2 Key Ways the Car Industry Uses HDRi Skies for Automotive Backgrounds

The automotive industry is one of the largest users of HDRi maps and skies.

According to the Visual GPS from Getty Images , a system that analyzes search trends in the visual media space, approximately 90% of users who search the term "HDRi" are in the automotive industry.

In addition, about 10% of users who search for the term work for agencies, many of which likely serve the automotive space. The industry often uses these visual assets to create automotive backgrounds for advertising campaigns, vehicle catalogs, internal design reviews, and more.

Here's a look at two key ways that car companies use automotive backgrounds.

Visuals for Virtual Production

In many cases, car companies use virtual production to photograph their vehicles in real-world environments without needing to go on location.

HDRi Maps and HDRi Skies are common tools for virtual production, as are high-resolution Backplates. Car companies can place 3D models of their vehicles into an HDRi environment, allowing them to conduct a virtual photo shoot of their vehicle.

As an example, take a look at this render of the Dodge Challenger. The entire project was created in a virtual environment using an HDRi map. In this case, the HDRi map provided a perfect automotive background, contributing visuals and lighting information to the virtual photo shoot.

Car companies can either work from a stock HDRi map or use a professional retoucher to edit a stock HDRi map to add elements, remove people, or make other customizations.

Lighting Data for Vehicle Detail Shots

Even when automotive companies don't need visuals for a virtual shoot, HDRi Maps can still come in handy. Because professionally produced HDRi Maps have detailed and accurate lighting data, they can be used to add reflections and light to vehicle detail shots and even vehicle interiors.

For example, take a look at these vehicle detail shots for a design project from Honda . In this image, an HDRi Map provides the dramatic lighting and reflection data needed to make this detail image look realistic, even though the visual components of the HDRi Maps can barely be seen.

Takeaways

Although Backplates still have a strong role to play in creating automotive backgrounds, HDRi Maps now have such a high resolution that many car companies use them directly as automotive backgrounds for their virtual photoshoots.

The lighting data that they include is also extremely valuable in producing realistic 3D renders. It's no wonder that the automotive industry uses so many HDRi maps!

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