How to use HDRI inside UE4?

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hello friends,

again, a stupid question. how to use, correctly, HDRI?
I watched many video-tutorials, read in the forum, but I’m not able to understand how to use correctly an HDRI in long-lat version

() Empty scene
() Import a 4096x2048 HDRI
() Create a plane
() Create a sphere on the plane
() Add a Skylight
() SLS specified Cubemaps
() Add a HDRI in the Cubemaps Skylight
() Reduce the intensity of Cubemaps light

**QUESTION 1: **
Ok, but, now, my background is dark. I want to add my HDRI as a background. How to do that?
Step by step, if it’s possible =)

**QUESTION 2: **
Also, I see that in the PostProcessVolume, there is a Ambient Cubemap: what’s the difference with the Skylight?
I read the giude, but I didn’t understand well.

Thank!

2

Q1: Check out this thread: How to implement a standard cubemapped skybox? - Pipeline & Plugins - Epic Developer Community Forums

Q2: AFAIK, the skylight can be set to static so Lightmass uses the HDRI image to create lightmaps. In the case of the PostProcessVolume the lighting coming from the HDRI image is 100% dynamic and Lightmass ignores it.

3

Thanks. I’m fighting all day with UE4. I real 90% of the reference on the website. Also in Russian! =)
I don’t know why it’s so complicated to use an HDRI to lighting a simple scene… O__O I’m shocked…
I download:

() ATI - Cubemapgen v1.1
() HDRShop
() NVidiaTool
() Flexify 2

And I’m not able to understand how to do.

I open Advance lighting SCENE sample, but the BP_Lightstage it’s too complicated for a newbie…

Thanks for the tips about HDRI =)
A good, simple tutorial it’s very useful with

How to use and HDRI to illuminate a simple scene…

4

Ok,
I created my persona: a big mesh from 3ds max, and I follow this tutorial. I didn’t used the defaulf. I want to understand every step!
I drag&Drop my in the viewport I’m able to see my Cubemap. Great!. But, when I add a skylight object and click “build”, my geometry are black
If I add a simple big sphere with white self illuminated material, with default Skylight parameters, I’m able to see a good, diffuse, white illumination.
If I change the Skylight to SLS specified Cubemap and I use the same dss that I created, the light in the viewport is good!
I think I missed some step.

Where is the problem? Can you help me?

5

Hwre the file.
It’s my first UE project XD

— DOWNLOAD —](http://www.francescolegrenzi.com/Temp/UE4/01_Test_GI_01.rar)

6

a little UP =) I didn’t find how to get light from IBL or cubemap =(

7

Ok, my solution?

() I created a big sphere in 3ds max, imported in UE4
() I create a simple missive material in UE4 with HDRI (long-lat version) as a emissive texture (3 vector -> ReflectionVectorWS-> TextureSample(HDRI)-> Multiplier (* with 1constant) —> EMISSIVE)
(*) Add a SkyLight in the scene.

Done!

I don’t know if it’a the correct workflow, but it’s works!

8

That’s how I’ve done it.