Airstream camper rendered with an HDRi sky that gave me the background image as well as the correct illumination, shadows and reflections.
HDRI Skies are special 360 degree images of background imagery such as skies, trees, sunsets and buildings that also contain illumination information such as the intensity and color of light based on the background imagery chosen.
What HDRi Skies means to you...
HDRI (high dynamic range imaging)is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.
You can not see the HDRi sky in SketchUp before you render. Lighting, shadows, reflections and the background image will apply in the rendered image.
IRender contains several HDRI skies from various sources, including ArchVision, AccuStudio and EverMotion. You can click on the plus sign to cycle between the included HDRI skies.
If you want to make HDRI Skies visible, or just reflective, use the Sun/Sky Tab to adjust the settings
In order to see the HDRI skies, you need to turn the sky on, and select an HDRI sky. None of the 4 lighting defaults selects HDRI sky and makes the sky visible, so you need to do this manually on the Sun/Sky tab. In the example on the right, we selected the Exterior Default, then turned off the sun, and turned on HDRI sky mode. (We selected the HDRI sky to use from the HDRI tab)
HDRI Skies which can be used with IRender nXt are available at: