How to manage and customize the environment of your 3D experiences.
This is the second part of our exploration into the 3DExcite Creative Experience app (see part one here). In this article, we’ll dive into how to manage and customize the environment of your 3D experiences, enhancing realism and visual appeal.
Managing the environment
An environment is an object that defines the 3D area surrounding an experience, including lighting and background properties.
Here’s how you can insert environments in an experience:
- Project Panel: Right-click on the environment to select ‘Insert Existing Ambience,’ ‘Create Ambience,’ or ‘Insert Existing Planets.’
- Rendering Section: Choose ‘Insert Existing Ambience,’ ‘Create Ambience,’ or ‘Insert Existing Planets.’
- 3DSearch: Use search criteria ‘amb:’ for ambiences or ‘pla:’ for planetary environments. Right-click the environment in the results list and select ‘Insert in Experience.’
For our project, we’ll select ‘Create Ambience,’ choose an 8K exterior plaza image and click ‘Create and Edit.’
3DExperience will automatically launch 3DExcite Ambience Studio.
What is ambience?
Ambience creates different scenarios around a scene by defining a dome that surrounds your 3D object. A 360-degree HDR image is projected on this dome, illuminating the scene realistically and consistently without additional lights.
Light Screen:
The Light Screen panel lets you customize lighting properties for the current ambience.
Map 360:
- Source: Select the image (in HDR format) for lighting.
- Rotation: You can adjust the lighting rotation around the object using either the slider or by entering a specific value in the box on the right. For instance, setting it to 120 degrees will result in a noticeable change in the background’s orientation.
- Inclination: Define the angle of inclination about the X and Y axes.
- Exposure: Define the brightness of the ambience for the lighting image.
Color:
- Color: Generate environment lighting from specified colors, using either a uniform color or a gradient.
- Position, Resolution, Rotation, Inclination, Exposure: Further customize the lighting properties.
For gradient colors, you can specify the color intensity and add up to 10 different colors by clicking the color swatch to open the color chooser.
Here’s how to add a new color:
- Double-click the color swatch where you want to place the new color manipulator.
- Click below the color swatch to add a new color in the middle of the swatch.
Managing the view modes
To manage and adjust the view modes for your 3D objects, you can either choose from predefined view modes or customize your view by tweaking specific parameters. Additionally, you can apply default or personalized appearances to enhance the visual presentation of your objects.
Define shading options:
- Shading: Applies shading to the object’s surfaces while omitting the edges, giving a smooth appearance.
- Shading with sharp edges: Shades the object’s surfaces and includes its sharp edges but excludes smooth edges.
- Shading with sharp edges and partially visible smooth edges: Shades the object’s surfaces with sharp edges and makes smooth edges partially visible.
- Shading with sharp and smooth edges: Shades both sharp and smooth edges of the object’s surfaces.
- Shading with all edges and hidden edges: Provides a comprehensive view by shading all edges—both sharp and smooth—regardless of whether they are hidden or visible.
- Shading with materials: Shows the materials applied to the object, highlighting texture and finish.
- Wireframe: Represents the object using basic geometry like points, lines, or curves to outline its structure.
Creating a sun and sky ambience
Creating a sun and sky ambience can significantly enhance the realism and visual appeal of your 3D environment. Follow these steps to effectively set up and customize the sun and sky:
- Accessing the Ambience Studio:
- In the action bar, go to Ambience Studio and choose Switch between Generic and Sun and Sky Ambience. This will allow you to transition from a generic environment to one featuring a dynamic sun and sky setup.
- Customizing sun and sky properties:
- Open the Sun and Sky Properties window on the right side of your screen. This panel provides various controls to fine-tune the appearance of the sun and sky, giving your scene a more natural and immersive look.
- Adjusting date and time:
- Calendar: To simulate different times of the year, adjust the date by clicking the calendar icon. Enter the desired month, day and year in the respective fields. This feature is useful for creating different seasonal effects or matching the time of day to your project’s requirements.
- Time: Set the time of day by modifying the hour, minutes and seconds. This control allows you to simulate various lighting conditions, such as early morning, midday or late afternoon.
- Time Zone: Select the appropriate time zone from the list to ensure that the sun’s position accurately reflects the geographical location of your scene.
For example, changing the month to August and setting the time to 6:00 AM will adjust the sun and sky to reflect the conditions shown in the accompanying photo. When we click “Exit App” in the action bar, the app will automatically return to our project in the Creative Experience application.
- Positioning the light:
- Longitude: Adjust the horizontal position of the sun to simulate its movement across the sky from east to west.
- Latitude: Modify the vertical position to change the sun’s angle, affecting how shadows and light interact with objects in your scene.
- Altitude: Define the height of the horizon to control the elevation of the sun, which influences the overall mood and atmosphere of the environment.
By fine-tuning these parameters, you can create a sun and sky ambience that complements your project’s aesthetic and functional needs. Whether you’re aiming for a bright, sunny day or a moody, overcast sky, these settings offer the flexibility to achieve the desired effect.
Rendering
In the Creative Experience app, rendering captures ray-traced images of your experience’s current viewpoint. From the Rendering section of the action bar, click ‘Render Image.’ The rendering job will appear in the Background Render Monitor panel and start automatically once other jobs are finished.
Creative Experience’s rendering engine processes lighting, shadows and reflections to produce realistic images.
Play around with the settings to watch your 3D scenes come to life. Whether adjusting lighting for the perfect mood or changing camera angles for dramatic effects, Creative Experience gives you control to create immersive and visually stunning experiences.
