HDRI = High Dynamic Range Image. HDRI is developed by Paul Debevec and you can find more info on HDRI (and download his HDRShop for PC) at his homepage. I'm not gonna go into what this means but suffice to say that HDRI can help achive a highly realistic render. Unfortunately, Cinema 4D XL does not support HDRI at this point but there are some ways to fake HDRI with Cinema as described by Matt Savard in his tutorial on using HDRI in C4D.

I put up this page primarily for Macintosh-users with Cinema 4D XL 7. If you're on a Windows-machine you can download HDR-shop from Paul Debevec and follow Matt's tutorial, but if you're on a Mac you will have some trouble. Matt's tutorial is basically a description on how to load *.hdr-files in HDRShop, manipulate these files and then saving as a TIFF for use as a material in C4D. No can do if you're on a Mac (and don't have access to VirtualPC or something like that).

I use C4D on a Mac but I use PC daily in my work, so I've downloaded all *.hdr-files from Paul Debevec and run them throgh HDRShop. The result is that also Mac-users can fake HDRI by downloading HDRI-generated TIFFs and follow Matt's tutorial on using them in C4D.

I've gathered all TIFFs in a single StuffIt-archive and it contains nine C4D-files with corresponding materials (previews below). The number attached to each file corresponds with the brightness value used in that file (once again, check Matt's page to get an explanation). This value is just to get you started -- some scenes may need a higher value, some a lower. Experiment and have fun!

New 020929: Per-Anders Edwards has some interesting ideas on how to improve HDRI in C4D -- check out the tutorial here.