how to get lighting from hdri map?

anonymous_user_c5ae40b0 · February 12, 2017, 1:46pm

hello
one sphere with inverted normals and covered whole scene. sphere have hdri texture in emissive color channel.
why the sphere doesn’t give light after build lighting?

anonymous_user_07ba773b · February 12, 2017, 2:08pm

One possible reason this might not be working for you: make sure you have the ‘Sky Distance Threshold’ on your SkyLight set to something lower than the size of your mesh (it’s in the properties of the SkyLight under ‘Light’).

The default value for this number is quite high (150,000) and so if your mesh is smaller than that threshold, then it won’t be considered as part of the lighting calculation.

So for example, if your sphere hdri mesh is 1000 units/metres wide, then you need to set the Sky Distance Threshold to less than 1000.

anonymous_user_c94f194d · February 13, 2017, 9:30am

Make sure you have enabled “Use Emissive for Static Lightning” for that mesh.

ZacD · February 13, 2017, 10:59am

Don’t use a giant sphere in the scene. Use a skylight with the cubemap.

anonymous_user_07ba773b · February 13, 2017, 11:26am

@ZacD: what’s the issue with using a giant sphere?

ZacD · February 13, 2017, 11:32am

Using a giant sphere isn’t the intended way of lighting a scene. The quality from Use Emissive for Static Lightning isn’t very high.

anonymous_user_07ba773b · February 13, 2017, 11:37am

Ah, thanks!

anonymous_user_c94f194d · February 13, 2017, 12:17pm

SkyLight with SLS captured scene can be used for same quality.

CreativeVilla · February 13, 2017, 2:48pm

Make sure the shadow casting for the sphere is turned OFF , or as mentioned emissive only which defaults to no shadows. Use the Sphere for the background image, but not the lighting. Drag a skylight into the scene, and right away it will start looking much better. Then you can map the skylight with an HDR, and go from there. OR use the same image as the background image on the sphere as your Skylight map.

anonymous_user_c5ae40b0 · February 17, 2017, 9:56am

thanks for answers.
workflow with skylight + hdri at sls specified cube map slot don’t work well. shadows pretty poor and dont precise like with same hdri with corona render or vray in the 3ds max.
so how i can get similar pricese shadows and lighting from hdri map like vray or corona render in UE? or it impossible?

corona render hdri(environment slot)

ue4 same hdri(skylight SLS) after build light

aslo this simple UE4 project: dropmefiles . com/X40L0

TAXI · February 20, 2017, 4:55pm

My version. UE4: Sky light + HDRI + direct light

Wilkes · February 20, 2017, 5:26pm

coloss85, is your skylight casting shadows?

TAXI · February 23, 2017, 12:07am

UE4 Forest Light

GVWorks · June 15, 2017, 4:07am

I suppose it’s just a Sun with some rotate tweaking

syrom · November 4, 2017, 10:27am

Wait… so to use a hdri all u have to do is put it in the skylight and set to sls cube?