From the course: 3ds Max 2021 Essential Training

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,400 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

Illuminating with an HDRI environment

Illuminating with an HDRI environment - 3ds Max Tutorial

From the course: 3ds Max 2021 Essential Training

Start my 1-month free trial

Illuminating with an HDRI environment

The next level up in environment lighting is to use a high dynamic range image panorama, also known as image based lighting. So we can apply an image to our background and environment. It does need to be a high dynamic range image to work well, meaning that the pixel values are based upon physical intensities. So if you just drop an ordinary image into the environment slot, you're not going to get good image based lighting. It does need to be a special high dynamic range image. Let's add one. In the rendering menu, open up environment. In the environment tab, in common parameters, we see environment map. Click the big button labeled none. And you get the material map browser window. Navigate to maps, OSL, which is open shading language, environment, and select HDRI environment, which is a special map which has a lot of controls to color correct a high dynamic range environment. Select that, and click okay. Then we get…

Contents