Experimenting with some HDRIs from various sources outside KS and curious what may be causing some exr HDRI files to freak out when loaded in to the scene, see below:
I have not been able to find another topic post showing an example like this, please advise if something similar exists.
This problem seems to occur only with certain HDRI files from one provider, not all of the files from the provider. There are no other lights in the scene.
My assumption is that there is something simple I am overlooking as I have tried all of the things I can think of related to brightness and what not. Any guidance is appreciated!
Circling back to this as changing the brightness to .00001 was not actually achieving anything usable.
I did however find what I am assuming is a fix, but am wondering if anyone can help me understand the why behind it since I am not extremely familiar with why it works.
Below is a SS of a .exr HDRI from Poliigon loaded into KS directly, obviously not usable:
I just downloaded a free HDRI from Poliigon but it looks absolutely normal with brightness of 1. I get the feeling it’s a bit of a corrupt file you downloaded or something went a bit wrong while downloading it. Maybe send them an email about that specific file.
And the same process of opening the .exr in PS and saving it as a .exr results in no issue once reloaded.
I also tried in a completely blank new scene with a single cube added in case it was my scene for whatever reason, but still the same result.
I am using KS Pro 11.3.3, but will update to KS 23 later this afternoon and perhaps this will go away altogether, but thought it was valid enough to share here at this time.
Mmm that’s interesting. I looked at the Poliigon site and they state that it works like with every other HDR file so basically the step to Photoshop shouldn’t be needed.
Just loaded the free HDRI in KS11 and this is my result
As you see, really normal so I thought, maybe you’ve the brightness at a weird high value at the settings tab, which basically is a general brightness for the HDRI you used but also if you use any lights etc from the HDRI editor. If I up that to a value like 20 for example it doesn’t get nice. Maybe you had a dark scene and you changed that and it’s still at a high value.
Thank you again for sharing—appreciate you taking the time.
Out of curiosity, did you try adding any geometry to that scene?
When I load any HDRI from Poliigon (free or paid) into a blank scene, it does in fact look proper such as what you have shown… however, any geometry added next will be totally blown out.
I’ve checked and tried out all settings related to the HDRI brightness, image tab, lighting tab, etc in a reset to stock blank scene with a single cube added with results below:
Poliigon HDRI (one of many tried, all the same result):
I’m giving up on understanding why re-saving the Poliigon .exr in PS fixes the issue, but happy that it works. Will send results to the Poliigon folks unless anyone here from KS has some additional input.
Well you’re absolutely right, if I put geo in it’s also totally blown out, same in KS2023. It’s weird because they look perfect as sky dome. I’ve other HDRI’s that already are like overly bright as sky dome but normally the paid HDRI’s all have about the same brightness level I think.
If I just used the free one and opened it in Photoshop using exr-io and save it as exr-io without changing anything it gives also the same result in KS. It’s almost like the renderer of KeyShot interpret some properties of the image wrong in the renderer. But I don’t know enough about how it, it’s just so odd the background looks super.
Good to know (in strange sort of way) that I am not the only one seeing that behavior. I am in line with your thinking re: how KS is potentially interpreting some file properties incorrectly initially.
I matched your settings and environment size with the download provided by Oscar and the KS pool house and still had the same result as before (both in CPU & GPU):
So, I ran into this this week as well @imauserwiththisname so it’s not just you. I have experienced it with HDRIs from other websites as well. Part of me is wondering if there’s a certain attribute of 32 bit files that KeyShot can mis-interpret. It does feel like a bug and somewhat inconsistent.
I did find that I was able to make these HDRIs useable in this case by turning the contrast to 0 in the HDRI settings, increasing the brightness, then using the image styles tab to add/adjust contrast/exposure.
I’d probably suggest reporting to Luxion if you have a file that leads to the over-exposed nature. It would be good to rule out whether or not it’s a bug.
Thank you for confirming Will. Great to know there is another way to work with these files without going into PS. I’ll follow up with Luxion as suggested to help root out the cause.
Will send results to the Poliigon folks unless anyone here from KS has some additional input.
