www.kraytracing.com

Just a collection of my renders

Good job

i suggest you using hdri . u will get really nice color and realisme . +phyksky only sun . kill lightwave light "distant light" and uncheck "Ingore lightwave backdrop" from physky kray .

Well I never realy managed to get good results with HDRI, maybe because I don't have good enough HDRI images.
I always render Physky (LW SUN ignored ofcourse) with ignored LW backdrop and sometimes a dome to 'fill in some shadows'

I suggest do not use HDRi. Information of light in these images are not good. Photon Map is not clean (hot photons) affect errors and problem with reflections. I know in the web are nice renders based on HDRi but still for exteriors is not good choice. Even worse situation is to use them in interiors - this affect more errors because photon comes from source of light which is not organized (HDRi) get worst after many bounce lights in rooms - this affect color leaks, etc.

Anyway, Physky is the best solution (perfect gradient photons - which reduce errors) and I have new solution for that: Physky with Spot Light from LW. The model of Physky is old and is quite difficult to get good effect from this source of light (colors).

here few exmple render with hdri idid some old and some new .and +physky sun from kray .

other one . some new and some old .

other one

all thos render is use any hdri image u habe its works . ofocurse with good kray sun position . and good tonmeping its done . hdri just give u mood and lighting . and u can tweak dat mood as u want .

as janusz said he is right . pohontmaping hot . not good but if u add gamma they will be good . when using hdri in envirement . spherical ball Y axis . its done . + gama 2. and over up to 6 or 7 . i never up it into 7. but as i said its depend hdri u use . any hdri u think exterior its good .

Also good stuff

yes renders are good indeed, but I have been trying with HDRI many times and couldn't get it right (that must be me)
And as always too little time to do much experimenting

AVLKray wrote:yes renders are good indeed, but I have been trying with HDRI many times and couldn't get it right (that must be me)
And as always too little time to do much experimenting

It is not about You Generally HDRi in my opinion is useless technology (there are some situation when they are necessary). Using HDRi for exteriors is waste time for interiors the most horrible choice. Of course you can notice some really nice renders on the web based on HDRi but this maps are high quality, has good information of light inside (without "hot pixels" so quality again) and sometimes are special part of engine which helps render with HDRi and avoid problems with them.
Render with HDRi maps are:
- ugly with colors (you can desaturate them of course)
- produce a lot bad photos (hot photons)
- gradient of light in these maps are much more "brutal" then Physky
- simulation of colors and light far away from Physky perfection
- to receive Sun effect from HDRi (no cloudy map) you must tweak HDRi map (exposure, tone mapping) which affect a lot problems and errors in render because you must deal with very "brutal" photons solution (lets call this as forcing whole photon map solution which is very FRAGILE generally)

Many people use this because they think this is solution for light but ONLY proper solution is PHYSKY. ONLY Physky give perfect gradient of light according to physics, Photon Map from Physky is clean, well balanced and this affect later better (natural) render. Final Gathering is based on Photon Map and if this map (as source of information for GI samples) is bad then you will have also GI bad. So idea is to RECEIVE as much is possible CLEAN Photon Map in first seconds of render when Kray shoot photons. HDRi will never give you clean solution.
In Kray 3.0 we have new system of Physky (based on fresh science research and mathematician formulas) and this light in future will be solution for many problems.