Since Car. V2 supports GI rendering, does any one come up with techniue for faking HDRI in Car. V2

Its not really faking. HDRI is using an image as a light source (basically) and GI allows that. There are higher end HDRI renderers like Houdini that do it a bit more complicated like. A nice explanation can be found here: http://www.rendermania.com/HDRI/ cheers, Brian

So is the image that I posted considered an HDRI image?

Basically yes, technically no. The technology used to create the image is different, the concept is the same. Brian

Hi, HDRI stands for High Dynamics Range Images. HDRI is a particular type of images that have more dynamic than the traditionnal bitmaps (meaning that you can have very high intensity regions and low intensity regions) For example, if you had a picture of the sky, the sun is much brighter than the sky. With a normal bitmap, the sky would be black and the sun white... An HDRI picture would allow you to have a very bright sun and still have the variation of the sky. Carrara Studio does not support HDRI images at this point. However in most cases you can get the same effect by using a combination of images and light sources (example, use a distant light for the sun and a bitmap for the sky) and the GI engine will do the rest. Charles

So, HDRI images are a format like JPG or TIF? Or is there some black magic at work here... ;>

basically yes

Its black magic...

Attached Link: http://www.debevec.org/HDRShop/