June - 4F's work in progress

[Rick 4F]

Screenshot where I'm currently creating a HDRI (bottom right tiny square) of this Cinema 4D scene to complete some additional items I need to finish of next image. Because those items (chains  and maybe a few cables) have reflection I need to render them inside the scene to have them properly 'melt' into the environment.

Now the big problem is that environment (the scene) is rather large and takes "ages" to preview in the view window. Then I remembered I could create an HDR image based off this scene, put that HDRI into a new empty scene on a sky object and have all the light information present without all the things that slow the original scene down. Ces très simple. 

[Rick 4F]

And after a bit and a re-render because instead of clicking the screenshot away I clicked (Ignoring the warning) the 3d scene that was rendering away... ? something like this (this is sized down but you get the picture).

For those who want to know how to set this up I made the following chart with explanation;

So how do you create an HDRI from your own Cinema 4D scene file? Well easy, once you have your scene file ready and properly lit and texturized you add a small 50-100 CM sphere at the center of it then you:

1 - Give that sphere a 100% reflective texture, and nothing else!
2 - Add 2 C4D tags to your sphere. A 'Bake Texture' tag and a 'Compositing' tag.
3 - In the Compositing tag you turn off 'Cast Shadows'.
4 - In the Bake tag under the 'Tag' settings you give your file a name (and location where its saved to).
 4b - You set the Bake tag format to 'HDR'.
 4c - You set a width and height for your HDRI
 4d - Supersampeling can be turned off or on (Be warned it will significantly increase the Bake render time). Read the help files if you're unsure.
5 - In the Bake tag under the 'Options' settings you only switch on 'Reflection'.
6 - Hit the 'Bake' button and sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee or tea.

 

[Rick 4F]

All that^ goes behind some of this (I'm still working on it but it's getting close),

If I would had incorporated 1 girl it would be finished by now. Two latex clad babes just takes a bit longer. 

[furymonkey]

The wait will be worth it :)