Location of the original world HDRI environment map As you can see the names used internally in Blender and the actual file names are different this makes searching for them difficult so I am sharing the list here: City: Portland Landing Pad Courtyard: Courtyard Forest: Ninomaru Teien Interior: Hotel Room Night: Moonless Golf Studio: Studio Small Sunrise: Spruit Sunrise Sunset: Venice Sunsets They are all available on HDRI Haven

I recently had a problem with the V-Ray license server on Windows returning and error -200 when I tried to render. It turns out the error is because the VRL service wasn’t running and no amount of reinstall and reboots helped. Thanks to the help of friend I was able to resolve the issue by deleting a folder located at: C:\Program Files\Common Files\ChaosGroup Uninstall the License Server from the machine Then delete the folder <code>C:\Program Files\Common Files\ChaosGroup Reboot the machine to reset the Windows Services Install the License server, it should ask for log in data now.

vrimg files are not associated with any program in Windows by default, they may be associated with the Chaos Group PD Player. Also it doesn’t appear that open with creates an association as expected therefore one may have to use the command line function ftype to achieve the desire association. The general way to associate files using terminal commands is as follows: Open cmd.exe with administrator rights (right-click on the shortcut to get this option) Type ftype extfile="C:\Program Files (x86)\YourProgram.

These are the basic Shadow Catcher settings I use in Modo. The main thing is the Alpha Contribution set to -1 in the V-Ray Object Properties.

A very interesting article on PolyCount by EarthQuake on the reasons why we need to use more than 8 bits in certain maps and in particular Normal maps. Of Bit Depths, Banding and Normal Maps  This is an issue that pops up more and more frequently these days. Now that many engines/renderers are finally using synced normal map workflows, the weaknesses in our pipeline become easier to spot.

I have been looking at the interesting render abilities of the Marmoset Toolbag 2 physical based render on the Mac. While I like the results a lot I am not convinced of a place for it in my workflow and here is why: The program creates some very impressive results and has a ton of texturing options however it is only able to produce still frame and a turntable as output.