Do you usually prefer studio lighting for your stuff, indoor ones or atmospheric nature shit?
Studio. But custom light rigs >>> HDRIs.
>>694222custom light objects/rigs, IES lights for architectural work
>>694224This pretty much. When I'm working on a model I usually use a studio hdri to see how reflections and stuff plays off of it, but when going for final stuff I do custom lighting.
>>694224>But custom light rigs >>> HDRIs.What's wrong with custom light rigs + HDRI?In my experience having a reaaaaaaaally slight HDRI running smoothes out things a lot and makes things look way better.
when you use HDRI do you have to add custom lights to match the lights on the map? Like the sun or studio lights?
>>694262Sometimes. I often add a sun lamp in roughly the same position as the sun in the HDRI to get crisper shadows, or better control over them.
>>694265how do you get shadows at all without lights?
>>694266If you ask about when only using an HDRI, areas of high luminosity in the picture will act as lights and cast shadows accordingly.
>>694267but how do you add a ground plane into the render or should everything be floating?
>>694273halp
>>694273What exactly do you want to achieve?
>>694296i want the object to look like its rooted and sitting on the ground instead of floating in space...
At a job some years ago I used this tool that converted HDRIs into full light rigs at the press of a button, can't remember the name, also never used it again.
