Environment Sphere

 
 
 

DEPRECATED. This shader is unsupported, but it may still get installed with Softimage to provide compatibility with older scenes that use it. It is recommended that you replace unsupported shaders in your scenes with equivalent shaders from the current Softimage shader library.

Shader Type: Material (Soft3D)

Output: Color (RGB) value

Takes a single image file and maps it to the environment using a spherical mapping. It wraps the image around the Y axis of an imaginary sphere. This is done using longitude and latitude transformations. Just as the longitude lines on a globe move closer at the poles, the image is pinched at the top and bottom of the sphere. The seam where the left and right parts of the image meet is in the negative Z direction.

Name

The shader's name. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.

Spherical Environment

Image

Defines an image clip to use as a spherical map. Click Edit to open a property page for the image clip being presently used. To retrieve a new clip, click New and indicate whether you wish to create a new clip or create one from a source.

Image View Window

This window displays the selected image. You can right-click on the image to access the Image Clip Property Editor. If the image is a sequence, use the playback controls to play the sequence image.

Real Sphere Toggle

With this box checked, the texture does some additional calculations for the ground to allow it to be at a finite distance. In fact, the ground is placed at the Y position 0. This will allow objects to change appearance as they move along the ground. Otherwise, the texture is infinitely far away in all directions so that translations have no effect.

Moving very close to the ground in this mode can produce artifacts, and the behavior is undefined when below it.