[HDR-photo] New to the list

[listmail at mab3d.com]

On Mar 15, 2007, at 3:49 AM, Nigel Harniman wrote:

> Hi All
>
> I have been working in the field of CGI for over two years now & the
> reality of the situation is that spherical HDRI are useful, but not
> essential to the CG artist.

Absolutely true. Having been a CGI artist for over 15 years in the  
North American print advertising market, I can attest that there are  
*lots* of different ways to reach photorealism in CGI, and that HDR  
for image-based lighting was only "the flavor of the month" in  
2002-2003. These days it is just a part of a much larger and more  
complex workflow, even though there are plenty of companies hoping to  
sell "CGI in a box" to the unsuspecting.

Still, the post-processing of HDR images into lower-bit images (by  
tonemapping, etc.) has become more important for the CGI artist to  
understand, as our renderers and compositing software can now work  
almost entirely in 32-bit, and there are significant gains to be made  
in image quality for those who understand HDR beyond the  
oversimplified "light probe" idea.

> There is a lot of hype surrounding CGI in the car market - we haven't
> re-invented the wheel - it is just another tool in the box. An  
> expensive
> tool at that on a shot rate basis compared to 'conventional'
> photography.
> The Americans were there in CG cars way before us & many have come &
> gone.

As one of the Americans involved (and still around) I can also say  
that HDR and CG shouldn't be any more expensive than a conventional  
shoot. In fact, we started doing it because it was tremendously  
cheaper than conventional photography in those situations that  
warrant it (impossible locations, pre-production prototypes, etc.)  
Today it seems that many are simply enamored of the whole "3D  
photoshoot" and use it even when a photograph and retouching (both  
still a part of really good CGI) would easily do better on their own.  
The only upside is that 3D hard- and software makers have yet another  
market to keep them in business, and HDR has more "cachet" (and  
tools) than it did back when I started using it.

-Mark

BTW, I like the work you did with AIR, Nigel. But I'm confused about  
air-cgi.com, since on www.airender.com it says the same group  
disbanded. Maybe you should have the ARTVPS folks link to that  
hyphenated site instead.