Making of a Night Scene with HDRI (or A Sky Bitmap)

[bokkins]

(For those who are having a hardtime with HDRI. You may substitute it with a sky bitmap.)

Hi guys. I made a night scene tutorial based on my work-flow from my latest project. During my test renders, I found out that HDRI is a very powerful tool. I would like to share to you the product of my simple experiment. First we need to download an HDRI image of a sunset.

Here I used the Barcelona Rooftops

from >>> sIBL Archive

that was shared to us Nomeradona under free stuff section. I suggest you download it first before we start.

Next is we set up our scene. No lights yet, and just use your basic vray settings. I also found out that most of our settings for exterior will work.

Hit render and you will see something like this... A basic scene render.



Now we just add the VrayHDRI to the Environment Override on your vray settings.



Another VrayHDRI to your Background slot (type 8)



We will get something like this. Notice that the color of the scene has changed, this is due to the effect of the HDRI image to the scene. We can now feel the mood or the ambience.



Then we add lights, both fill lights and spotlights using vraylight (sphere) and IES light with web information of (ies-nice or 02).



And we have this now... almost done.



And finally, Add trees, cars, etc to complete the scene. Adjust in photoshop the colors or any mood you want to achieve.



I hope you like it! Enjoy creating your very own night scenes!

[Rod]

a gem of a tut, thanks

[Russell L. Thomas]

Thanks Ronel, looks great!

[neil]

Excellent tutorial for VRay user. Well done Bookins.

[bokkins]

Thanks guys! Glad you like it. I hope it could help in your renders.

[Sholom]

nice tutorial.

[modpod77]

Thank yo so much for sharing this interesting tutorial It would help me a lot! I really appreciate that!

[vikoum]

Hi!
Very helpful tutorial but I have one question. What kind of camera did you used and with what settings?
I have seen someone working with vray and some others use standard camera and not vray.
I used to have some problems with the night scenes and I realised that working with vray.

Anyway, if you can answer to my question it would be very helpful.

Thanks,
Viktoria

[rpadc2002]

normally, to properly configure and deliver vray sun's real time settings, we use vray physical camera. the above tutorial uses the same tandem. for some settings follow this thread http://www.3dallusions.com/forums/tutorials/3030-vray-sun-vray-physical-camera-made-easy.html