Indigo Renderer Forum

First off, I apologize if I this has already been addressed -- I spent some time searching but couldn't find anything that addressed my question.

I'm using SketchUP [skindigo 1.0.9] and Indigo [1.0.9] and have been trying to use HDRIs for the background with no success.
I've already converted the .hdr files I had to .exrs with picturenaut and don't have trouble rendering with the physical sky but every time I've tried to render with an exr the render will startup but will only be black.

The radio button is checked for environment and I haven't been able to find a tutorial telling how to do this.
Does the gain setting affect this? Or the Lat/Lon. setting?

Thanks in advance.

are you using camera tonemapping? If so, you might have to increase the gain setting of the EXR.

If you are using Reinhard tonemapping and you have meshlights in your scene (emitting materials), it is possible that the meshlights are overpowering the EXR lighting and making it look black.

Is there any output at all? Or is the entire image completely black?

Thanks for the quick response [and the excellent work in skindigo!]

I had been using the camera tonemapping. When I changed it to reinhard it worked perfectly. To get the camera tonemapping to work, though, I had to use a shutter speed of ~1, in iso of ~1000 and the gain completely maxed out.
The camera is what I'd been normally using and this is the first time I've had to use such extreme settings. It is very possible that I haven't set everything up correctly... but it does seem like a bug.

I've noticed too, dsarchs: when using exr files the normal values you use for camera-tonemap the image go slightly bad. Have you tried pumping up to 1.000.000 the exr gain?

If gain remains at 1, it is (I guess) like mapping the whole brightness from 0 to 1 where only the very brightest parts would get visible....

Indeed , I noticed this as well.
I guess this would be a good reason to have multilight so we can change light intensities on the fly while rendering using sliders.
It is a bit difficult now to predict which light intensity values to use.