sky environment for architecture

[markep]

So in the environment settings you can generate a sun.
But you cannot generate any clouds.

In the Pins tab you can add an image, but you cannot add a spherical image, so you have to fudge the clouds into the scene.

I think it would be great to have at the very least a spherical map option under image pins... at best cloud generation.

[richardfunnell]

Hi Markep,

You can always add a very bright pin (recreating the sun) to an environment that has the clouds & reflections you want.
One resource for great sky HDRI images is http://hdri-skies.com.

In the attached example, I added a pin (Radius 2, Falloff exponential, Brightness 800) to help boost the lighting from the sun.
It's blown out and probably shouldn't be pure white, but it's an example of where the ground shadows pop a bit more due to the added light.

Let me know if this helps.

[PhilippeV8]

Yeah that's pretty much what I've been doing lately.

Start off with an environement that is close.  Then put a pin over the sun and make it blend with intensity set to -1.  Edit so that all shadows are gone.  Then add a new pin size 1 with intensity set to 3000 or such.  Now you can control shadows and sun position any way you want.