Part II - HDRI Enviroment Maps

Most of you should know how to use enviroment maps in Maya, and HDRI enviroment maps is simply just assigning and HDR image to that, but I'll go in to a lot more detail.

We already have the shader and fresnel effect from part 1. First, you're gonna have to download a piece of software (don't worry, it's safe, almost every serious independent CG artist has it).  The software is called HDR shop and it can be found here: http://www.debevec.org/HDRShop/. Before going through the rest of this tutorial, you should download the program (HDR shop), one of the HDR probes (http://www.debevec.org/Probes/, I use the Eucalyptus grove), and it would be extremely enlightening to read the Introduction on the HDR shop page.

So, first what we're going to do is open up HDR shop, and then open up our HDR probe.

Now, we have to convert it into a panorama and a file that Mental Ray can read. Go into image>panorama>panoramic transformations, so that the Panoramic Transform window opens up. Select Light Probe for the source format, and Latitude/Longitude for the destination image.

And hit ok, you can close the light probe image now and leave the rectangular panorama open. Now we want to save it as a HDR TIFF, because Mental Ray can read that. Hit file>save as and under  "High Dynamic Range" hit "Floating Point TIFF". Now just save the file wherever you want.

Now, back to Maya. In Hypershade, create a file texture and an Env Ball (under Env textures). Open up the attribute editor for the file texture (double click it, or click it and ctrl-a). Click the browse button next to image name, and open your HDR image.

The image file preview will appear black because Maya by default can't read it, but Mental Ray can. Now close the attribute editor, and MMB drag the file texture on to the enviroment ball and select either default or other, either will open the connection editor. Select Our Color for the file texture, and image for the Env Ball. This will basically just apply the panoramic image to the enviroment. Again the preview doesn't work, but the render will.

Close the connection editor, and then MMB drag the Env Ball texture on to your shader, and select Reflected Color.

That's it, now let's run a render.

While I'm at it, I might as well assign the Env Ball to the camera, just so the reflection fits it, but this isn't part of the tutorial

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There ya go, now go out and make some cool reflecting... ummm... things.