3ds max 2017 Art Rending HDRI + Physical Sun & Sky Environment

[Anonymous]

So with the Art render I can not seem to mix an HDRI with the Physical Sky.

With iRay my set up looked like this:

And try diong the same thin with Art materials:

But I keep getting the error - Material/Map name 'Sun (Physical Sun & Sky Environment)' is not supported - ignored.

This results in me losing complete control of the sun, the tint, position of the sun, sun rays coming, ect.

My question: Is there a way to mix the two. Have the Physical Sun & Sky in my Environment slot but have the HDRI as my Background/Reflections (With out going back to old school Dome/Cylinder back drops)?

[Anonymous]

So, I wanted to add more to this to show the difference in quality of the renders. Also adding the files for better understanding.

Here is 2016 iray rendering with my HDRI and Physical sky mix.

Here is the Art Render with the the same set up, but it ignores the the physical sky. it ends up just using the HDRI, and I lose the sun.

 

Here I just use the Physical sky, So I lose the feel of the environment(HDRI)

Please let me know if anyone has any idea or fixes for this. With out sky domes.... . .   .    .

Files:

[jon.bell]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for posting these examples. I'll play with this today and also ping our ART render experts and get you an answer as soon as I can.

Best regards,

Jon A. Bell

Autodesk Technical Support

[Anonymous]

Thank you. Look forward to what you guys come up with. Also, I haven't played with it yet so forgive me if this is an option. But the shadows are crisp on the ART render.

and are not soft lie the iRay Render. It losses the realism a bit. Is there a way to soften the shadows?

Thanks Again!

[jon.bell]

Hi Tom,

My apologies for not responding sooner -- I was at an Autodesk conference for much of this week and only returned last night.

The ART Renderer is still relatively new, and the Scene Converter doesn't yet completely switch all previous/existing mental ray rendering features, such as the Sun/Sky functionality, so I don't believe you can really mix the two at this point. However, we may be updating the Scene Converter in the future, so I'll keep monitoring this.

A high-quality, "true" 16-bit HDRI map should be able to provide you with both good-quality lighting and soft shadows, but I'll check into seeing how you may be able to soften shadows from existing ART lights as well. Since ART is a physically-based renderer, have you tried moving your light source further away from your scene subjects and then adjusting the intensity and falloff?

Please let me know, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Jon A. Bell

Autodesk Technical Support