IBL Related Settings

After spending a considerable amount of time rendering a single scene and experimenting with most all of the IBL related settings, I thought you might find it helpfull if I shared my findings.

The first thing to consider is that every HDR image will give different rendering results,depending on it's dynamic range, brightness and color cast, it is important that the HDR image or probe be appropriately matched with the scene, so the desired result can be achieved.

Render Scene Environment Settings.

Background:

The Background settings do not effect the overall lighting of the scene. Any setting can be used, but if you like to get environmental reflections on standard materials, you need to use the "Environment" setting.

Intensity:

Changes the brightness of the background, this will not effect the overall lighting of the scene.

Angle:

Settings other than Zero will blur the background as well as the reflections on the objects.

Tone:

In my humble oppinion, this is the most important setting. since the HDR image is responsible for the lighting, this setting will give the scene it's brightness and tone. I happen to use the Brighten settings since they will give more control over the scene than the Scale setting. The tone settings are best adjusted with a non reflective object(of known color and brightness) in the scene. I adjust the Brightness and the Shift until this object looks as it should, this gives me a good starting point for the lighting of the scene.

Brighten/Brightness:

This setting will effect the overall lighting or brightness of the scene. I have not found a HDRI where I did not have to change this setting.
I set this to 65 to start with.

Brighten/Shift

This sets the contrast of the scene.
My starting settings are 35.

Scale:

Like the Brighten settings, this will adjust the brightness of the scene. Numbers below 1 will brighten the scene.

Render Scene Luminance Settings.

Create a new Luminance and use "Simple Environment"(no other luminances are required). This is where the intensity of the reflected HDR image is adjusted. This settings will not effect the overall scene brightness other than, if you turn the intensity to high, the brightness of the scene will be effected by the intensity of the reflections. Please be aware, the the Sample setting will effect the Intensity of the reflection.

Intensity:

This setting is responsible for the brightness of the reflected light in the scene.
My settings are: 1 (if I use 100 samples, 6 if I use 10 samples)

Shadows:

Enable shadows by checking the shadow box. If using shadows make sure that the "Shadow Resolution is set to 0 (zero), otherwise the scene will be dark. Both soft or hard shadows will work. Soft shadows will also give a softer reflection of the environment.

Samples:

This setting is responsible for sampling the HDRI light sources. Higher settings will give smoother shadows and reflections and since the amount of light samples will effect the amount of reflected light in the scene, this setting will effect the intensity of the reflections.
My starting settings are: 10 samples if I want rendering speed( intensity set to 6) and 100 samples for final rendering(intensity set to 1).

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