hdri setup shadowing

[dimaknight]

now i know many of you can help me out with this, as I seen some amazing renderings come acourse this board.

I finally figured out how to do the correct way to setup a hdri reflection and lighting on my model but what still has me scratching my head is two things:

1 - the image of the hdri in the enviroment is too close to the model, I know how to rotate it but how do you zoom out.

2- once you have the hdri in the enviroment, how do you get the shadow beneath the model to appear.

I know rookie question, but if you could help me out that would be great, and I've tried googleing, but I keep getting the same tutorial that I'm using to figure out how to create a hdri image,

thanks for you help.

[Catlin]

Ok for zoom im not sure,shouldnt matter?

But for for shadows you need to create a plane underneath the car that has to be invisble but show shadows.

[dimaknight]

thanks Catlin for your reply.

just so I'd get this right, when I do the plane do i put a 0% on the transparent or do i click off do not render in the properties.

and I don't understand about how it doesn't matter about the zooming in or out of the enviroment hdri.

If i requre a background do I have to draw a plane and attach an image to it or what. sorry it just I don't know how you would have an image appear to give the car a real life setting.

[dimaknight]

I was wondering the black band that appears below a hdri, is that needed or can I crop that out in photoshop

[anexterv]

1- Open Environment ( and apply a bitmap image for background
2- create a VRayPlane beneath your object(s)
3- open Material Editor (M) and select an empty slot
4- change material type from "standard" to "VrayMtlWrapper"
5- on "Base Material" apply a "Matte/Shadow" material
6- on matte/shadow basic parameters, turn ON "opaque alpha" and "recieve shadows"
7 - click on "Go To Parent"
8- on vraymtlwrapper parameters, turn OFF "Generate GI" or set it a low value (like 0.2)
9- turn OFF "Generate Caustics" and leave "Recieve Caustics" turned ON and its value to 1.0
10- turn ON "Matte Surface"
11- turn ON "Shadows"
leave everything else on default values and render your scene....

(from vizdepot.com)