Recommended workflow

For the fastest complete workflow:

1. Open 3D Viewport > Sidebar > LumaForge.

2. Choose Outdoor, Studio, or Image / Hybrid.

3. Apply a preset as your starting point.

4. Select Basic, Advanced, or Expert interface mode and art-direct the environment.

5. Iterate using Render Preview and HDR Inspector.

6. Choose the output resolution and render-quality profile.

7. Run Generate, Validate and Install to build the environment, render the panorama, perform QA, and install the approved HDRI.

After installation, adjust World Rotation and Strength in the destination scene if required.

When you want newly installed HDRIs to appear as reusable local assets, manually synchronize the Asset Browser library.

For users who prefer direct control over each production stage, the complete manual sequence remains available:

Build / Update → Preview or Final → Validate → Install

Installation

1. Download the LumaForge extension ZIP. Do not extract it.

2. Open Blender.

3. Go to Edit > Preferences > Extensions.

4. Open the Extensions menu and select Install from Disk.

5. Select the downloaded ZIP file.

6. Enable LumaForge HDRI Generator if Blender does not enable it automatically.

7. Open a 3D Viewport, press N, and select the LumaForge tab.

Important: Do not manually copy or install the extension inside Blender’s application directory or Program Files.

Updating LumaForge

Install the newer extension ZIP over the existing version using Install from Disk.

LumaForge automatically runs metadata migrations when the extension is registered and when a .blend file is opened. Updating does not automatically rebuild previously generated environments or Asset Browser files.

Managed HDRIs and user presets are stored in the user’s Documents directory, outside the extension folder, and remain available after updating the add-on.

Compatibility

• Blender: 4.5 LTS or later.

• Officially tested: Blender 4.5.14 LTS and Blender 5.0.1 on Windows 64-bit.

• Render engine: Cycles is required to bake equirectangular OpenEXR panoramas.

• Dependencies: No bundled native binaries or external Python packages.

• Connectivity: No network connection is required for normal operation.

LumaForge is written in platform-independent Python. For this release, formal QA was completed on Windows only; macOS and Linux have not yet been included in the official acceptance matrix.

Performance and resolution guidance

• 1K and 2K are recommended for previews, iteration, and workflow testing.

• 4K is the practical starting point for many final environments.

• 8K is recommended when small stars, fine galactic structures, or detailed lighting sources must remain visible.

• Large 8K and 16K image-based panoramas can require substantial system RAM or GPU memory.

Automatic device selection uses an already configured Cycles GPU when available and falls back to CPU when necessary. LumaForge does not modify Blender’s global device preferences.

Known limitations

Image sources and projection

• Image / Hybrid requires an existing 360° × 180° equirectangular panorama with a 2:1 aspect ratio.

• A conventional front-facing photograph cannot be converted into a complete 360° environment because the missing sides and rear view do not exist in the source.

• Synthetic HDR Highlights can create stronger lighting contrast from an LDR image, but they do not recover measured radiometric information lost during capture or compression.

• Image-based environments do not generate camera parallax.

Procedural weather

• Weather layers use spherical 2D procedural masks. They are not physical volumetric-fluid simulations.

Rendering and queues

• Solar Study and Variant Lab cancellation takes effect between renders, not during an active Cycles render.

• A Solar Study render queue supports up to 96 samples.

Asset management

• Asset Browser synchronization must be started manually.

• Thumbnails for custom user presets are not generated automatically.

• LumaForge does not coordinate simultaneous write operations from multiple Blender instances.

Measurement and final appearance

• HDR Inspector metrics describe scene-linear image data and do not replace calibrated photometric measurements.

• The final appearance of an installed HDRI still depends on the destination scene’s camera exposure, view transform, materials, and World strength.