360 HDR skies for sale?

Eric Chadwick

Looking for some HDR skies I can convert to 1024^2 cubemaps. Can anyone recommend something?

These guys have a great set, but their license is horrendously limiting. We distribute the cubemaps unencrypted to the client, so their license won't work. Gonna ask them if they can budge, but I doubt it.
http://hyperfocal.vismasters.com/catalog/viewproduct.aspx?product=3611
The quality is spot-on. The medium-res images are 2048 tall which means I can get a perfect 1024 cube.

Anything similar out there? Has to be HDR too. I need about five of them.

Dosch has some, but they look a bit too CG, ala Dreamscape or Terragen. I could make my own Dreamscape skies, but I just don't have the time.
https://doschdesign.com/e_product/indexsample.php?id=226

Joshua Stubbles

Are you looking for outdoor or indoor environments HDR's?

Eric Chadwick

Skies only, no foreground, no landscape on the horizon. Actually just the dome itself, the upper half of the cubemap. I'd generate the bottom (solid color, w/ gradient falloff toward horizon).

Blue sky with puffy clouds, overcast stormy, glorious sunset, blue sky with high-alt. cirrus, skies like this. Photosource would be best.

HDR a must, though only about 4 stops needed.

IronHawk

Here is something that might work for you.

http://www.hyperfocaldesign.com/

Daz

doh

Eric Chadwick

They won't change their licensing, so no go.

Gonna have to make my own in Dreamscape. Ugh. Well, at least I get total control. We're also looking at shooting our own, might work out OK.

IronHawk

lol...

Sorry Eric read this thread fast and just posted on the fly.

EarthQuake

Eric: We shoot our own and it works out really well, we have some badass paneramic camera or somesuch. I'm pretty sure a lot of work goes into compositing them into files we can use in game, but i definately think it would be well worth it for you to look into it.

Eric Chadwick

Hey thanks EQ. I just ordered a 12" polished stainless steel gazing ball. Gonna epoxy on some 1/4" hexnuts, so I can mount it on a tripod.

Trouble is, finding wide-open accessible vantage points around Boston. So wooded around here.

Scott Ruggels

Ask any of the local bank buildings or office towers if you can accett their roofs to take the Photos.

Scott

Eric Chadwick

Thanks man. There are some highrises around here, but problem is I need access at a moment's notice, pretty skies don't tend to schedule themselves nicely.

Got a couple farm fields near home, gonna try those. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Eric Chadwick

Well, got something workable.



This is before cleaning up the horizon. Worked OK, though the ball has a noticeable seam and it's kind of lumpy here and there. Not a worry for the current project, I'm painting out the land entirely. Only have a 5mp camera, so the src is max 2592x1944 res. Doesn't matter that much though because the damn clouds move too fast, ghosting the HDR. Pisses me off! Oh well, first try.

I'm thinking about getting something like this.
http://www.mab3d.com/temp/ot3d/3shothdr1.html

Eric Chadwick

Ahh, got much better results now. Faking the HDR from a single under-exposure, but works great. Ditched the globe in favor of stitching together multiple shots. Higher-res, no distortions, and Canon's stitcher tool works great.

Justin Meisse

Eric, did you photograph that with the gazing ball? I've got a cannon point and shoot so I probably have the same stitching software and this is what I got from my vacation photos:

the problem might be the fact that I didn't use a tripod, just plastered the camera to my face and shuffled around about half a circle.

Eric Chadwick

Heheh, yeah that's what I got before I used a tripod. Using a Canon s50 I took one pano set horizontal, another going vertical. Then I took the stitched results into Max, mapped them onto spheres, and used gradients for opacity. It was a quick way to combine them into a single spherical panorama (or at least just the top hemi in my case). Then used Max's Panorama render to output a lat/long image, Photoshop to dupe/blur the bottom half and make a semi-HDR version for the alpha channel (we multiply the rgb by the alpha when the cube is used for reflection/refraction, works surprisingly well, makes a quickie HDR-style material), then finally take the latlong back into Max to convert to a cubemap.

Thegodzero

Good tips eric!


now i just need to get a new camera...

kat

So you're just taking *normal* panoramic photographs and then processing those in via 3D? Have to try this in Blender see if it works as it's really good tip!

Eric Chadwick

Yeah, normal camera, only 5 megapixel. Any cam will do, as
long as you can lock the exposure.

Hmmm, forgot. I used Canon's stitcher only for the vertical... the horizontal
I had to piece together in Photoshop. Pretty quick though, quicker (and better) than
Canon's software.





I think their stitcher only creates a "straight" image when the camera is panned perpendicular
to the left/right edges. So for a 360° horizon, have to keep it vertically-centered on the horizon.
Not good for me, I wanted the horizon at the bottom of the frame. PS is fast though... drag/drop,
erase the edge, load the next image, drag/drop. Then clone out the buildings and make the sides tile.

In Max, here's how I set up the geoms. I'd be surprised if Blender couldn't do it.


The horizontal. Default sphere UVs, twiddled the bitmap tile/offset spinners, turned off
tiling checkboxers.


Copied for the vertical, just rotated the sphere and scaled it down a bit.


Added a gradient opacity.


Render from a camera in the center. Tip... Panorama Exporter only likes it when the camera is level,
otherwise the latlong will be skewed.

Hope this helps. After all that crap with the ball, it was so cool when this worked out.

kat

Mucho thanks for the mini tute (I was going to ask ;o) ). Sometimes we over complicates things I guess (the ball) so this seems perfect for game related content (low cost in terms of money and materials a definate 'plus' for none Pros). *thumbsup*

Eric Chadwick

The ball (or fisheye lens) is still needed if you have to get multiple exposures, HDRI. In my case, the cloud movement proved too troublesome, even if I shot my exposures superfast I still got ghosting.

Justin Meisse

I've been experimenting with one of those door peep holes as a fish eye lens, if I can get one of those canon point and shoot lens adapters on the cheap I'll see about modding it so I don't have to hold it to the camera lens with my hand. The fisheye could stand for a good washing too:

Eric Chadwick

Hahah Justin that's hilarious! Looks like 120°? Take a look at this guys tut, might give you some ideas, his $$ lens seems about the same fov. If you can pan the cam at an angle, you could probably get a 360 sphere.
http://www.mab3d.com/temp/ot3d/3shothdr1.html

I wonder if the blue ringing is from the craptastic peep lens, or from the cam? PS has a nice raw CRW importer, lets you remove the cyan and orange fringes, might be worth a shot.