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HDRI real-world creation
Hi everyone
I’m going to be FX supervising a couple of shoots soon (strictly amateur related) and was wondering about the best way to go about building HDRI on location.
Should I:
1) Take a bunch of photos and stitch them together in Photoshop? (Is there a better cheap piece of software)
2) Use the limited panorama features on my camera and then stitch those together?
3) Use a camcorder to quickly scan the entire environment to stitch together latter?
4) Buy a 360 lens? (do such things exist?)
And do I need to worry about creating a texture for a sky object, or should I aim to create a cylinder texture?
Graham
http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
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1 Reply
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Creating panoramic HDRs is not an easy thing to do. First, you can’t just snap a normal photo or series of photos. HDRIs require multiple exposures (bare minimum of three) for each frame at different shutter speeds, which must then be combined in an application like PS. It’s possible to do with a regular camera, tripod, and panoramic head, but with so many exposures it can be a challenge to get everything to line up.
Another option is to photograph a mirrored ball, which can be anywhere from around 4″ to 16″, and then use a polar coordinates filter to unwrap. That can be effective for capturing the scene’s lighting, but it won’t give you a high-quality image to use as a background.
There are dedicated rigs you can buy for creating highrez HDRIs, but they are quite pricey. It may be possible to rent one, but I don’t have a source offhand.
I don’t know if they’re still available, but there used to be a company that made a special lens for snapping 360 panos in one shot with select digicams. These were relatively affordable, but of course you’d have limited resolution with that.
hth
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