HDRI Community

This seems to be a problem with 3dsmax 2010 and below. If your viewport background is an HDR or maybe even a bitmap that is created using the rayswitch shader,(the shader that the sIBL template is using) then you can not see the background in the viewport. Just do a quick test render and you'll see the background there, but it wont appear in the viewport with the rayswitch shader enabled.

The only way around this seems to be to set up your HDR scene manually, which defeats the whole purpose of using sIBL in the first place. I wish we could convince the autodesk behemoth to include official support for the rayswitch shaders(and the rest of zapp's shaders) in their next release. But it's been like this for 2 releases now.   

Is there a reason why the template is using target directional light instead of physical sun?

Thanks for clarifying that!

The background issue might actually be a problem with my graphics card's driver - I have used the same background settings you instructed (and just double checked), but all I get is a completely black background.
My card sometimes misbehaves when using portal lights too, and I need to switch to default lighting for the viewports.

I've been using the XSI template before and that's why I'm asking all these questions. I wish I could help, but unfortunately I have no experience in Maxscript - Not yet at least.

I'm running on GeForce 9400GT.

I tried with HW shading and without, but there are some weird issues with the viewports.

This might also be caused by running 32-bit version on 64-bit os. That's because I'm still on trial-version - I'm hoping to get the official version (and 64-bit) next week.