HdriLand.com Free Panorama HDRI Environment Maps

There are now like 8 "Virtual Tours" at HdriLand.com. I've created these tours with the LDR versions of my HDRI images. So now you can see everything like I saw it. Nothing spectacular yet but a great one of some of the churches in my area as well as one at Valley Forge Park which is pretty cool. HDRI's are awesome if you know what to use them for but the average person does not so I created these 3D tours so that everyone can get something from these cool images.

An HDRI is a High Dynamic Range Image. But there is more to it than that. HDRI are used in 3D rendering  to create an actual "environment" that provide both the lighting and the reflective properties of the scene. An HDRI in Action  A photograph that is of high dynamic range is made up of multiple exposures combined into one to create an image that shows the details in the dark areas as well as the light areas more accurately than a normally exposed photograph. This is very useful in shots such as landscapes where you want the sky and clouds as well as the ground exposed correctly without blowing out the sky detail or the ground appearing too dark from underexposing. On my website hdriland.com you can see example of this such as in a church where you want the dark interior to be exposed correctly as well as the bright stained glass windows.This using multiple exposures as called bracketing and most good cameras can do it automatically if set to do so. Some cameras su...

HdriLand  is a website created by myself to give away free hdri enviroment maps for use in 3D modeling and rendering. Hdri's or Environment, are created by using high dynamic range images and stitching them together in a panorama software. When imported into a 3D image they map themselve to the inner sphere of the scene to create a full 360 background. Here is an example of an image map created for using as an environment in 3D. And here's how it looks rendered in any 3D modeling program Rather than creating lights to light your scene or object you can simply add an HDRI or enviroment  map and the scene will be lit based on the map chosen. The map also provides  reflections to objects that need reflections to appear naturally in a scene. If the map is created correctly it will also create realistic shadows for your scene. Here is an example placed within an HDRI environment showing the light and reflections as well as the shadow information. You can s...