Greetings, I'm using the old-style environment spheres with an HDR image wrapped to light the scene, but invisible to rendering, and a beauty image visible to the render. The problem is the very visible distortion near the poles of the sphere. I need 360 degree visual acceptability. I am using a background which I've made seamless in both directions, a 2:1 rectangle. It seems this worked in renders at one point years ago in another software. Perhaps even XSI....I don't recall.
I'm also trying to substitute this arrangement by using both an environment (using the HDRI), and 'Spherical Mapping' (using the beauty image), in the Pass Shaders. But I'm getting very strange results, so not sure if this is the way to go. Also, it's difficult to line them up properly so that the light in the HDRI is coming from the same place as the equivalent visible areas in the beauty image -- which of course one can do easily in the wrapped spheres. But in the pass shaders, they don't seem to use the same rotation systems... Any advice on getting an undistorted, seamless image going here? With proper orientations? Thanks, Nancy
