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10+ Free HDRIs - 16000x8000, up to 24 EVs

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gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
Update: I'm now publishing a free 16K HDRI every single Friday - see the latest posts for images or just head here for them all :)

Original post below:



For the past few months I've been working on a dedicated website for all my HDR panoramas called HDRI Haven. In preparation for its launch next week, I've got a little gift for you :)

Usually I only give away small HDRIs (2048 pixels wide or less), but this time you can have five giant HDRIs (16384 x 8192 in resolution). All of them contain the highest dynamic range possible, meaning they'll give you perfectly realistic lighting right off the bat without requiring any complicated node setups.


And some test renders done in Blender to show the lighting that they produce (the HDRIs are the only light source, the node setup is simple):









PS: Sorry for the email form thing, Gumroad is the only decent platform I've found that can host these giant files for free without any kind of annoying speed limiter to get you to pay for it. And no, Dropbox and Drive don't work reliably as hosting platforms, not at this level.

Replies

  • Blond
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    Blond polycounter lvl 9
    Amazing share! WIll be of use to alot here. I'm curious; what type of equipement do you use to get such good quality and how much do you pay for it
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    Thanks! Hope you make something cool with them

    I just have a canon 600d and a 10-18mm lens. The trick is using strong ND filters and some custom software to get the super high dynamic range.
  • battlecow
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    battlecow polycounter lvl 12
    wow this is great stuff, thank you very much.
  • Hito
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    Hito interpolator
    thank you sir!
  • Joost
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    Joost polycount sponsor
    Cool HDRIs, nice to see some competition :) 
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    this is so cool, thanks for giving these :D 
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
  • ant1fact
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    ant1fact polycounter lvl 9
  • Bek
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    Bek interpolator
    I tried the second HDRI you preview in this thread (mpumalanga_veld) and the 16k version is corrupted. (7zip says CRC failed, I haven't yet tried redownloading. Ignore if this is an issue with my end, I just thought I'd mention it). Also, only the 512 res version imports into toolbag 2, none of the others do, though I can probably convert them to a different format.
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    Bek said:
    I tried the second HDRI you preview in this thread (mpumalanga_veld) and the 16k version is corrupted. (7zip says CRC failed, I haven't yet tried redownloading. Ignore if this is an issue with my end, I just thought I'd mention it). Also, only the 512 res version imports into toolbag 2, none of the others do, though I can probably convert them to a different format.
    That's funny, it works fine for me but someone else mentioned it too. Does it open OK in photoshop?

    The zip file should be 381 MB, and the 16k .hdr file should be 370 MB. If the file sizes don't match, maybe the download timed out?
  • Bek
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    Bek interpolator
    No, only the top half is correct, the rest is junk data. Can you make an md5 sum of the proper file? The difference in mb probably won't tell us much. Or just see if the gumroad version is messed up for you as well.
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    Zip file: 35C9C0DB87F1A8B642B2119343A7DCEA
    mpumalanga_veld_16k.hdr: F03121A4CC66493F0F55F9AECCAECA18

    I did download it from gumroad myself, but someone else mentioned an issue with the same file a while ago so I'd just like to double-check it's an incomplete download problem.

  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 18
    gregzaal said:
    Thanks! Hope you make something cool with them

    I just have a canon 600d and a 10-18mm lens. The trick is using strong ND filters and some custom software to get the super high dynamic range.
    Thanks for sharing these! Looks nice.

    I'm curious what tripod/mounting setup you use to get the 360 coverage and also what custom software you are referring to? I've been interested in getting into this for quite some time now but haven't gotten around to it. This made me all the more eager :)
  • Bek
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    Bek interpolator
    gregzaal said:
    Zip file: 35C9C0DB87F1A8B642B2119343A7DCEA
    yeah this doesn't match.
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    Haha wow that was a long time ago! My very first tutorial I think. Damn.
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    kodde said:

    I'm curious what tripod/mounting setup you use to get the 360 coverage and also what custom software you are referring to?
    I got a Panosaurus, which was the cheapest panohead I could find at the time. Gets the job done just fine.

    About the software, I was struggling to get any program to correctly merge the exposure brackets in all cases - some would introduce lots of noise and hot pixels, others would get the brightness all wrong, and others would create artifacts around bright light sources. Having 24 EVs of dynamic range in some HDRIs compounded this problem, so I ended up using Blender's compositor to manually merge the exposures and wrote some tools to automate this process. "Custom software" is perhaps too fancy a term, more like "some scripted hacks upon existing software to get it to do things it was never meant for" :)
  • abcdethan
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    abcdethan polycounter lvl 4
    When you say 24 EVS of dynamic range, what does that mean?  You have 24 EV range per shot?
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 18
    Gregzaal> Cool! Thanks for sharing some insight on this. I'm leaning towards getting a Canon EF-S 10-18mm and Nodal Ninja 3 mk2 to do some panoramas. 
  • BradMyers82
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    BradMyers82 interpolator
    Awesome thank you!  Can never get enough of these hdri's.  Great share.
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    abcdethan said:
    When you say 24 EVS of dynamic range, what does that mean?  You have 24 EV range per shot?
    Yep. Only for HDRIs that need that much of course. Indoor ones can be 12 EVs and still unclipped.
  • pixaeiro
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    pixaeiro polycounter lvl 8
    Fantastic Greg, thank you!
  • AlexanderLawrence
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    AlexanderLawrence polycounter lvl 16
    Thanks very much!
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    So by the way, these 5 HDRIs were just a small teaser for a bigger site that is now live :smiley: 

    All HDRIs and bundles are 50% off until next Monday, but if you'd just like some more free stuff, the 1k resolution versions of every single HDRI can be downloaded for free and used for any purpose, no sign-up required.

    Check it out: https://hdrihaven.com/
  • EarthQuake
    Cool stuff!

    How many sets do you need to take with that 10mm? I'm using the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye, 6 around, 1 up, two down. I get 12x6k files out of a 16mp sensor, so probably not good enough for you if you're looking for 16x8 (though a 24MP Sony E mount body would probably do around ~16x8).

    I'm also curious to know how you're measuring the dynamic range of the files. Lys can read the unique value range and we've done some math to figure out that our Panos get up to about 25 stops of DR, that's with EV sets of 7x2EV or 5x3EV (gives about the same range). So I'm curious to know if that's 24 stops of DR, or if your exposure range is 24 stops of EV (ie, 14x2EV, which would be much more than 24 stops of DR).
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    I shoot vertically and do 9 around for 3 vertical angles, so a total of 27 angles. Plus a zenith and nadir for good measure, though it's technically not necessary (10mm on 1.6 crop sensor = around 90º field of view). If I were a millionaire I'd get that 50MP Canon 5DS with a wide fisheye.

    The exposure range is 24 actual stops. I've had no luck making any sort of accurate measurements, but I'm no mathematician. All software I tried that measures dynamic range gives a different result, so it's not a good metric to compare with other people's HDRIs. Better to use the actual number of stops taken, so 5 shots spaced by 3 EVs (range from 1/4000th to 1 second)  is 12 EVs.
  • EarthQuake
    Well, you wouldn't need 50MP to get 16x8K with a fisheye, again, more like 24MP should do it (rough math says that will give you 18x9k). 27 image sets is a lottttt to process, especially at 24EV.

    If you're taking 24 EV, so about 10x3EV or whatever, you're most likely capturing (or have the potential to capture) well above 24 stops of dynamic range. A single capture in raw at base ISO is about 10-14 stops of DR for reference. I don't really have better advice for measuring though, I only barely understand the math myself. =P

    In all likelihood you're capturing more data than you really need to, which will result in a lot of essentially black frames, and may be why you had problems with various HDR merging software. In my experience, most scenes don't need more than 12EV range, as lot of scenes have significantly less dynamic range than that. The primary exception being the sun if it's not occluded by skies, then 12EV starts to clip unless you underexpose a bit to retain the highlights. Exposing for the highlights rather than the shadows helps in general, and if you're getting bad results with 12EV (like you show on your site), you may have the exposure range set up poorly.

    For example:

    This is 7x2EV, and as you can see, as long as you're maximizing the exposure values, it captures essentially the full range of light, though of course the sun is brighter than it appears there so it's clipping slightly.

    Anyway, you clearly know what you're doing, and if you don't mind the workflow your using there is no reason to change it, but you could probably speed up your capture and processing workflow quite a bit.



  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    That 50MP camera is full-frame, so a 8mm fisheye would be about 132º field of view, which would mean a max resolution of 23k (I think?). A bit overkill, but I can dream :)

    You could capture the full dynamic range of the sun with even 4 EVs, it would just mean the rest of your image would be almost solid black and noisy as crap. Maybe I exaggerate. Likewise you could probably shoot 30 EVs and still clip a light bulb if you really tried (high ISO, start with a very long exposure). This is why even bothering to tell people what EVs of dynamic range you shot is pretty silly in the first place. It just seems to be the standard so people expect to see it. I think it would be fine just stating that an HDRI is unclipped (as long as you don't lie about it like some people do).

    Getting the 24 EVs isn't too inconvenient, and I like to make sure there's plenty of detail in the shadows in case someone wants to use it as a backplate.
  • EarthQuake
    The reason dynamic range is used, is because it measures the actual data captured in the image. An exposure range of 24 stops is just that, an exposure range, so it doesn't tell you anything about the content of the image. Though with 24 EVs, what you're telling us is: it's more than enough. =D

    I have more thoughts on dynamic range but I need to research and verify some assumptions before I go too far here. I think it would be great to have a standardized method for measuring and describing the DR of an HDR file.
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    I think it would be great to have a standardized method for measuring and describing the DR of an HDR file.
    Definitely.
  • EarthQuake
    And as soon as we figure it out your numbers are gonna look better than mine and I will feel bad about myself. Lololol, no seriously though I think it will be handy. =D
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    FYI, I've just swapped these out with 5 different ones, 2 of which are brand new :)

    Get them here.


  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    Just added another 20 HDRIs this week, bringing the total to 85: https://hdrihaven.com/hdris.php?sort=popularity&npp=100

    This one's my favourite :)



  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    Aaaand I added another 5 HDRIs to the free bundle :) meaning there are now 10 full-res (16k) HDRIs with up to 24 EVs of dynamic range available for free: https://hdrihaven.com/bundle.php?b=free_bundle


  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    I may be shouting into the void here, but I've started releasing a new free HDRI every Friday now - in fact these new ones are CC0 so even more free than before ;)

    You can find them at the top here marked with a green "CC0" flag: https://hdrihaven.com/hdris.php?sort=popularity&npp=100

    So far there are 6 of them, but here are 3 of my favourites:







  • gfelton
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    gfelton polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks so much for these dude, these are fucking great. Do you have any problem with me converting these to TBSkies and giving them to some friends? We're always looking for new HDR's to light with. :)
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    Not at all , that's what the CC0 and CC-BY licenses are for :)
  • gfelton
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    gfelton polycounter lvl 6
    Awesome, Thanks!
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    Week #8: Crystal Falls - with an absurd 26 EVs of dynamic range.



  • Elithenia
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    Elithenia polycounter
    Thank you for this ! <3
  • gregzaal
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    gregzaal polycounter lvl 5
    My pleasure :)

    Here are weeks 9, 10 and 11:

    Download


    Download


    Download




  • Elithenia
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    Elithenia polycounter
    This is great stuff :) Thank you
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