C4D and VRAY - lighting the scene with one HDRI - part 2

In this tutorial we learn how to make lighting the scene with one HDRI more comfortable. Unfortunately, this technique has its limits, especially by setting the scene.


First big help is Vray Domelight Texture Viewer, what you can find inside top menu/plugins/vraybridge..../

Now choose light with HDRI inside object manager and hit preview texture in viewer.

If the HDRI is good for lighting and correctly set, you can see sun object inside the preview. Only if you used Layers shader you wont see preview.

You can have this preview open and set rotation of light or scene, but I use other helper: false sun. Then you dont have new window open and you can set light rotation exactly.

This helper is made of two objects: fake sun and spline from it to the center of scene.


Its made easily: select your camera and change its position to 0,0,0. Turn on Vray Domelight Texture Viewer and rotate camera view until its centered on HDRI sun. Next create f.e. sphere and copy rotation angles from camera to it. Now just move it away from the center by the axis that show towards center.

Create 2-point line spline, in point mode set one point to 0,0,0, other to center of fake sun.

Select both objects in manager and set them like this:

Make both objects child of light object. Now you can rotate light in horizontal axis (ZX) together with fake sun and it will exactly show you direction of the shadows from HDRI.

Dont rotate light around other axis as Y (horizontal), DomeLight does not support it. If you need other vertical angle of shadows, choose other HDRI. Worst case scenario, you can rotate whole scene without light, but the you cannot use HDRI as background or for reflections then.