Author Topic: The Quest for HDRI managment  (Read 1487 times)

2020-01-13, 17:27:33

nefertum

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Hi,
I'd like to ask all of you how do you handle your HDRIs when testing lightning for your shot and desire to try quickly many many different hdri maps. I am doing it manually so far - reloading different maps to bitmap plugged into CoronaColorCorrect plugged into Environment slot. And when I want to try many HDRIs and focus on "artistic" side of the work, constant reloading and tweaking gamma and exposure is becoming bothersome.

Is there any sort of plugin capable of cataloging one's .HDR and .EXR maps and at the same time:
- ables to switch between these maps during IR
- is able to control rotation of this map
- is able to control gamma of that specific map (as through CoronaColorCorrect) (and ideally Exposure too (also like CoronaColorCorrect)

I've recently tested Pulze's scene manager which, to some level, is capable of doing this, except the last one - gamma. And I find that I need to tweak gamma quite often (thinking of sending them a humble request)
I also had oportunity to see SiNi software's Illumi first hand, which instead of gamma adjusts RGB Output and didnt seem at this occasion very fast.

I've also experimented without any added software and tried to use power of material manager itself: I've stacked loads of HDRI maps to CoronaSelect > thus I can quickly change the maps during IR. I plugged this CoronaSelect to CoronaColorCorrect > can control gamma and exposure of curently selected map. At this point I'm gonna say I'm willing to sacrifice day or two, go through all HDRIs I own and set their gamma and EV in CoronaColorCorrect individually (and so switch the order of wiring, plug these to CoronaSelect, adjusted), so I wouldn't have even need to touch the tonemapping EV during quick light testing. What prevented me from doing this so far is rotation issue. If I'd be trying lets say 15 different HDRIs, here I have to set 15 times the angle I'm aiming for. Then I'd like slightly different angles => every change done x15. I tried to connect the bitmaps with Linear Float controller plugged into their "u angle", thus control rotation for all bitmaps at once. However there seems to be bug, perhaps. The number on other bitmaps changes correctly, but in render (both IR and regular) the angle remains original (until I manually overwrite it in that bitmap, meaning linear floater doesnt help me). The whole concept is on screenshot attached.


Is there any way I am missing? Some good software? Script? Thank You.

2020-01-13, 17:48:43
Reply #1

jrgby

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Also interested. I tend to use a similar setup to what you have pictured, including corona skys along with hdri etc.

And yes, looks like a bug wiring up controllers to the uAngle.

2020-01-13, 19:27:48
Reply #2

romullus

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I tried to connect the bitmaps with Linear Float controller plugged into their "u angle", thus control rotation for all bitmaps at once. However there seems to be bug, perhaps. The number on other bitmaps changes correctly, but in render (both IR and regular) the angle remains original (until I manually overwrite it in that bitmap, meaning linear floater doesnt help me). The whole concept is on screenshot attached.

Yes, this is known bug. You can use native bitmap loader instead, which works as expected. That would bring another annoyance though - you would have to set each HDRI to spherical mapping. Corona bitmap handles that intelligently.
I'm not Corona Team member. Everything i say, is my personal opinion only.
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2020-01-14, 15:54:37
Reply #3

ynotsop

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Maybe you'll find this script from Jakub helpful but I'm not sure if it's exacty what you are looking for:

https://youtu.be/g3agwJlkYFI?t=1144