections.

May be what Weedo intended, not sure?
 

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Post to thread

Thanks guys. Very cool. I love this idea.
 

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This is a very useful technique, but to get light sources to render properly in the HDR you should use a highly emissive surface (i.e. a color with high intensity fed into emission) and not light geometry when baking lights into your HDRs (because C3D's light geometry is always rendered with intensity 1.0, even in reflections, which is -- in my opinion -- a bug).
 
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Thanks guys. There is a point light in the first and an area light in the second. HDRI power is cranked up to 6.0 in the first and 2.0 in the second. No skylights.
 
Actually I'm not sure my workaround actually works for baking HDRs — they just don't seem to work properly. It does work for replacing light geometry in scenes though.
 
Hi, I followed the instructions but I can't seem to figure out how to get rid of the black "horizon?" line. I unchecked edge at sea level. If anyone knows please share your thoughts. Thank you.
 

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