for RTT Deltagen User Guide

for RTT Deltagen User Guide

Contents Contents Integration with Deltagen Page 1 Main Interface Overview Page 6 Getting started with HDR Light Studio Live Page 7 Synthetic Lights Page 8 Picture Lights Page 12 Background Settings Page 14 Render Settings Page 20 Keyboard Short Cuts Page 21

Integration with Deltagen Start up DeltaGen. Ensure HDRLightStudio plugin is enabled under Tools->Modules. Load a scene in DeltaGen. Page 1

Integration with Deltagen Create a new Local Surrounding above the geometry to light Note that there is no Source set for the local surrounding texture. Select the local surrounding and click on "Edit" to create a new dynamic HDR Environment in HDR Light Studio Live. The HDR Light Studio Live window will appear with a default gradient background. Page 2

Integration with Deltagen Place your lights in HDR Light Studio Live. The lighting for the selected local surrounding will be updated. The thumbnail shows the current lighting design. Note the source for the local surrounding is now prepended with sdk\\. This indicates it is using the Live texture. Note that the camera window is current limited to reflections in DeltaGen 9.6, not image Based Lighting with the Live texture applied. The camera view will be updated with the lighting design. Page 3

Integration with Deltagen Edit the lighting in HDR Light Studio Live as desired. The thumbnail and camera view update as you edit your lighting. To create a production quality HDR light map for your scene, click on the Render button in HDR Light Studio Live. Page 4

Integration with Deltagen The Export dialog will appear and you should select the output HDR file (name will automatically be appended by _ll) Select your resolution and other export options Click on Save and the production quality render will be generated. The local surrounding will be updated with the high quality render and the scene will be set to use reflection and image based lighting. Note the source path now indicates the exported HDRI image. Page 5

Main Interface Main Interface Overview Clone selected light Delete selected light Create rectangular synthetic light Create round synthetic light Create hexagonal synthetic light Create and choose a picture light Background settings Open render dialog window Increase canvas exposure Light List HDR Canvas Decrease canvas exposure Lat-long or cubic guides on canvas Undo & redo Light Properties Page 6

Getting Started Getting Started The HDR Canvas represents a latitude-longitude sphere map. Click on any of the light buttons to create a new light in the centre of the HDR Canvas. The currently selected light is highlighted orange in the Light List and has an orange circle at its centre on the HDR Canvas. The properties of the currently selected light are displayed in the Light Properties pane at the bottom of the main window. Numerical properties of the light (wattage, latitude etc) can be changed using either the sliders or via its corresponding edit box. The location of the currently selected light can be changed by clicking at a new position directly on the HDR Canvas. Lights are positioned using their centre location. Change the currently selected light by either clicking on the light in the Light List or using the up and down arrow keys to move through the list. Move the currently selected light up and down in the light list using Left SHIFT with the Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys. The Canvas Exposure controls can be used to change the exposure of the HDR Canvas. This allows for easy inspection of the complete dynamic range of the HDR image, and does not effect the brightness of any generated HDR image. To generate a HDR image for use in your renderer, use the Render button and select the image size and file format. Tip: Once you have rendered a HDR image, you can press CTRL and click the Render button to immediately re-render with the same settings as last time. Page 7

Synthetic Light Properties Synthetic Light Properties 1 2 3 Light Brightness and Colour The currently selected light brightness is controlled by the Wattage slider (or numerical input). Its colour can be changed by clicking on the RGB square next to the Wattage numeric input and using the colour picker to select a new value. Fall Off % The light is at its brightest where the bulb is, which by default is in the middle of the light. The light gets darker as you move away from the bulb and clamps to a minimum value as specified by the Fall Off % value. When this is set to 0%, the edge of the light is totally dark and thus the edge is soft. This is great for a spotlight effect. Values above 0% will result in a hard edge. Fall Offs Buttons (numbered above) 1. No Fall Off - the light maintains its Wattage brightness right up to the edge. 2. Linear Fall Off - uniform transition from Wattage to Fall Off %. 3. Cosine Fall Off - the most realistic way to represent real light sources. Solid By default all synthetic lights are added together with the background value to produce the final result. If a light is set to Solid, it overrides the background and all lights underneath it in the Light List. Picture Lights are solid by default. Dark Turn this on and the light now removes light from the canvas rather than adding it - think of it as an anti-light. This is perfect for creating dark areas in reflections. Half This removes the bottom half of your light with a clean hard edge. Bulb Length Allows you to adjust the bulb from a point source (0%) through to a tube-light the full width of the light shape (100%). Light is at its maximum brightness along the bulb length and falls off away from it. Bulb length 0% Bulb length 50% Bulb length 100% Bulb Position Allows you to adjust the bulbs position within the light from the top (-50%) through to the bottom (50%). Bulb length 50% Bulb position 0% Bulb length 50% Bulb position 25% Bulb length 50% Bulb position -50% Page 8

Synthetic Light Properties Fall Off stops before it reaches the corners leaving corners with flat brightness The Fall Off continues right into the corner Outside button Off Outside button On Outside By default the Fall Off for the light finishes at the edge of the light shape, giving round soft lights. By selecting the Outside setting you can make the Fall Off finish at the corners of the light shape to more readily replicate a real soft box. How the Outside setting works in conjunction with the bulb width and position The diagrams below show a rectangular light with the outside setting on. The red dotted line shows where the Fall Off value is reached and describes the fall off shape. The small red squares and thick red lines indicate the intersection of the minimum Fall Off value with the edge of the light shape. The black line shows the outside shape of the rectangular light, this shows the part that can be seen in HDR Light Studio. With the Outside setting on, the Fall Off value is reached outside or on the edge of the light shape. The Fall Off edge always has rounded ends that intersect the corners. The Fall Off occurs symmetrically away in both axes from the bulb. Outside On Examples Bulb length: 0% Bulb length: 50% Bulb length: 100% Bulb length: 0% Bulb position: 50% Bulb length: 50% Bulb position: 50% Bulb length: 100% Bulb position: 50% Page 9

Synthetic Light Properties With the Outside setting off the Fall Off generally finishes inside the light shape. Once again, the red dotted line shows where the Fall Off value is reached and describes the Fall Off shape. The small red squares and thick red lines indicate the intersection of the minimum Fall Off value with the edge of the light shape. The black line shows the outside shape of the rectangular light, this shows the part that can be seen in HDR Light Studio. Outside Off Examples Bulb length: 0% Bulb position: 0% Bulb length: 50% Bulb position: 0% Bulb length: 100% Bulb position: 0% Bulb length: 0% Bulb position: 25% Bulb length: 50% Bulb position: 25% Bulb length: 100% Bulb position: 25% On the next page are some more examples as you would see them on the HDR Light Studio canvas. These begin to show how powerful these combinations of simple settings can be in creating a wide range of lighting effects. Page 10

Picture Lights Preview of the currently selected light. A list of available lights contained within the installed HDRI Light Packs. Click the Picture Light button ( ) to open the Picture Light Browser. You will be presented with all installed Picture Lights. All picture lights contain HDR information and include an alpha channel that describe the lights outline or transparency. Picture lights enable very realistic light sources to be included in HDR Light Studio that have been captured photographically. Picture Lights also allow very complex effects to be created. Picture Lights have many of the same controls as the Synthetic Lights. Once a light has been chosen, you can simply change the light for another whilst maintaining all of your settings, just click on Change light source... button. You can also colourize a Picture Light by ticking the white box (1) and then selecting the colour you would like by clicking the RGB colour swatch (2). 2 1 Page 12

Background Settings Background Settings Click the Background button ( ) and the Background settings panel will open. At the top of this panel are 3 tabs to select which type of background is used in the lighting design. HDRI background setting Select the HDRI tab in order to load an existing.hdr or.exr file into the background of the lighting design. The file can be any size, but the ratio of the width to the height must be 2:1, for example 5,000 pixels wide x 2,500 pixels tall. A file that does not comply to this ratio will be rejected by HDR Light Studio. The Rotation slider and numeric input is used to rotate the image in the Longitude direction. The Brightness% numeric input is used to change the brightness of the image in your lighting design. Click OK to use the HDRI you have chosen as your background. Note: When it comes to rendering a lighting design that contains a HDRI background, the render resolution is fixed to the size of the HDRI being referenced. This produces pixel perfect results compared to the original file. Page 14

Background Settings HDRI background augmentation in action It s like retouching, but in 3D 1 1. The car is rendered using the original HDRI file shown. The car needs bringing to life as it looks a bit flat and dull. Normally this is done by rendering more layers with CGI lighting and compositing together, or with traditional retouching techniques 2 2. This image is still the untouched render output from KeyShot. So all the enhancement to the car has been created using HDR Light Studio 2.0 to augment the original HDRI image with additional spot lights and some coloured soft areas of light reflecting in the body panels. 3 3. This image is still the untouched render output from KeyShot. Again, all the enhancement to the car has been created using HDR Light Studio 2.0 to augment the original HDRI image. This time with a large overhead softbox and a few spot lights. Back plate and HDRI kindly provided by Moofe.com, 3D model kindly provided by PK3D.com Page 15

Background Settings 1 2 Gradient background setting Select the Gradient tab (this is HDR Light Studio s default background setting) to create a background HDRI gradient. This tab will always contain a set of default settings until the user creates their own. There are 2 vertical gradient ramps - a Colour Ramp and a Luminosity Ramp. Both ramps have small squares at the top and bottom to control the values at each end of the ramp. In the Colour Ramp, click on the little square once to select it (1), the outline will appear a little thicker to show it is selected. Now click on the large colour swatch next to the Colour Ramp (2) and a colour picker will appear. You can now select the colour at this point on the ramp. Pick your new colour and click OK Page 16

Background Settings The colour at the top of the Colour Ramp has now changed. On the Luminosity Ramp, instead of a colour picker appearing, a Luminosity Picker appears. This value is used in conjunction with the Peak Wattage value to determine the brightness of that point on the ramp. If a value half way is selected in the Luminosity Picker, and the Peak Wattage is set to 1000W, the value at this point on the ramp would be 50% of 1000W, so 500W. The advantage of the Peak Wattage setting is it allows the overall brightness of the Gradient background to be controlled with one setting, rather than having to adjust each point on the Luminosity ramp. Page 17

Background Settings 3 3 Adding a new point on the ramps Double click anywhere on the ramp itself to add a new point (3). This creates a new point on the ramp and automatically assigns a value in between those above and below. This new point on the ramp will be shown as a triangular arrow at it s side. This arrow can slide up and down the ramp and be positioned where you decide, even very close to another point. Click on the triangular arrow once to select it and you can then change its colour. The same principle applies to the Luminosity ramp. Shown below is a very complex gradient design, illustrating what is possible. Page 18

Background Settings Please note: Transparent Background is not working properly. In the current release this makes the background black, not transparent. This will be fixed in the next update. Page 19

Render settings Render settings Press the Render button ( ) to bring up the render settings window. First select the type of file you would like to render. There are 2 settings: EXR (ILM) or HDR (Radiance). The user also needs to browse to a location and give the file a name before they can save the file. This file will automatically be appended by _ll, so it can be properly recognised by Deltagen as a lat-long map. If a HDRI background is used in the lighting design, the render resolution is fixed to the size of the HDRI being referenced. Otherwise please select a resolution from the presets available. These can be picked from the drop down menu, or alternatively, the user can click directly in the preview area to select a size. The render settings window also includes two tick boxes: Show Guides will show the lat-long guides from the viewport in the rendered image. This can be useful for orientating your HDRI within your 3D scene in your main render application. Fast Preview reduces the samples per pixel and renders much faster with lower quality results. This is great for a test render to test in your renderer. To render again with the same settings without needing to re-enter this settings window, simply press the CTRL key whilst pressing the render button and the same settings as last time will be used and the render is started straight away. Page 20

hdrlightstudio Keyboard Commands: General + = Undo left + + = Redo + = Delete selected light + = Duplicate selected light + render = Renders with last settings & file name Move + = Moves selected light left one unit. + = Moves selected light right one unit. + = Moves selected light up one unit. + = Moves selected light down one unit. Select = Select previous light in list (or last if no light is selected) = Select next light in list (or first if no light is selected) Light Order left left + = Moves selected light up the light list order. + = Moves selected light down the light list order.