HDR Light Studio Pro - 1 Year Subscription

Highlights

	What is HDR Light Studio? HDR Light Studio adds a dedicated lighting interface and HDR lighting content to your existing 3D software - enabling an easier, faster, precise and more creative way to build your own unique HDRI maps and HDR textured area light setups.
Amazing lighting in minutes HDR Light Studio is very easy to use and fast to learn. Within hours of installing the software, you will be lighting shots to a higher standard and faster than ever before. The small investment of time adding HDR Light Studio to your workflow will pay for itself many times over with time savings and improvements to the quality of your images.
	A simple lighting process Drag and drop lights onto the render The basic concept of HDR Light Studio is very simple. Drag and drop preset HDR lights where you need them on the live render. The lighting design is updated in your 3D software instantly as you work in HDR Light Studio. There is no need to hunt for the perfect HDR textures, or HDRI maps. Now you can easily make your own custom HDR lighting.
LightPaint® - Paint the light positions Clicking and dragging on the model can be used to position lights using LightPaint, our patented approach. Lights can be placed to Reflect, Illuminate or Rim Light the location clicked on the model. LightPaint saves time and allows for the precise placement of lighting effects. The light handle can be moved, so lights can also be positioned by their edge, very handy!
	Integrates seamlessly with your 3D software Press start in your 3D software and HDR Light Studio’s dedicated lighting interface launches in a live-link to your scene. As lighting is added and adjusted in HDR Light Studio, the lighting is built in real-time in your scene in the correct format for the active renderer. After closing HDR Light Studio, your lighting is done and the scene is perfectly lit with native lights.
Perfect CG lighting for Studio Shots HDR Light Studio is perfect for lighting marketing images of products, cars, jewelry and packaging. To light shiny/reflective materials, you need full control over the position and appearance of the lights. It’s less about illumination and all about the reflections. HDR Light Studio makes it easy to create highly controlled lighting to perfectly enhance these type of high end product shots.

Key Features

• HDRI Map Creation and Editing Software - HDR Light Studio is a standalone application dedicated to 3D lighting - including authoring and editing HDRI maps. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. HDR Light Studio also connects to a wide range of 3D software via our live plug-ins.
  HDRI maps are a widely supported lighting file format used by virtually all 3D software and renderers. You can import your 3D scene into HDR Light Studio as an Alembic or Collada file and create the perfect HDRI map using HDR Light Studio’s in-built preview renderer to paint your light positions directly on the 3D model. The HDRI map is then saved to be used for image-based lighting inside your 3D software. The benefit of using HDRI maps for lighting is that they are easy to use, produce photo-real results and their lighting renders fast.
• Make your own Studio HDRI Maps - Rather than buy stock studio HDRI maps and hope they produce the effect you are looking for, use HDR Light Studio to make unlimited custom HDRI maps for yourself. With HDR Light Studio you can make a perfect HDRI map for every render and ensure the lighting design is perfect every time.
• Edit existing HDRI Environments - With HDR Light Studio you can shape the lighting effect from existing HDRI maps and make your renders look even better by adding new lights, removing/blocking lights, making color adjustments, blurring the background HDRI and much more. HDR Light Studio allows you to take total control over HDRI maps - making image based lighting a creative way to light a render and not a limited and locked format.
• Live Plug-ins to your 3D Software - Key features of HDR Light Studio plug-in connections:
• Automatic creation of an environment light for chosen renderer
• Live syncing of HDR Light Studio's interactive HDRI map
• Live creation and control of HDR textured area lights
• LightPainting in the viewport of the connected 3D software
• One click export of your 3D scene into HDR Light Studio's renderer for LightPainting
• 3D software's interactive render streamed to HDR Light Studio's interface for LightPainting
• Automatic embedding of HDR Light Studio project data inside host 3D scene file
• Paint the Light Positions - LightPaint is a patented approach to positioning lights on the interactive HDRI map. Use LightPaint to position lights to illuminate, reflect or rim light the location clicked. LightPaint can be used in HDR Light Studio's Render View, the Streamed Render from your 3D software and in the Viewport of your 3D software (depending on the features of your plug-in).
• HDR Light Studio's Preview Renderer - HDR Light Studio includes an interactive renderer that can load 3D scenes via Alembic or Collada files. This Render View is essential when lighting an imported scene using HDR Light Studio standalone. LightPaint is super fast when using our integrated rendering and you can drag on the 3D model to position lights. The Render view provides only a preview of the lighting effect on a single shader that has basic properties for diffuse color and reflections.
• One Click Scene Export & Import - When using HDR Light Studio connected to your 3D software, simply press the play button in the render view to import the current scene and camera view into HDR Light Studio. This export feature is currently supported in the following plug-in connections: 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Modo, Houdini, Blender, LightWave.
• Stream the Interactive Render - When connected to your 3D software, HDR Light Studio can display the live interactive render from your 3D software in the HDR Light Studio interface. The LightPaint feature can be used to position lights directly on the render inside HDR Light Studio's interface. This allows you to fill your display with HDR Light Studio and concentrate on the lighting process whilst looking at the final render.
  This feature is currently supported in the following plug-in connections: 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Modo, Octane Standalone, Rhino 3D, Omniverse.
• HDR Textured Area Lights - HDR Light Studio is not just for creating HDRI maps! When connected to your 3D software, HDR Light Studio can also build and control HDR textured area lights. Using a single setting, Area Lights are created by our plug-in in an instant, correctly set-up for the chosen renderer and mapped with a live HDR texture from HDR Light Studio. The area lights position is controlled using LightPaint by clicking on the 3D model with the addition of distance controls.
  This feature is currently supported in the following plug-in connections: 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Modo, Houdini, Blender, Octane Standalone, VRED, Omniverse.
• Precise Light Placement - Whether lights are on the HDRI map or are area lights - lights are positioned by their handle in HDR Light Studio. By default the handle is in the center of the light but this can be moved anywhere on the light - allowing a light to be positioned and scaled from its edge. This can be very useful for precise lighting of product shots for example.
  In addition, the advanced rotation settings allow lights to be locked to be vertical or horizonal wherever positioned, and also rotated in any 3D axis with ease.
• Procedural HDR Lighting - HDR Light Studio is best known for creating studio lighting – especially suited to reflective materials. Procedural lights can be precisely controlled to create a wide variety of lighting effects. HDR Light Studio procedural content includes: Bulb, Linear/Radial Gradients, and Box Gradient (a blended horizontal and vertical ramp). Ramps can be controlled with a gradient editor panel, making it easy to visually control the graduation of light.
• The Presets System - The Presets system is a key feature in HDR Light Studio. Presets contain a huge library of lighting content types that can be applied to your lighting designs. These include HDR studio lights, HDRI maps, Light Rigs, and much more. Let’s take a look in more detail at Presets. Learn how to use Presets in our training videos.
• Drag and Drop HDRI Lights - To add a new light to the lighting design, simply drag and drop a preset light onto the interactive render where the lighting effect is needed. The LightPaint mode will position the light on the HDRI map for you.
• Hot-swap Light Appearances - Easily swap the appearance of a light with another Preset. Explore a wide range of lighting appearances until you get the right look.
• HDR Studio Light Presets - HDR Light Studio includes a large library of photographed studio light sources - with most shot at 4k resolution. These HDR textures are rich in detail and lighting information that will bring your illumination and reflections to life. There is no better way to photo-real results than lighting your shots with photographic lights.
• Rig Presets - Rigs are HDR Light Studio lighting projects stored in the presets system. Rigs can be an ideal starting point for a new lighting design, providing all the ease of use of an off-the-shelf HDRI map, but with total editability. You can easily add your own lighting designs to the Rig Presets. This could be a full final lighting design or a selection of light sources you like to start with. HDR Light Studio allows you to save any Rig, Light, Content setting and even ramp settings and colors into the Preset system. Watch the Presets training videos to find out more.
• HDRI Map Presets - HDR Light Studio includes ready-to-apply HDRI maps from HDRI Haven. Just double-click to add the HDRI map to the lighting design.
• Add HDRI Maps to the Presets - With plug-ins for all leading 3D software - HDR Light Studio is the ideal hub for storing and accessing all your HDR lighting content.
  You can easily add your own HDRI maps to the Presets library where you can tag and manage them. Just drag images from your file system onto the Presets panel and follow the process to import them. The images are converted to the .tx file format, so that huge images can be loaded and handled with ease. You can also add HDR textures to use as light sources using this method.
• Preset Mask Shapes for Lights - You can load images to mask a light in HDR Light Studio. This allows you to perfectly control the shape of your lights when seen in reflections. HDR Light Studio ships with a range of Preset Mask shapes that can be applied to your lights.
• Composite Lights - Multiple lights can be grouped into a single Composite Light. You can use Composite Lights to:
• Group Lights
• Control a group of lights (brightness, position, color etc)
• Isolate and Edit Individual Lights
• Mask Lights
• Clone and move areas of the HDRI map
• Combine different regions of multiple HDRI maps
• Dissect and take control of light regions in existing HDRI maps
• Procedural Sky - HDR Light Studio includes a procedural sky shader. Replace the sky on an existing HDRI map and use an alpha ramp to control the horizon position and softness. Drag and drop the included Cloud preset images onto the sky for added realism. The sun disc can be increased in size whilst maintaining its overall lighting contribution, allowing for creative decisions about the sun scale. The sun disc has a controllable soft edge.
• Light Looks - The lighting process is about creativity and experimentation. There are so many lighting decisions to make and so many different approaches you can try out. Light Looks allow you to easily store, compare, duplicate and edit multiple lighting designs in a single HDR Light Studio project - supporting your creative lighting process.
• Diffusion Blur - Diffusion Blur mimics the diffusion of light through a material like tracing paper or cloth. Spreading and softening the light.
• Motion Blurs - HDR Light Studio offers 2 filters for motion blurring of HDRI maps.
  There is a simple linear motion blur. Or the advanced motion blur adds options to curve and tilt the motion path, add a noise profile, and use a second input image to scale the speed of motion at each pixel on the HDRI map.
• Spherical Color Filters - Using a color gradient with spherical mapping and color blend mode - you can color filter a HDRI map, clicking on the model where the gradient should start. This provides a great way to control the color mood for HDRI maps.
• Full Sphere Ambient Lights - With a single light you can do so much in HDR Light Studio. A linear gradient light with spherical mapping will wrap around the whole scene. This is very useful for creating soft highly controllable ambient lighting effects. Click on the 3D model to position the start of the gradient that wraps around the HDRI map.
• Mixing HDRI Maps - With HDR Light Studio it’s easy to make the most of your existing HDRI map library by mixing them to create new unique HDRI environments. Use alpha ramps to seamlessly blend the floor and sky areas of different HDRI maps.
• Consistent Portable Lighting Format - HDRI maps are the ultimate portable lighting format. They can be used with different renderers and produce predictable and accurate results. Especially with physically based rendering.
  When implementing HDR Area Lights we ensured these lights were portable too. For example, you can create a lighting design in Maya for Arnold Render (using a HDRI map with Area Lights) and then switch renderers to V-Ray, the Area Lights will be rebuilt using V-Ray lights. You can also light a shot in Cinema 4D with Arnold, and load the same lighting design into Maya with Maxwell Render to get the exact same lighting.
• VFX Industry Standards - HDR Light Studio software runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and doesn't require any special hardware, such as specific graphics cards or drivers. HDR Light Studio incorporates many VFX industry standards including: OpenImageIO, OpenEXR, OpenColorIO (supporting ACES Color), Alembic, Collada and Qt for a cross platform user interface.

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Licensing Options

A node-locked license is for one user and allows HDR Light Studio to run on a designated primary computer, and a designated second home/laptop computer if required (by using the license transfer facility on our web site).

A floating license is for multiple users and allows one concurrent session of HDR Light Studio to run on any computer on the local network. You need to purchase licenses for the number of concurrent users you will require. A computer on the network runs the RLM server software and client machines get their licenses from this computer via the local network.

An annual subscription provides a license that will expire at the end of the 1 year period. During the subscription period you can run the latest software and you are entitled to support. Renewal is not automatic and we do not store card details.