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Blender addon for aligning an object (e.g. a sun) to match the brightest part in a HDRI environment

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akej74/hdri-sun-aligner

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HDRI Sun Aligner

HDRI Sun Aligner is a Blender 2.8+ to 4.0+ addon for automatically rotating an object (e.g. a sun) to match the brightest point in a HDRI environment texture. Some ideas when this may be useful:

  • Adding a sun to a scene rendered by EEVEE, as EEVEE cannot render shadows from HDRI environment textures
  • Adding any light to enhance a scene, in alignment with direct light from the environment
  • Improve a panorama created with Google Streetview app for use as an environment texture in Blender, see the following excellent video by Blender Daily: Easy HDRI Creation with just a Phone!
  • For a nice overview of the addon, see the following video by The CG Essentials: Fixing Eevee HDRI Lighting

Blender Artists forum

A discussion thread about this addon can be found on the Blender Artists discussion forum: https://blenderartists.org/t/hdri-sun-aligner-v1-4/1142638

Usage

  • Add a HDRI environment texture (equirectangular projection) to the World in Blender
  • HDRI Sun Aligner is accessed from the panel to the right:

  • Calculate the brightest point in the HDRI used for the environment by clicking on "Calculate sun position"
  • A preview of the calculated position can be displayed in a new window by clicking on "Preview":

  • Updated "Longitude and Latitude" values are displayed in the panel (can be changed manually)
  • Select any object and click "Rotate object" to align it with a vector from the calculated point to origo
  • To add a new sun (rotated in alignment with the current sun position), click "Add new sun"
    • The new sun will be located in a new collection, "HDRI Sun Aligner"

Installation of HDRI Sun Aligner addon

  1. Download latest release from https://github.com/akej74/hdri-sun-aligner/releases (source as ZIP).
  2. Open Blender preferences -> addons and select "Install from file"...
  3. Activate the addon, "HDRI Sun Aligner"

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Blender addon for aligning an object (e.g. a sun) to match the brightest part in a HDRI environment

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