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Render infinitely distant (sky-like) illumination and reflection

Work with High Dynamic range images (HDRI)

Cast shadows

 

User Guide > Rendering and Render Setup > Lighting > mental ray for Maya Lighting > Work with High Dynamic range images (HDRI) > 

Render finitely distant illumination and reflection

To render finitely distant illumination and reflection

1. Place your scene into a large sphere.

   This sphere will be used as the light source. (It is geometry that gets tessellated.)

2. Assign a Lambert material to the sphere and set the following attributes:
   • Set colour to white.
   • Set Incandescence to around 70%. (You can later increase or decrease this value to increase or decrease the intensity of the light.)
3. Map the Incandescence to the HDR image you want to use.
4. Render with Final Gather (see Render with final gather), with the Primary Diffuse Scale set to between 50 and 100.
5. Make sure Global illumination is turned on.
6. Tweak the Diffuse attribute of your object's shaders, if necessary.