Tutorial: A Short Primer and Kit For HDRI Studio Style Image Creation.

This is intended for those new to using image based lighting in their global illumination renders.
The link below is for a kit I put together several years ago to help create studio style HDR images in Photoshop.
There are commercial programs that do this now. One in particular has been very popular and it does a wonderful job.
But if you are on a budget or just want to get in there with a more hands on approach the kit will help.

There are descriptive PDF's in Kit_01 that explain the process I use and a list of the kit components.
You will find Photoshop layered source files along with a Photoshop brush preset and a Photoshop action set.
They go into their respective presets folders.
Please read the PDF titled,"Correlating Emitters and HDRI Light Sources".
The method shown for correlating emitters and light sources is an aside to the image kit.

The kit was originally aimed at Maxwell render users but the tips and method can work for any host program.
The object files provided are .OBJ and Lightwave .LWO, as well as textures for the backdrop.
The kit works by using one of the template files a positioning aid and placing the assets over it on other layers.

Keep this in mind when rendering with HDR images.
You will rarely, if ever, need an HDR environmental image, (the one that provides the light source) bigger than a 6 pixel blurred image that is 360 x 180 pixels. That is true no matter how large your finished image will be. With a small blurred environmental HDR image your renders will clear the noise quicker and render faster than a larger sharp HDR image. The Photoshop action provided will re-size and blur your image. You might want to off set the file after it has been re-sized and blurred and apply a small blur to the back seam and offset again back to normal. Its not mandatory but it helps keep the file clean.

Reflection maps on the other hand benefit from a larger sharp HDR image. But still, I rarely if ever need to go over 3000 X 1500 pixels.

If you want the technical reasons for the stated image sizes I suggest you read "The HDRI Handbook", by Christian Bloch.
Actually it should be mandatory reading for all CG artists.
I also recommend his free Smart IBL program and plugins...it automatically creates HDR image sets.
It can be found here: http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/index.html
With tons of free already made image sets.

I hope you find this fun and helpful.

Cheers,
Ron

Again nice Rob
This is what we need more of on GrabCAD
people do not just want to know how to model in CAD software
people also want to know how to render and set up lighting,materials, etc etc
This really makes me so happy to see such tutorials on GrabCAD and heading towards CG also :)))))

Thankis William...I'm happy to like it!