Attached Link: HDRI render using Terragen hdr file

If any of you know Terragen, you'll know that it's an excellent program for producing realistic landscapes, AND it's free for non-commercial use. Now that C3 can cope with HDRI rendering I thought I'd experiment with Terragen, which can write to the HDR format if you install the (free) SOPack plugin. You need to follow a strict proceedure and there's an excellent tutorial, with links to all the (free) software you need here: http://www.cs.uh.edu/~somalley/helent.html However, there are a couple of things that you have to do differently for C3 when outputting the final HDR file from the HDRShop program. In the Panoramic Transform dialogue box, make sure the Destination Image selections are: Format: Latitude/Longitude (this gives the 2:1 rectangle which is all C3 can handle) Width: put the same number of pixels as your source image (the Vertical Cross one you've loaded) Height: this should be half the width in pixels Make sure 'Use Bilinear Interpolation' is unchecked Click OK an you should get a new 'warped' version of you source file. Before saving this you need to do one more thing. From the HDRShop 'Image' menu, choose 'Pixels' then 'Clamp at Current Exposure'. (If you don't do this then horrid white blobs will appear on any non-reflective surfaces in your C3 render.) Then save the file as HDR format. ** HDRShop will also save as ordinary bitmap or jpeg which you can load in C3 as a background or backdrop. And it will convert photos to panoramas so you could even make your own HDR maps with a digital camera. Sorry for the length - I hope someone finds this interesting! Mark