Luxrender How to render a background image ?

So basically I have seen this question alot on the internet but non of the ones I have seen was answered so Iam going to ask again in hope that there is a solution to this problem .
As the title says , Iam trying to render an interior scene in blender with luxrender and behind the window I going to put an image of a city , the problem is I dont know how to do that in lux although I know how to do it in both cycles and blender internal .
Usually the way this problem is tackled is by these steps :
1- make a plane with the background texture .
2- make the plane material shadeless .
3- Allow light to ignore the plane so it passes through it . ( to prevent it from blocking sun lamp )
4- put it behind the window ( glass or not ) .

The problem for me is in step 2 and 3 in Lux , as I dont know how to make a shadeless material or how to allow light to pass through an object .
I know that this due to that Lux is physically accurate and such things dont exist in real life , but I have seen many Lux results by people containing backgrounds .
Also there were alot of people mentioning to use HDRI as backgrounds but this doesnt solve step 3 and HDRI in Lux cannot be scaled ( I think ) and I cant move them to be in an appropriate position making it an avoidable option .

Iam using both the latest blender (2.76) and Lux (2.5) versions as of now , hope someone could answer my question and thanks in advance .

  1. Use emission (but very low) on the plane, I think the texture should be assigned to the emission as well.

Rotating the hemi lamp a Lux HDRi is attached to will rotate the HDRi image.

Why not mark the background as transparent, and either use architectural glass for the window, or mix a mirror/archglass and glass material?

Then composite the background you want in after :slight_smile:

I tried the emission idea before , but it I didnt get good results with it (The image color seemed inverted and unreal) , so if you know the specific values for power , gain …etc please tell me as I would like to try it .
Also how do I mark the background transparent in Lux ? Thanks very much for the help .

For transparent background:
LuxCore: Camera -> LuxRender Film -> Transparent film (with the camera selected)
Lux Classic: Render -> Output -> Transparent Background

That’s probably your best bet for easily achieving what you want :slight_smile:

Thanks for the help , its rendering a black screen not a transparent one , should this happen ?
Also does this “Black background” Affect glass in an unusual way ?
I was really hoping for a shadless material in Lux but an alpha background will do well , thanks again for the help .