HDRi Maker

Description

What is HDRi Maker?

HDRi Maker Studio is an addon for Blender that will allow you to use a large library of Backgrounds of almost 500 HDR and EXR images included, with a lot of tools to create domes and customize them to project the backgrounds on them, you can also import or create HDR directly from your scene, manage the lights, the sun, the shadow catcher in Eevee and Cycles.
The addon was created in 2019 and since then I have been updating it continuously, until today with this new version!
Below you will find a description that I hope will satisfy your curiosity.
Andrew_D

The tiger model is rendered in a HDRi Maker dome with Cycles:

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New and customizable domes with the new Hook system!

In this new version of HDRi Maker Studio I have introduced 2 new types of dome, one in the shape of a Cube and one in the shape of a Cylinder, these can be modified in their perimeter thanks to the new “Hooks” functionality, this allows you to match the geometries present in the images, in order to have a wall in the point and simulate the environment where the HDR was taken.

The hook system in action:

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The new Light Studio Tools

This fantastic feature allows you to create with one click a solid color backdrop and the lights to illuminate your model to the best, Taking advantage of the soft shapes of the dome, you will have a smoothed lighting, great for rendering 3D objects.
Example with Cycles render preview:

In action with Eevee render preview:

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Difference between a projected HDR and not

In the first case, classic HDR applied to the Background. No Zoom, No ground.
With just 1 click you can have the dome and the ground, with shadows and zoom.

Preview with Eevee:

Render with Cycles:

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Edit the ground to make it more realistic

With the HDRi Maker Wrap system you can deform the ground of the Domes using any object, you can create hills mountains or simply an uneven ground matching the original image. As always, you can also import your HDR / EXR images and use them as backgrounds.

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Volumetric Fog animatable

A new section dedicated to the management of the volumetric fog has been introduced, this is located in the “Volumetric” section and allows you to manage the animatable volumetric fog in a simple and fast way, with a click you add it and you can modify it as you like.

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Shadow Catcher works in Cycles and Eevee

The shadow catcher normally works only in Cycles, with the help of HDRi Maker you can use it also in Eevee, in addition you can also add reflections on it. This is useful if you want transparency using the lighting of an HDR / EXR

(This fantastic free model “Lightning Mage” was created by “Adipriatna” under CC-BY license and you can find it here)

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Blur on the dome

At the request of many users, I have inserted the possibility of simulating the Blur directly on the Dome and also on the Background. It works according to the point of view even in Preview mode, without having to use the camera.

This render shows the Blur on the dome, rendered with Cycles:

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Here is the new HDRi Maker interface

This new interface was built on the basis of the previous one because it was much appreciated, now it has been improved making the sections independent, you can move them where you like and you can also hide them if you don’t need them.

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Create HDR from your scene

With this feature you can create HDR directly from your scene, you can choose the resolution and the number of samples and save in the USER library to reuse them in the future.

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Example of two types of Domes external view

In this example 2 types of Domes, in order the first is an hemisphere, the second is a Cube, adapted with the Hooks system:

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Almost 500 Backgrounds included

All backgrounds are well categorized in Libraries / Categories with tags and an easy to use search system.

Import and use your HDR / EXR images

There are many sites out there where you might have downloaded HDR or EXR images, The nice thing is that you can import your HDR or EXR images on the fly and use them as if they were those of the HDRi Maker Studio library. This allows you to use them in the dome or simply as a background for your scene, taking advantage of all the features of HDRi Maker Studio!

Note: You can also import in Batch your HDR and save them in a category of HDRi Maker, this allows you to create a library in one go by selecting all your HDR / EXR files contained in your folder. Previews will be created automatically!

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Solid color background with HDR lighting

From the 3.0 Version (Studio) it is possible to set a solid or gradient color as a background, while maintaining the HDR lighting of the Background (This feature was really requested by many users, so thank you to all those who wrote to me for this function).

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New and beautiful documentation

I put in every section of HDRi Maker Studio, direct links to the documentation, this makes it much easier the learning of the features, just click on the icons (?) To open the online documentation. In addition, new documentation has been written from scratch, it is much more complete and well structured than before, and it is constantly evolving.

Documentation link: https://hdri-maker.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

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Here are some features that include HDRi Maker Studio:

• 361 HDR in version 1k/2k/4k/8k/16k (This depends on the version you buy)
• 119 EXR from HdrMaps in version 1k/2k/4k/8k/10k (These are present in all versions)
• Light Studio to manage the sun and lights
• Domes (5 types) 3 Variants in the shape of an hemisphere, 1 in the shape of a cube and 1 in the shape of a cylinder
• Ground Projection (To project even on objects different from the dome)
• Shadow Catcher
• Volumetric (To create effects like fog/dust)
• Wrap (To deform the ground) – Blur (To add blur effect)
• Hooks (To modify the perimeter of the dome)
• Save System To save your Backgrounds – Import your HDR / EXR images on the fly
• Import in batch your HDR / EXR images and save them in the library
• Create HDR from your scene
• Manage procedural nodes directly from the interface
• My assistance if there are any problems or bugs 😎👍
• Documentation here

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Did you already buy HDRi Maker?

Update it! it’s free as always, follow the installation guide of the documentation:  https://hdri-maker.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html

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Here’s which versions of Blender HDRi Maker Studio works

HDRi Maker Studio (That is, the 3.0 version of HDRi Maker) Work on Blender 3.0 and up, Suggested to have at least version 3.3 LTS, or better yet 3.4 In addition, be careful, HDRi Maker has been tested on the official versions of Blender, that is, those you can download for free from the website https://www.blender.org/ This addon is compatible with Cycles and Eevee, other render engines that do not use the official Blender nodes will not work.

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Assistance

Oh Yes!!!

If you need assistance, write to me within 24h.