Hi
i’ve downloaded this HDRI
and i want to render a car to look like it’s parked on the flagstones in front, but i can’t get the image looking right in my Camera - how to i map it? at the mo i’ve just got a
Tex Coords [Generated] → Mapping → Image
tried fiddling w/ the settings but just making things worse 
TIA
What is super-confusing, is that the HDRI for the viewport and for the render can differ. Took me the longest time to figure out.
I always manipulate the HDRI for rendering in the Shader editor now, since the World nodes are right there – I open a 3D viewport in that workspace and can then watch directly how the HDRI moves when I change values in the Mapping node. Basically what @AlphaChannel is showing in the image up there. If you want to see the same thing in your Layout workspace, just make sure you have Scene World checked in the Shading options there as well. Otherwise it’ll show your viewport HDRI and its settings.
Thanks guys 
that’s working a lot better, will have a bit more play, it’s still not looking as good as i hoped. From a bit of searching around though it seems that a lot of people use a different approach - HDR for reflections etc and a backplate image to render against. seems like it would save a lot of the hassle so i might try that instead.
cheers
i’m having issues w/ the damn shadowcatcher now. i swear, i do something months ago no prob, then come to do it again and it’s nothing but ballache. why’s the plane hiding my background plate?
TIA
its a visibility mask, thats what its supposed to do, to be used to comp that pass over your bg footage after
it’s supposed to mask the shadow not the whole plane
Because of the way Cycles X works, shadow catcher has been rewritten for Blender 3.0.
https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/3.0/Cycles#Shadow_Catcher
Damn, that was a chore. thanks a lot everyone for the above info, finally got it working. sure it wasn’t this much effort last time i did one, will write myself a set of note!
cheers
