ahEnvironmentLight for DAZ Studio Version 2.0 and
Contents
1. User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 1 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved ahEnvironmentLight for DAZ Studio Version 2 0 and ahRenderPlugin for DAZ Studio Version 1 0 Above image rendered in DAZ Studio with the IBL Light as the only light source no special shaders or painted specular highlights where used User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 2 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Table of Contents ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 Diccionari i E a ceva ben cttevbeeeesssdeneestoeeeicdeeerres E 4 Featured Highlights of Version 2 Diic cccoiiicn a ia A aid 4 Quick Salina de beta 5 Location of the various parts in the content tab hierarchy of DAZ StUdiO oooonoooccnnncnnnccccnccccccnnnnnnnncnnns 5 First Steps for setting up a scene with HDR IBL lightiNg coooooocccnnnnonncccconnnncncccancnccnnanann conc conanan cnn ncnnnnnnnnn 6 Short Introduction to IBL AO and il daa 7 Blin a A A As ea bee 7 Ad A dee ee eed teeta ene er ee 9 Mamita ae teed as esl eee eed lhe nail a eed td ete 9 Preparing an IBL HDRI Light PrOb ocoocconnccccccnnnonoconcccnnnononanccnnnn nana nn conc rnnnn nro cnn nn naar nn cnn A nn 11 Mirogducton nasrne chee We Hates Wesabe a a A riot Aub ecebtiel ih cA a Aces bel oath ein aa ee 11 Using HDR Shop 1 0 for converting IBL IMages ooooocccccnnnnocccccccnonnoncccn2. Je Victoria 4 2 s Default Camera Eee User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 7 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved 3 Check your render settings There are multiple settings that effect the render quality and the render time greatly Check and set the following in the Advanced GA Advanced Render Tab to the values shown on the right RENEE ta O Preview Render OpenGL Single Pass No Shadows Hardware Assisted Render OpenGL Multi Pass Especially important are the settings for Max Ray Trace Depth and iF Usa Goat Stas LS the values Pixel Samples X and Pixel Samples Y Passes per light a 0 It is recommended to set them to the values shown on the right Use Software 3Delight v Bucket Order Spiral X Bucket Size 16 Max RayTrace Depth 4 Pixel Samples X eli 4 Pixel Samples Y o 4 Shadow Samples o 16 O Render To RIB Keep Shadows Collect and Localize 0 Render Accept Cancel 4 Select Your favorite camera and render away Short Introduction to IBL AO and ILT IBL In the CGI world abbreviations are very much common place almost everything is shortened to two or three letter acronyms CGI itself is an acronym and stands for Computer Generated Image or sometimes Imaging The techniques used in this shader pack are a subset of so called Gl or Glob
3. clear day afternoon Direct sunlight from the left and slightly from behind Outdoor_005 In the Garden Winter clear day afternoon Direct frontal sunlight User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 26 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved ahILT Light Fine Tuning the Settings Note1 An ILT Light can never be used alone As it calculates light that bounces off surfaces those surfaces have to be lit by something else first Either use one or more DAZ Studio standard lights or an ahIBL Light as primary light source and then add an ahILT Light Note2 ILT is by far the most render time consuming feature yet BUT it is currently the only way in DAZ Studio to calculate indirect light that bounces between surfaces On a personal side note rather would fake it with additional fill lights than try to calculate it But on the other hand it adds remarkable realism to the final image Note3 Don t forget to check your render settings General gt Advanced Render Engine O Preview Render OpenGL Single Pass No Shadows Especially important are the settings for Max Ray Trace Depth and the values Pixel Samples X and Pixel Samples Y Hardware Assisted Render OpenGL Multi Pass i O Use OpenGL Shader GLSL It is recommended to set them to the values shown on the right Passes per light 0 4 g In terms of ILT the Max Ray Trace Dep
4. Adds specular ILT to your scene e Off Switches ILT off completely Section SHADER CONTROLS See same section under ahIBL Light the settings and their behavior are identical Section ILT Settings ILT Diffuse Samples and ILT Specular Samples This setting controls how many probing rays are cast to detect light from other surfaces in the scene For test rendering the recommended setting is 4 or 8 samples This will give a good enough approximation to determine the outcome of the final render For final rendering settings up to 1024 samples are considered normal Note For most purposes setting the samples for specular ILT to about half or lower the value as for diffuse ILT sufficient User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 28 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Example Renders Note Unless stated otherwise all lights were used with their default settings from the presets In the image series above the IBL light was used for outdoor lighting Left image shows the IBL Light alone On the other images it was combined with a single standard distant light to achieve stronger shadows from the sun The only trick used here was to match the distant lights direction to the suns location in the IBL image The IBL light used was the ahOutdoor_005 light preset which was easier to match because the sun stood directly behind the photograph
5. Message Area Image size The width and height of the image to be rendered in pixel User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 36 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Note The aspect frame of the camera window is not changed by this parameter and it does only set the dimension of the image which is rendered by the plugin when clicking on the button Start Render To set the aspect frame change the setting of under Dimensions in the General Render Tab Image Scale If you want to render your image smaller or bigger You can set here a new size in percentage of the width and height set above Very convenient for quick test renders Message Area Here the render plugin prints out statistics information and error messages User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 37 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved FAQ Can I use the IBL or ILT Light with other lights e g spot lights Yes absolutely Any combination with the DAZ Studio lights will work Can I use the IBL or ILT Light with other surface shaders Yes absolutely Any combination with the standard DAZ Studio shaders will work And of course it works with the shaders from the ahEnvironment ShaderPack either Version 1 0 or 2 0 How can I achieve that reflecting sphere that can be seen in the promo images There is a little t
6. in support for Camera focusing Exposure and Gamma controls plus automated image saving currently available for PC only User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 5 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Quick Start Location of the various parts in the content tab hierarchy of DAZ Studio e Studio e Lights e ahShaderPackage_V2 e Lights e ahIBL Light for adding a ahIBL Light to the scene e ahlILT Light for adding a ahILT Light to the scene e ahDAZDistantLight for adding an advanced DAZ Distant Light to the scene e ahDAZPointLight for adding an advanced DAZ Point Light to the scene e ahDAZSpotLight for adding an advanced DAZ Spot Light to the scene e Presets for IBL Light e HDR IBL Pack Basic e Indoor e Office_001 Office Daylight Indirect light from window on left e Office_002 Office Daylight Indirect light from window on left less contrast sun behind some clouds e Office_003 Office Daylight Indirect light from window on left but different view point e Outdoor e Outdoor_001 On the Roof Winter hazy 1 hour before sunset Direct sunlight from the right e Outdoor_002 On the Roof Winter hazy 1 hour before sunset Direct sunlight from the left e Outdoor_003 On the Roof Winter hazy 1 hour before sunset Direct sunlight from the back e Outdoor_004 In the Garden Winter clear day afternoon Direct sunlight from the
7. left and slightly from behind e Outdoor_005 In the Garden Winter clear day afternoon Direct frontal sunlight User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Revision Version 1 Page 6 of 37 First Steps for setting up a scene with HDR IBL lighting Overview For ease of use the shader package includes presets which will successfully set up a HDR IBL lighted scene without knowledge of the details Still it is highly recommended to read through this manual and perhaps some background material see section Recommended Reading for further details The steps are Check your render settings oO OO Load or create your scene and pose your models Load one of the ahIBL Light Presets Select Your favorite camera and render away 1 Load or create your scene and pose your models and don t add any lights yet 2 Load an IBL Light Preset Load one of the provided presets by e g double clicking on the script icon Office_001 in the folder e Studio Lights ahShaderPackage_V2 Presets for IBL Light HDR IBL Pack Basic DAZ Studio 2 3 promo_0_003 daz File Edit View Render Create Tools Help Pose Shape Animate Materials a E Wi o A AR Presets for IBL Light s HDR IBL Pack Basic 5 Outdoor Backstreets by Night s Vanessa Light Office_001 Office_002 o Office _003 Parameters MJ AZETE J Cosmo_Pumps J JerseyDress_V4
8. point in space the same spot light in a IBL image has a real dimension thus will create a broader and more natural highlight To compensate for this you can go either of two ways Alter the surface shader settings to more real world values or compensate in the light shader exactly what the Specular Intensity setting is for Note The method to compensate in the IBL light shader is inferior to changing the settings of the surface shader So if the IBL light is the primary light source in your scene it is recommended to alter the surface shaders settings for Glossiness and or Specular Strength it will get closer to a natural look if that is to be desired for the image in the first place Illumination This setting behaves exactly as the same the standard lights of DAZ Studio Possible settings are e On Adds diffuse IBL and specular IBL to the scene e Diffuse Only Adds diffuse IBL to your scene e Specular Only Adds specular IBL to your scene e Off Switches the light completely off Note The necessary information for computing specular highlights and reflections glossiness near or at 100 is automatically read from the surface shader So no special preparation must be taken User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 16 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved The image series above shows from left to right Diffuse Only Specular On
9. rotating 150 degrees the light comes from the front right direction Note the change in brightness and specular reflections because the figure now gets much more direct light from the sun User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 15 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Section Light Intensity and Specular Intensity The Intensity setting behaves exactly as the setting of the same name in the standard lights of DAZ Studio It controls the amount of light which the light should add to the scene Reasonable values ranges from 0 which is the equivalent of switching the light off and 100 which sets it to full intensity If you have additional lights in the scene the scene may get too bright You should adjust the intensity for any of the lights to correct for this The Specular Intensity setting controls the strength of the calculated specular highlights Because most surface shaders are set up to cope well with the standard Studio lights this might cause specular highlights under IBL lighting to be either calculated to weak or to strong compared to the original DAZ Studio lights This is mainly caused by the fact that HDR IBL Lighting has a much more real light intensity distribution and is generally much more accurate with the actual geometry of the original light sources For instance while the origin of a traditional DAZ Studio spot light is mathematically just a
10. sets the distance at which the camera lens is focused Any object that is not exactly in that distance will be more or less blurred depending on the f Stop setting which controls the depth of field Setting f Stop to OFF results in every object rendered sharp ignoring their distance to the camera which is the default in DAZ Studio Note Contrary to a real diaphragm the f Stop control does not effect the brightness of the image only the amount of depth of field This is done for convenience as You wold have to adjust exposure every time You alter the f stop setting In the image series above You can see how the focus point effect the outcome of the image from left to right Depth of field switched off f Stop 4 and focused on the face f Stop 4 and focused on the hand Note As it is with real world lenses the focal length and distance to the object is also very important Longer lenses for example need higher f Stop values to produce the same amount of depth of field as wider User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 33 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved lenses Note It the blurred parts of the image appear grainy go to your advanced render tab and set a higher value for Pixel samples X and Pixel samples Y Focus on Selected Object As it is not easy to measure exact distances in DAZ Studio the button F
11. 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Section Output Settings eaii rriena iai A A E E AER 33 Exposure Gain Gain and GaMMa cccccconoccccccccononnncnnncnonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nn anne nnnrnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns 34 Image TYPO cai conoci A RARA 35 Output Pati ti A ae saa e aa A AA AA tt A a 35 Section Render and Message Al8A ocoocooccccccccnoooccnccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nn anno nnnnnnnrnnn enn nnnnrnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns 35 Image SIZ viii A LD CAE ada 35 Image CAale vcimmcicinitd a rd A a O Ad 36 MESA A 36 FAQ A A A EL a E A ieee Av ia CEDE 37 Can l use the IBL or ILT Light with other lights e g spot lightS ooonnoonccnnnnnidiciccnnnnnnncocccnnccnnnannnos 37 Can luse the IBL or ILT Light with other surface shaders se ssssrieesrrrrrrseserrrrrnnnnnnarrrrrrennens 37 How can achieve that reflecting sphere that can be seen in the promo imageS eee 37 Can use other images than the provided for IBL cc eeeeeseeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 37 Will there be more HDR IBL Image presets oooooccccccnnococcccccconanonnccnncnnnannncnnncnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn cnn nnnnnnnnnnns 37 Why is the render control plugin not available for MAC User TP ooooooccccccnococcccncconanancncnnnnnnnnnnncononnnnns 37 COntacting the authorities icoca lost 37 User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 4 of 37 2007 2008 by Arthur
12. 31 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Where to find the Plugin after Install You can open the render plugin by selecting View gt Tabs gt ahRenderControl 1 0 8 from the main menu E DAZ Studio 2 3 File Edit View POLCAR Tools Help Materials Scripting Interface Style View port Layout gt ahRenderControl V1 0 8 Render Always on Top f Environments f Hair S f Lights f3 ahShaderPackage_V2 fF Presets for IBL Light f HDR IBL DayLightPact After the plugin window has opened You can drag an drop it into any sidebar as You would with other windows ELINETTTE File Edit View Render Create Tools Help Content Pose Shape Animate Materials Scripting AF N i 4 iy T EDAZ 3D RIE MERN Render Content T Y Surfaces Parameters ta Default Camera C _GRAPHICS DAZ Studio images User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 32 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Section Camera Control Render Content Camera Just select which camera You want to use for rendering The point of doing this is that even after you have changed the viewport to another camera or view this options switches back to your render camera while rendering and back to the view You had before after finishing Depth of Field f Stop and Focus cm These controls behave more or less like as the the controls on real camera lens Focus
13. A a anda 22 Indoors OMICS OO 25ers O teeadties creentceteas 22 Indoor Office DOS taria tt ie E AA sian remeiteltas 23 QUO Ut a do Ea e core 23 OU OO a aleteo 24 A AO 24 OQu tdoor OM iaa ri aida nada 25 QUO UI a e oe veal tase eee ease 25 ahILT Light Fine Tuning the SettidgS ooocoonnnnnccccccnnnnnconccccnnnnnnonnncnnnnonnnnnnnn nn ika aA narran nn TARRA KAri roiak 26 Section Ligia at E toas 26 a a o O 26 OD MMU ATON O OO 27 Section SHADER CONTROLS raca ces cetetettede dad aa 27 Section ILT SettiN S erai eevee eevee ee eee Ta ad 27 ILT Diffuse Samples and ILT Specular Samples 2 ececceccceceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeteeeeeeeeeseaaeees 27 Example Renders iie ean A id add add 28 ahRenderControl Plugin for DAZ Studio Version 1 D ooonnooccccnnnnnoooccccccconnnanccnnncnnnonnnononcnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns 30 INTO UC iii Eee 30 Highlights iia A A A ada 30 Where to find the Plugin after Install oooooononnnnnnccnnnnnnnocaconnnonananancnncnnnnnrrnnnn cnn nano nn nn nc rana n nn cnn rra nnnnnnncnanin 31 Section Camera Control uuniccic nnnonii A A A EG ALGA AAA 32 A E cate E E T sv cole nagg ue doth sstnnedeetbssnaeee T 32 Depth of Field f Stop and FOCUS CM ooooooocccccnccoconaccncconanoncncncnonanononnnnnnnnnnnnncnnnnnnnn ocn cnnnnnanennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns 32 Focus On Selected Object sesira eoii ii e A A dd 33 User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 3 of 37 O
14. Heinz All Rights Reserved ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Featured Highlights of Version 2 0 new features since Version 1 0 are in italic lettering e A comprehensive Manual with attention to details 8 Ready made IBL scene presets including HDR Image light probes for immediate rendering Light Intensity setting ranging from 0 to 100 for compatibility with DAZ Studio lights Full rotation in X Y Z axis for compatibility with DAZ Studio lights Full Ambient Lighting support Image Based Lighting IBL with HDR Image support and controls for Brightness and Saturation Ambient Occlusion with separate sample settings for transparent e g Hair and non transparent materials for better performance control and support for three different distribution methods Specular Highlights calculation with full HDR Image support based on the settings for Specular Strength and Glossiness of the surface materials Specular Occlusion calculation based on the settings of Specular Strength and Glossiness of the surface materials Controls for Irradiance Shadingrate and Irradiance Maximum Error for optimizing quality versus render time Indirect Light Transport ILT Light for adding diffuse and specular surface to surface light reflections Bonus 1 Free scripts for advanced features of the DAZ Point and DAZSpotLight with settings for Decay Intensity Scale and Beam Distribution Bonus 2 Free DAZ Studio 2 0 plugin ahRenderControl with built
15. a From left to right Cosine Uniform IBL Map Note The differences between the distribution settings are most likely only visible by direct comparison of the resulting images and are often hard to detect General rule is the higher the IBL image s dynamic range the bigger the difference in the resulting shadows Also not all HDR IBL images are equally suitable for IBL Map distribution and some may even result in very strange shadows AO Samples and AO Samples for Transparent Materials These settings control how many probing rays are cast to detect light blocking objects For test rendering the recommended settings are 8 or 4 samples This will give You good enough shadows to determine the outcome of the final render For final rendering settings up to 512 samples for non transparent materials are considered normal Because probing for transparent surfaces takes very long to render you may want to set the number of samples for transparent material to considerably lower values like 4 or 8 User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 21 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Note The ahIBL Light recognizes transparent materials automatically while rendering No special marking or tagging is required The image series below shows the effect of increasing the number of AO samples From left to right 8 16 64 AO Samples User Manual f
16. al Illumination techniques which began to evolve some twenty years ago mostly for the purpose of the film industry and their special effects departments A very common problem there is to integrate an CG object into real life footage While creating and animating such an object is one problem the other is how to blend it in so that the audience would not be able to tell Unfortunately the human eye and brain are very good in detecting if something looks off in an image Especially if there is something to compare the CG object to the image itself like the background or other objects nearby Even very small variations in color or tone inconsistent shadows or reflections or a dozens of other details can give a CG object away easily One of the most fundamental steps to get it right is to light the CG object exactly the same way as it would actually have been in the scene There is a very elegant way to do just that It is called IBL yet another acronym for Image Based Lighting How does it work Well as the name suggests one would take an image of light from the original filming location to illuminate the CG object later on Such an image is often called a light probe because it is essentially an image of all light that would fall onto a object that would be put in exact the same spot as the camera that took that image Another common way to take such images is to photograph a mirrored sphere put in exactly the location where the CG objects sho
17. er when the light probe image was taken So the light direction from the IBL light matches the suns horizontal angle position The height was about 25 30 degrees above the horizon so the assisting distant light must have the same Y Direction as the IBL light and must also have a elevation of about 30 degrees on the X Direction In both images the IBL light was used with the default settings using diffuse and specular lighting and AO samples set to 64 The distant light was set to calculate raytraced shadows with 10 softness By the way salute Stonemason for his superb craftsmanship he showed again in his latest work used in the renders above It is called Streets Of The Mediterranean and is available in the DAZ store and no don t get anything from mention it here User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 29 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved The left image was made with the IBL light as primary light source and the ILT light to calculate diffuse reflections from the walls and other objects in the scene Note the color bleeding from the wooden cabinet onto the neighboring walls The settings used were 128 samples for AO and 256 samples for ILT diffuse The preset used in this render was ahOutdoor_005 The two images on the right are portrait renders with the IBL light alone Used preset where ahOffice_002 Settings were 64 samples
18. etermined from the light probe places a problem in our hands What to do with surfaces that do not face the outside world imaged by the light probe Or in other words would be shadowed by blocking objects in the scene Well the IBL light probe can only provide us with the necessary lighting information for surfaces that are directly exposed to the surrounding so we have to have another way to determine which surfaces are shadowed by other objects in our scene And that is what AO or Ambient Occlusion does It looks for light blocking objects in our scene and uses the gathered information to exclude surfaces from receiving light from the IBL light probe It is like sitting on the shaded surface and literally poking around for objects with a long stick and bandaged eyes Every time You hit something you know that from that direction the surface is not able to receive light This is exactly how AO works It literally shoots rays in every direction to probe the environment for light blocking objects The more rays it shoots the more accurate the probing is ILT ILT stands for Indirect Light Transport It is another Gl technique to illuminate surfaces ILT determines how much light a particular surface is receiving from other surfaces in the scene It simulates light that bounces from surface to surface in the scene hence the indirect part in the name The technique behind it is somewhat similar to AO The render engine probes the currently s
19. fference on the sphere In the first two images the reflection from the figure is mixed with the reflection calculated from the IBL image The color from the table is shining through In the image on the right the reflection is calculated correct the areas from the figures reflection are now excluded from the reflections calculated from the IBL image Section SHADER CONTROLS Irradiance Shadingrate and Irradiance Maximum Error Both settings control the accuracy in which AO and ILT is calculated Irradiance Shadingrate controls how often AO is calculated on a specific surface Setting it to a value of 1 instructs the render engine that AO should be determined at every shading point in the scene This is most often overkill and slows down rendering to a crawl Sane values for most DAZ Studio scenes ranges from 1024 to 256 which will determine the values only every 1024th and 256th shading point respectively For very close shots or high image sizes settings may have to be be lowered if the image starts to look blotchy but it is recommended to try higher values and have a look on the outcome first Because the right setting is highly dependent on the scene the resolution of the figures and image size it is very hard to give recommendations But rough estimates for a V4 figure and an image size of 750x750 pixels are e For wide area shots 1024 to512 a complete room for instance e For medium area shots 512 to 256 a human f
20. for AO and 16 samples for AO on transparent materials In the image on the left the IBL light preset ahOutdoor_4 was used for diffuse and specular lighting AO Samples were set to 128 samples User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 30 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved ahRenderControl Plugin for DAZ Studio Version 1 0 Introduction The idea for this plugin is as old as my use of DAZ Studio You see do a lot of testing and the two things went furious over and over again was when forgot to save images or forgot to change the camera back to my main camera after adjusting a pose and hitting the render button again to soon It also happens to be the first plugin ever coded for DAZ Studio So please don t expect miracles But as it proofed invaluable to me in the last few month while developing new lights and shaders for DAZ Studio decided to give it to You as a addon freebie to my ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Have fun rendering Arthur Highlights e Camera Control which automatically switches to your render camera and back e Depth of Field and f Stop control with Autofocus Button to focus on the currently selected object e Controls for Gamma and Exposure e Autosave for rendered images e Controls for easy rendering of different image sizes e g 25 size for test renders User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page
21. ges series below was rendered with the 0 5 1 0 and 2 0 setting Gamma controls the lightness of the image which is technically incorrect You can also say contrast of the image which is not correct either But in layman s terms it is fair enough If you really want to now whats behind it recommend the following link Possible Settings examples e 1 0 Studios standard setting e 08 Very hard image darker shadows towards Low Key Lighting e 1 2 Lighter image less dark shadows towards High Key Lighting The images series below was rendered with the 0 6 0 8 1 0 1 2 1 4 gamma setting and exposure set to 1 0 User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 35 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Image Type Only PNG images are supported at this time to preserve the alpha channel in your rendered images Possible Settings are e png PNG Uses the Portable Network Graphics format to save the images after the render is finished e OFF No images saving is done You are on your own Output Path This is the folder to witch the rendered images are saved An image name is automatically chosen from your date and time setting from your computer So it is easy to sort them chronologically To change the folder just click on the button Output Path The standard file dialog will open and let You choose a new folder Section Render and
22. haded surface surroundings for objects and determines how much light bounces back from them onto the shaded surface Take this sample scene for example The left image was rendered without ILT The only light that illuminates the scene is a point light simulating User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 10 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved the flame of the oil lamp So all light emanates from that one point only Every surface that does nat directly see the oil lamp receives no light from it at all hence they are rendered very very dark or pitch black depending on their surface materials Well that is not what would happen in a real room setup Light would bounce from the walls the ceiling or any other surface back into the room and then back on other surfaces and so forth Now look at the right image Here we used ILT with one bounce only to simulate the indirect light from the surfaces Now every surface has received light some directly from the oil lamp others only from surrounding surfaces Look closely under the table or at the oil lamp itself the lower part which is black on the left image now is illuminated from light that bounces back from the table User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 11 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Preparing an IBL HDRI Light Probe Introducti
23. he value of the minimum distance setting in very low steps until no more self shadowing occurs or set the bump or displacement strength to a lower value User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 20 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved AO Distribution This setting controls how the probing rays are cast while probing the environment for blocking objects e The standard setting is Standard Cosine which will cast more of the probing rays in the direction in which the surface normal is oriented This setting is also the one that needs the least number of rays cast AO Samples to produce even looking shadows e The Uniform setting will cast probing rays equally distributed in every direction resulting in a more accurate probing But as more rays are cast to the edge of the probed area the overall density of the cast rays gets lower So this settings sometimes needs a higher number of AO Samples to produce even shadows compared to the Cosine setting e The IBL Map setting tries to determine the most likely direction from which an occlusion occurs from the given IBL image and cast probing rays primarily in that direction This results in stronger more natural shadows especially with IBL images that are taken in broad sunlight In the image series below the differences are very hard to detect but they are there most noticeable at the chest are
24. igure from the waist up for instance e For close up shots 256 to64 a human single face for instance Note It is strongly recommended to try higher sampling rates for AO and ILT first before lowering the value for irradiance shadingrate It is much cheaper in terms of render time So try sampling rates of 128 samples or more first and then as a last option consider lowering the irradiance shadingrate Irradiance Maximum Error controls the amount of interpolation between shading points on the shaded surface Higher settings instructs the render engine to calculate interpolation more exactly at the expense of some render time Setting it to values of 0 5 or 0 75 is recommended A value of zero turns interpolation completely off which may lead to blotchy images Section IBL SETTINGS IBL Color Map This is the actual IBL light probe image If the color setting is set to any other color than pure white RGB 255 255 255 then this color is multiplied with image color before it is used as IBL image l e it can push an existing IBL image towards a certain hue User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 18 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Note that the intensity is also changed so you might have to compensate with the IBL Brightness Scale setting see below Note 1 It is not recommended to use blurred images with the ahIBL light While other impleme
25. il arthur heinz arthurs cgi corner net or at the DAZ community forums www daz3d com under my nickname pendragon If do not reply promptly please take into account the time difference My timezone is GMT 1
26. ing anything else and we would lose the High Dynamic Range Note We are using TIFF in DAZ Studio because it is the only HDR format that the DAZ Studio GUI permits us to browse and load via its interface But as we use Floating Point TIFF only we don t have to compromise on the quality of the HDR images User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 12 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Currently there are two software packages freely available on the net for generating and or converting HDR images e HDR Shop 1 0 available from http www debevec com and e Picturenaut available from http www hdrlabs com picturenaut While HDR Shop 1 0 is free for non commercial usage Picturenaut is without usage restriction at all Picturenaut and its plugins is the more complex and also more powerful program of the two But we will use HDR Shop 1 0 to demonstrate the steps for converting IBL images for DAZ Studio because it still is the easier program to use Using HDR Shop 1 0 for converting IBL Images Steps for converting panoramic Radiance HDR or most other image formats e Start HDR Shop 1 0 e Load the original image file e Save the image in Floating Point TIF format for DAZ Studio Open the File Menu and choose Oper from the list Suchen in de Of ce_001 Ge Be v Gr e Radiance Files hdr pic oK Copyright 2001 U
27. ly and On both Ambient Occlusion Diffuse Shadows Similarly to the standard lights from DAZ Studio the ahIBL Light has a shadow control setting However as the internal mechanics are different compared to the standard DAZ Studio lights there is only an On and Off value See section AO Settings for further details Specular Occlusion Specular Shadows Similar to the above but calculates the shadows for the specular portion of the light Possible Settings are e Off No Specular Occlusion is calculated e useAO Uses the same shadow solution as for Ambient Occlusion which is very crude but sometimes a good enough approximation The main advantage is that it does not cost additional render time Note Ambient Occlusion must be switched on e Advanced Calculates its own shadow solution depending on the specular settings of the shaded surface material This settings results in a much more accurate shadowing at the cost of some additional render time Note In very rare cases Advanced Specular Occlusion can almost double the render time compared to the simpler use AO option User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 17 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved In the image series above we can see small but distinctive differences in the three options From left to right Specular Occlusion Off use AO and Advanced Most noticeable is the di
28. niversity of Southern California All Rights reserved Licensed for academic and non commercial use for commercial licensing see About Pixel 694 240 Color 0 002 0 002 0 002 4 00stops Zoom1x In above dialog choose the original image and click on the button Open User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 13 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved E HDR Shop ahOffice_001 hdr j lO xj Ele Gente Est mage Vew Phons Seet Wrdon pe PO i GB ahoffice_001 hdr Width 1024 Height 512 r High Dynamic Range gt Floating Point TIFF TIF TIFF Portable Floatmap PFM Raw Binary Floating Point FLOAT RAW FLX Format EF FIM Format lt FIM Low Dynamic Range gt Windows BMP BMP JPEG EJPG TIFF TF TIFF Taga TGA Portable Pismap PPM E Copyright 2001 University of Southern Californi ercial use for commercial licensing see About Pixel 601 53 Color 0 005 0 005 0 005 6 00stops Zoom1x Open the File Menu and choose Save from the list In the above dialog choose Floating Point TIFF the save dialog opens el HDR Shop ahOffice_001 hdr 7 Sf 1 x File Create Edit Image View Plugins Select Window Help GB ahOffice_001 hdr speichern unter Speichem Office_001 gt e E Name Gr e T raw Dateiordner HDR TIFF Files tf tiff oK Co
29. nnonanoncnnnnnnnanancnnnnnnnanencccnnnnnnnns 12 ahIBL Light Fine Tuning the Settings ereere iei A RE Eaa N EENAA T a cnn rra rn 14 Section General Transforms nas hian e tada 14 A A ON 14 SECO Li A A alle IES AL 15 Intensity and Specular IntenSity ooooconnnocccccnnonconcccncnononannnnncnonanonnnnnnnnnnnonnnnn cnn nano nncnnnnn nan nnncnnnnnnnns 15 A NN 15 Ambient Occlusion Diffuse ShadowS ooocccconoccccccconononcccnoconananccnnnnnonnononnnnnnnnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnnccnnnnnnnnnnns 16 Specular Occlusion Specular ShadowS ooooooooccccccccccooccnoconnnannnnnnccnnnnononnncnnnnnn nn cn nc nnnnn nn nnn rr rnnnrn ana 16 Sections SHADER CONTROLS oru T e R TAN are NL 17 Irradiance Shadingrate and Irradiance Maximum EfTOT oooooocccccnccnoonccncccnonnonncnnnnnnnnonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns 17 Section IBLSETTIN Static 17 IBL Color Map toni rn ed An NE N 17 IBL Brightness Scale ainera eeta a iia ee 18 IBE Map Saturn h da did 18 section AO SETTINGS sia ants hte ecient ee E ksi ere ele 19 AQ Stren thirteen vie Ree teen elie eid eased ci dade ied ee ahi bas 19 AO Minimum and Maximum DistanCe ooooocccccnnnnococcccccnononnncncnonannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnrnnnncnnnnnnens 19 AO Distributions ci A ee eee heen 20 AO Samples and AO Samples for Transparent Materials 2 0eeeeeeeeceeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaeneeeeess 20 IBL Light Presets OVeInview c c cet c ces eset cee cdi cddtanes tenia 22 Indoor Offic 00T ar sehen
30. no effect on the image while a setting of 0 0 the image will be converted to black and white before being used as light probe In the image series below the effect of the saturation setting is shown From left to right 100 25 and 0 Saturation For better comparison The floor plane s surface color is set to a uniform light gray Section AO SETTINGS AO Strength If the shadows calculated by AO seem too strong this setting can be set to lower values to lighten them up or vice versa to higher values for darkening them Note A common reason shadows do not appear natural e g too dark is a wrong gamma correction setting AO Minimum and Maximum Distance These settings control at what distance the cast rays are starting and ending while probing the scene blocking objects In other words the rays will start at a point exactly the minimum distance above the surface being shaded and will end at exactly the distance given in the maximum distance setting In DAZ Studio the unit for distances is set to centimeters Acommon way to use the Maximum Distance setting is to exclude bounding objects like walls or other structures that should not shadow the surface Note If minimum distance is set too low the surface being shaded will cast its own shadow on itself This is the so called self shadowing effect and may occur if the surface shader involves some kind of displacement or bump mapping In this case gradually increase t
31. ntations are dependent on such external blurring for correct lighting calculation the ahILT light takes care of such things by itself In doing so it is able to calculate a much better lighting solution Note2 If no IBL image is given the ahIBL Light simulates the IBL image by calculating a sphere around the scene of uniform color and intensity In this way the ahIBL Light can be used without any image at all as a uniform fill light in combination with other lights Note3 If You use Your own IBL HDR images or download some from the Net then they may have to be properly prepared before they can be used as light probe First they have to be in what is called Latitude Longitude layout Secondly for the sake of Studio they also have to be in TIFF format For HDR Images it should be a Floating Point TIFF image to preserve the full range of intensity values See section Preparing a Light Probe for more information on that matter IBL Brightness Scale Every IBL image contains its own amount of light intensity values So some of them would appear very dark or very bright in comparison with the other light sources in DAZ Studio In fact it depends heavily on the real light situation at the location they were taken and on the technique used to combine the single shots into an actual HDR image To counterbalance for that every IBL image will be multiplied with the IBL Brightness Scale value before calculating the actual b
32. ocus on Selected Object calculates the distance between the camera and the currently selected object in the scene For example for the right image above the hand was selected and then the focus was calculated and set by clicking on the Focus on Selected Object button Note The focus distance calculation can only focus on the midpoint of the selected object and NOT on the surface So sometimes small manual adjustments are necessary Also keep in mind that the depth of field effect is only visible after rendering the image Section Output Settings User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 34 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved In this section You ll find the two most important settings You ever have encountered in DAZ Studio no kidding Namely Exposure Gain and Gamma Both settings can change the appearance of your image dramatically Possibilities range from High Key to Low Key and from underexposed to overexposed and anything between Exposure Gain Gain and Gamma Exposure controls the brightness of the rendered image The standard setting 1 0 is Studios default setting Possible Settings examples e 1 0 Studios standard setting e 0 5 Sets exposure one stop down which means half the exposure time and a darker image e 2 0 Sets exposure one stop up which means doubling the exposure time and a brighter image The ima
33. on If we want to use images as IBL light probes we have to prepare them first There are two important things e The map layout of the IBL image e The format of the image itself like TIFF JPG PNG etc There are various map layouts for IBL images the most commonly used ones are the Mirrored Ball and the Latitude Longitude layout In DAZ Studio we use the later one for environment mapping purposes which includes IBL AO and reflection mapping A properly environment map in Latitude Longitude layout would look like this FROM TRE GEING TOP FRG amo Bro BRON T RIG C ENER F E THE FLOOR SAD This image indicates which sections of the light probe will illuminate objects in the scene as seen from the point of view of the camera Imagine this wrapped on a giant sphere around the scene The image format of the image itself the way its pixel values are written into the image file are another matter As we strive to use the best images available for IBL we use formats which can handle HDR pixel values There are two very common formats HDR Radiance File Format and TIF or TIFF on non Windows r machines While HDR can always handle HDR pixel values with TIFF we must be more careful There are quite a few sub formats and only one of them fits the bill the so called Floating Point TIFF format So whenever converting a HDR image to TIF we have to make absolutely sure to use Floating Point TIFF as export format us
34. or ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Revision Version 1 Page 22 of 37 IBL Light Presets Overview Note The images below are low dynamic range images recalculated from the original HDR images The contrast is set purposely low to show the darker areas better Indoor Office_001 Daylight Indirect light from the window on left Indoor Office_002 Daylight Indirect light from the window on left less contrast sun behind some clouds User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Page 23 of 37 Indoor Office_003 Daylight Indirect light from the window on left but different view point Outdoor_001 On the Roof Winter hazy 1 hour before sunset Direct sunlight from the right User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 24 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Outdoor_002 On the Roof Winter hazy 1 hour before sunset Direct sunlight from the left O s n S Outdoor_003 On the Roof Winter hazy 1 hour before sunset Direct sunlight from the back User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 25 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Outdoor_004 In the Garden Winter
35. pyright 2001 University of Southern California All Rights reserved Licensed for academic and non commercial use for commercial licensing see About Pixel 601 53 Color 0 005 0 005 0 005 46 00stops Zoomix Save the image under a new file name with the ending tif Option HDR TIFF tif tiff And that s it Now we have saved the Radiance HDR image file to a Floating Point TIFF we can use in DAZ Studio User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 14 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved ahIBL Light Fine Tuning the Settings Section General Transforms X Y Z Rotation The settings X Y Z Rotation behave exactly the same as the settings of the same name in the standard lights of DAZ Studio Note In the preview window one cannot tell from which direction the light is really coming because that information can only be obtained from the IBL light probe during rendering So we have to do a low resolution render to actually see the effects of the IBL Light In the image series above we can see the effect of rotating the IBL Light From left to right Preview OGL View in DAZ Studio rendered with original orientation and rendered with IBL light rotated 150 degrees in Y Direction which means to rotate the IBL light horizontally We can see that in the original orientation most of the light comes from the left and slightly behind the figure After
36. rick involved to get the standard Studio surfaces to reflect both the IBL image and the reflection As the IBL shader only sees the specular part of the shader do this Set diffuse and specular color to white diffuse strength to 1 glossiness to 100 specular strength to 10000 and reflection strength to somewhere between 50 100 For optimal results choose Advanced Specular Occlusion in the IBL light Can I use other images than the provided for IBL Yes any image can be used provided it is in one of the following image formats JPEG 8bit PNG 8bit TIFF 8bit and HDR TIFF Floating Point For optimal results the image should be HDR and in Floating Point TIFF mapped to latitude longitude layout See section Preparing a IBL HDRI Light Probe and Short Introduction to IBL AO and ILT for more information There are plenty of sources on the net or You can create Your own As starting point recommend the following links e http www debevec com e http www debevec org e http www debevec org IBL2003 Vitz HDRIBL SIGGRAPH2003 pdf Will there be more HDR IBL Image presets Yes more sets with matching backgrounds in various location are planned Why is the render control plugin not available for MAC user Unfortunately have no experience in programming for the MAC OS nor do have access to MAC hardware am still waiting for a volunteer to come forward Contacting the author You can reach me any time via eMa
37. rightness of the light The exact values can range widely Some images need values as low as 0 05 others a value of 250 or more Unfortunately if the value is unknown the only way to get it is to experiment with a simple scene and trying various values Note The light presets included in this package will set the correct Brightness Scale values for their IBL images automatically IBL Map Saturation IBL images especially HDR images taken at real locations tend to have very saturated lights and shadows While this is scientifically correct it may not look that good in your rendered image For instance An HDR image taken on steel blue sunny afternoon on a green meadow will produce very bluish shadows on surfaces pointing away from the sun and also very greenish shadows on the surfaces pointing towards the ground While the same effect can be seen in many real life photographs it is seldom desired In fact professional photographers if they choose to take a photograph on such a location use white or even sometimes colored reflectors to compensate Fortunately in CGI we have much easier controls for such matters The IBL Map Saturation setting will desaturate the image if needed and therefore colored shadows can be corrected User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 19 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Settings If IBL Map Saturation is set to 1 0 it has
38. th is the number of light Use Software Delight Y bounces which are calculated by the ILT Light So be very careful Bucket Order Spiral here Render time is increasing quadratically with every bounce of Bucket Size 16 1 Max RayTrace Depth 1 light Pixel Samples X a 4 Pixel Samples Y om 4 Shadow Samples o 16 C Render To RIB Keep Shadows Collect and Localize 0 Render Accept Cancel Section Light Intensity The Intensity setting behaves exactly the same as the setting of the same name in the standard lights of DAZ Studio lt controls the amount of light which ILT should add to the scene Reasonable values range from 0 which is equivalent to switching ILT off and 100 which sets it to full intensity Note To properly light a scene with ILT it is important to lower the intensity of the other lights in the scene accordingly Say ILT Intensity is set to 25 the other lights should be set to 75 intensity to compensate for the additional light from ILT User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 27 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved ILT Illumination This setting behaves exactly as the illumination setting in the standard lights of DAZ Studio Possible settings are e On Adds diffuse ILT and specular ILT to the scene e Diffuse Only Adds diffuse ILT to your scene e Specular Only
39. uld be placed in the scene Here is such an image User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 8 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved If we wrap that image onto a cylinder we have a so called panoramic map with Latitude Longitude layout which looks like this Now we can see that with a mirrored ball we can take an image of the complete surroundings in one single shot As the image contains light information for any given angle it can be used to determine the exact amount and color of light that a surface of the CG object would have received from that specific direction if it would actually have been in the same spot as the mirrored ball And that is the magic of IBL User Manual for ahEnvironmentLight Version 2 0 Revision Version 1 Page 9 of 37 O 2007 2008 by Arthur Heinz All Rights Reserved Only one more thing We said that we need only a single image of the mirrored ball Well that is not exactly true As a single image can only hold a rather small number of intensity values we have to take about 12 to 16 images ranging from very dark to very bright and combine them together to get an accurate light probe This technique is called HDRI or High Dynamic Range Imaging Combining both methods we get what is called HDR IBL And that is what we use in the IBL light shader included in this package AO Illuminating every surface of the CG object with the light d
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