Image-Based Lighting with HDR in Project Manager: Light Your Scene in One Drag

Great lighting makes a render. Image-Based Lighting (IBL) with an HDR image gives you realistic light, soft shadows and believable reflections all at once.
Setting it up by hand takes a lot of steps, though: create a dome light, open the Material Editor, add a bitmap, switch it to spherical mapping and plug it into the right slot.
And every renderer names these things differently.

With Project Manager you drag an HDR or EXR file into the viewport. That’s the whole setup.

Drop it, then choose

Drag an HDR or EXR from the Project Manager browser onto an empty part of the viewport. A small dialog asks how to use it:

• An Environment map. The HDR becomes the scene environment, already mapped spherically, so it appears in reflections and in the background.
• Dome Light. Project Manager creates the dome light for your current renderer and loads the HDR into it. The light appears where you dropped it, already selected.
• Cancel. Nothing changes.

Dropped it on an object instead?
That works too. You get Assign to Node (the HDR is applied to the object like any other texture) or Dome Light. You never have to look for an empty spot in the viewport.

Your renderer is handled for you

No need to remember which light type your renderer uses or where its HDR slot is. Project Manager checks the active renderer and builds the right light:

Renderer	What Project Manager creates
V-Ray	V-Ray Light, Dome type, with the HDR in its texture slot
Redshift	Redshift Dome Light
Octane	Octane Daylight in Texture mode
Final Render	Spherical area light with the HDR as projector map
FStorm	Spherical FStorm Light in texture mode
Arnold	Arnold Light with Sky Dome shape

Working in Corona or another renderer without a dome light type? Then you don’t even get a question: the HDR goes straight into the Environment map.

Try ten skies in a minute

Finding the right mood means trying options. Drag another HDR straight onto your dome light in the viewport and choose Assign to Dome Light.
Project Manager swaps the map and keeps the light and all its settings.
With interactive rendering running, you can compare one sky after another without rebuilding anything.

Prefer the Modify panel? Select the dome light and drop the HDR onto the Command Panel, with the same result. HDR files can also go straight into map slots in Render Setup and the Environment and Effects dialog.

Use the HDRI map you prefer

By default the HDRI map type follows your renderer.
Prefer V-Ray HDRI, the OSL HDRI map or a specific renderer’s bitmap? Set it once in Preferences > HDRI map class, and every drop uses it.

Find the right HDRI faster

Project Manager shows your HDR collection as thumbnails, not file names. Select one, and the Information panel shows its resolution and bit depth.
A 2K HDR is enough for look development. Switch to a high-res version for the final render.

No digging through slots and rollouts. Drag, drop, and light your scene.

Quick answers

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