OUR TECHNOLOGY
TrueHDRI are HDRI assets that aim to capture real-world lighting environments as they are. It stores data on absolute luminance and accurately managed colors to ensure full dynamic range across a variety of light sources. TrueHDRI can be used to create a reliable look-dev environment in DCC tools and game engines.
TrueHDRI assets are now available for download. Find them from the TrueHDRI Library link below.
It is necessary to have unified standards when creating digital assets. While naming conventions and quality standards are important, we place importance on the appearance of the assets. The key to creating this is the look-dev process. The environment used in the look-dev process is called the look-dev environment, and TrueHDRI is used to improve its reliability.
An unreliable look-dev environment can lead to incorrect workflows, which in turn decreases quality and production efficiency. By using TrueHDRI, which captures the lighting environment of the real world as-is, you can create a reliable lighting environment. This can also help standardize modeling and material creation, as well as for communicating when setting up post-processing.
This means you can simulate how your digital assets will look in the real world. With TrueHDRI, you can make a reliable look-dev environment based on firm real-world reference points.
TrueHDRI records the luminance of the real world in absolute values. Conventional HDRI records luminance in relative values. Therefore, brightness can be accurately recorded within a single HDRI, but it will not be consistent with other HDRIs. However, the luminance values of a TrueHDRI file is consistent with other TrueHDRI files, so the desired lighting environment can be reproduced by simply replacing the TrueHDRI asset.
TrueHDRI accurately records the brightness and color of the real world. It makes corrections based on measurements such as the camera’s recorded colors, vignetting, and ND filters for capturing the sun.
When making TrueHDRI files, an ND filter is used to photograph the sun, so the file’s dynamic range includes luminance values from the sun. With conventional HDRIs, it is often the case that the sun is not properly captured. Using these HDRIs as they are will not reproduce consistent lighting. Since TrueHDRI is capable of capturing the sun luminance values properly, it can reproduce the lighting in the same way it was captured.
TrueHDRI files are created preserving the wide color gamut of the camera used to take the photo.
TrueHDRI also supports real-time rendering. Sufficient lighting can be provided with HDRI alone due to it retaining the sun’s brightness. However, with real-time rendering, HDRI may not be able to reproduce lighting from small light sources with high luminance, such as the sun. For this reason, TrueHDRI also creates a version of the asset that replaces the sun with a parallel light source.
The following items are measured and corrected with TrueHDRI.
By incorporating the above measurements and corrections to the HDRI creation workflow, the assets are able to accurately capture real-world lighting environments.
TrueHDRI aims to improve the reliability of look-dev in the CG industry. We will proactively publish the results of our current research, HDRI asset creation workflows, and HDRI assets. In future, we also hope to explore simpler photography methods and workflows, as well as expand the assets that we can share.
A lecture on “HDRI production technique with high reliability” was held at CEDEC2020 (link to external site). The archived video is now available for viewing, so please feel free to watch if you’re interested (in Japanese only).
Bandai Namco Studios is currently conducting collaborative research on TrueHDRI with the Tokyo University of Technology’s Kawashima Lab. Take a look at the results of Professor Kawashima and his students’ research.
Motonobu Kawashima, Specially Appointed Senior Assistant Professor, School of Media Science
Click here for paper.
“This research uses machine learning and TrueHDRI rendering output to evaluate if materials are physically accurate. Further progress into this research will yield practical error checking and automatic correction features, becoming powerful tools in projects that use PBR.” (Masato Kanno, Art Director, Bandai Namco Studios)
Masaki Yokoyama
HDRI-based Physically Accurate LookDev Environment for Video Game Development
Click here for paper (Information Processing Society of Japan Electronic Library)
“This research involved the development of a plugin that imports TrueHDRI to UE5 and allows simple switching to and from TrueHDRI assets. This allows anyone to set up a highly reliable LookDev environment. The plugin has been released on Fab, so try it out and help us improve its features.” (Kanno)
Ayaka Shioji
Time-Dependent Dynamic Colorization for Toon Shading Based on Color Design
Click here for paper (Information Processing Society of Japan Electronic Library)
“Part of the animation production process includes the selection of colors, and this research takes that concept into the UE5 real-time lighting environment. This is different than conventional toon shading, and makes it easier to give personality to various creations as character colors can be selected depending on the time of day.” (Kanno)
Hayato Kosugi
Evaluation of Environments Facilitating Material Using Physically-Based Rendering with HDRI
Click here for paper (J-STAGE)
“We had various people evaluate the impact of LookDev environments when using TrueHDRI to adjust materials in UE5. We received feedback that materials were easier to make due to the positions of light sources and the environments available, as well as how useful it was to switch between and compare HDRIs.” (Kanno)
Below is the manual for importing TrueHDRI into CG tool Blender.
Blender import manual (Japanese)
Blender import manual (English)
A UE5 plugin to import and easily switch to different TrueHDRIs.
https://www.fab.com/ja/listings/b65cba4d-e038-4d8a-96fc-73fde41f039e
