HDRIs using Vray 1.5 RC3 Renderer in 3DS Max 9

Well, the scene is more ambient and bright now. But we have a certain problem here. The scene is having many artifacts; for example take a look at the gates; looks quite ugly, doesn't it? So here we change a few settings.

In the Indirect Illumination section of the render settings, choose "Irradiance Map" as GI Engine in Primary bounces and scroll just below to change the Irradiance Map settings

Now render this and see the difference. It will ofcourse take a bit more time as the settings are further raised to higher quality and when texture maps and ligts are put up, but will give much better results.

Ok. Work for HDRI's ambience in our scene done, lets move ahead. For this scene we'll also be putting the same HDRI as our background image. For this, first open the "Environment and Effects" dialogue(shortcut key 8). Now just drag the VrayHDRI map from the Material Editor(or from the Environment section in render settings, as both are the same) and drop on the "Environment Map" of the "Environment and Effects" dialogue and again say "Instance".

By the way, you can also see the image you just loaded in the environment by pressing 'Alt B', which gives you "Viewport Background" dialogue and selecting the given below setting:

If by chance you still don't see it, just right click on the name of your viewport(eg: Perspective, Top, Camera02, etc) and select "Show Background". You'll now be able to see the HDRI you just loaded in the renderer as well as your environment in you viewport.

Now that we have loaded the HDRI in our Environment, lets see a render.

And wow! we have a ready made background perfectly suiting the the ambience of the scene ;) (or vice-versa...hehe)