Hi I understand in order to make an hdri image you need to get an orb...then place the orb in an enviornment you would like to capture the light from and take a picture...but where or what type of orb should i get???thanks so much

thats actually not what you do, but i could be wrong.

you are supposed to take a picture from every angle and then connect them in a program like photoshop. then you need to edit it and save it into 3 different images. make one have blown-out light tones, leave one normal, and in the last one, make the darks dark.
then you use the "merge to HDR" function in photoshop cs3 (or higher) and edit it to your liking. then you save it out as a .HDR file.

its not nearly as simple as taking a picture of a sphere, as far as i know.

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Environment Artist @ Plastic Piranha
www.joopson.com

Soulrider is right joopson.
I had a site where i got my one from ill see if i can find it, try googling chrome spheres or somthing.

And you need a camera that you can change the apature with, but basically you need to take pictures of the chrome ball (they come with a screw hole so you can use a tripod with them), around 8-15 then crompress that into a floating image format in hdrshop or photoshop, You can then change it into an angular map or whatever you want to use it for.

The method joopson is describing is another way to go about doing it however by taking multiple images at different exposures you are taking advantage of the floating format data range as it is designed for. Making the output sharper and more detailed for refelections as well as lighting.

I saw a tutorial on google the other day, don't remember the site it was, but the guy just used a silver christmas ball ornament, the kind you'd put of the christmas tree. the end product turned out pretty good for being cheap

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- Mike

https://rhetoriccamel.blogspot.com

Yeah I've created some hdr images and its just like LauriePriest says.
Best option is to go to a garden centre where they usually sell big silver sphere ornaments for the garden. They are very lightweight (hollow) but dont like being bashed about.
The bigger the better as well as not all cameras have super zoom to frame the sphere in well. The further away you are when photographing the sphere at the different exposures, the less you are actually in it too.
Instructions on what to do from there (and software to make the hdr images) are at:
https://www.hdrshop.com/

You'll want the free version (v1)

Have fun and I hope you pick it up and create some hdr images that we can all use

Si

Edit: gazing spheres seem to be one name for them and an example link on a gardening site is here:
https://www.primrose-london.co.uk/sta...FQQdEgodqHQm2Q

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Spot on Si!

To be honest ive never seen them in a garden, maybe its just 3d people that keep them in business!!

Or another option is wait till Christmas till all the decorations come out, you can sometimes get a christmas decoration that you can use too!

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"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

hehe, you're probably right Steve. The closest I saw before that was those water feature balls, pretty similar but a lot heavier with a pump etc - not easy to carry around!

Yeah, christmas baubles are another good one too, again the bigger the better.(and without glitter on )

The first thing I used was actually the back of a deep silver ladle. More or less spherical and a bit dented but it created the first 2 HDR images I did, available for download at:
https://www.flash-fx.net/3D/ (scroll down a bit till you see the hdr screengrabs and you can download them from the links)

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
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Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
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