How do you find the identity of the HDRI that Blender uses to generate the material preview? It's very frustrating that the scene often looks much better in this view than in the rendered preview. Knowing what HDRI is used might be a good first step. I can see a preview of it as a circle, but for the life of me I can't see where to find its identity, or where it's located.
You mean that in the actual render they look pixelated? And in the material preview they looks super crisp and nice? I think that always happens, that is why I always render with alpha and put my own background. I have never tried with those crazy 20k HDRI's though, those might hold up.
Hello Martin, I have a folder with HDRIs that I can easily use to create worlds that show up in the render preview. What I'm trying to find is the default one that Blender uses in Material Preview mode. They are clearly not the same as the latter looks the same regardless of what HDRI I have in the world setting.
OK Tx Martin, I've found the right files, but how do I know which one it's using? Is there a way of selecting a different one out of the 8? It would be easier if I could see a picture in Windows, but I just have blank icons. I suppose I could just plug each one into my own world, but I suspect other parts will be different.
I have this addon for that, it works great, use it all the time:
The default one is forest.exr. as Martin points out you can click on the sphere icon in the dropdown to change it to one of the other ones that comes with blender. After you click that large sphere you can get the names of each one thru the tool tip which pops up after you have your mouse cursor over it for a few seconds. Also you can go to preference->Lights and install your own HDRIs to use with material preview. Another thing is in render view you can you can click the dropdown and uncheck world and then you will have the same options as the material preview. This can be helpful if you're using cycles and you want to see what the HDRI looks like in cycles. Note: Material preview uses a truncated version of eevee.
Thanks very much everyone. All clear now. I've never clicked that particular down tab button in all the years I've used Blender. I guess that's because it blends in with the column of vertical tags underneath. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!
