Environments are HDR (High Dynamic Range) images that can be applied to any rendered scene. Setting an environment enables IBL (Image-Based Lighting) in your scene. This lights the scene using the sun and sky in the environment image you choose, providing dramatic reflections and shadows.
Tip: Take a site photograph under sky conditions like one of the environments in the Autodesk collection. Then render your scene with an environment, selecting PNG or TIFF as the file format. The rendered PNG or TIFF file will contain an alpha channel for masking out the environment background and replacing it with your own site photography using a photo-editing application such as Autodesk Pixlr. The result is a realistically lit scene in the proper site context.
The following environment images are available from Autodesk® Rendering. Although they look distorted here, they appear correctly when mapped to your camera views.
Dock
Riverbank
Crossroads
Seaport
Field