How to set background for exterior landscape

[slava1989slava]

Reference video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UwOrl036_A&t=59s      1:11-1:14

In the video above in timestamps camera slightly rotates.

I use Vray and hdri image inside dome light for reflection.

My question is how to set up background image as in reference? by background I refer to sky and smoke, Landscape horizon.

I assume I'll have to matte paint the image in photoshop(smoke and sky) but how should I implent it into 3ds max Vray?

[RobH2]

There are a number of things you can do, like most things in Max. One way is to make a cylinder and delete the top and bottom. Flip all the faces so they point inwards. Make the cylinder's diameter really large outside of all of your scene elements. Map the background scene you've made or found to that cylinder. 

If you don't turn around much, you can tile it so it fills your camera view and you don't see where the tile edges are. You can adjust it so those tile edges are just out of frame on the right and left of your camera's view. You can also drag that same image into your 'Self illumination' slot in the material and set the 'Dome' light to exclude it. That way you can control it's brightness independently. If it's far enough away, your ground texture can just blend into it and it will look seamless. You'll have to play with it and be creative. 

[slava1989slava]

Hi, thanks for answering.

I wonder if mapping geometry plane bend/cylinder cutout result in photorealistic result or at least to a point that viewer eye won't catch it. What other alternatives do I have? I know of environment slot with spherical mapping but that's about it. 

[RobH2 · Accepted solution]

Yes, it can look absolutely photo real and amazing with some care and craft.

Those are probably the two main methods, a cylinder around the outside or an equirectangular image on a sphere in the environment slot. You don't even have to put it in the environment slot, you can just put a sphere around everything just like the cylinder. That's how I did it in the old days. With VRay you can now have multiple Dome lights. One can be light and the other background. Explore that as well. 

If it's a photograph, it will look as real as the photo does. You just have to make sure it's far enough away that the lack of parallax is not obvious. But, if it's distant mountains, you don't see any parallax when it's miles away. If the cylinder is of a cityscape around a high rise and the cylinder is 30 feet away from your balcony, it can look strange if you move the camera too much. You'll have to play with it. 

Lastly, there are plenty of tutorials on the web. Try some of them out. 

[slava1989slava]

Thanks for reply and explanation. Tutorials are helpful when individual knows what he is looking for. In my case I'm looking for methods which out there and I don't know about them.