Legacy Ball

 
 
 

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: Environment (Legacy)

Output: Color (RGB) value

Reproduces environments using a highly reflective ball placed in the center of the environment (where you want most of the action to take place) and photographed from a number of positions. This effectively captures the whole environment.

To replicate this effect, you should take the images from a horizontal position using a telephoto lens. This is important because the shader makes the approximation that the ball is being pictured from infinitely far away. If you take more than one image, they should be distributed with equally separated angular positions. For example, if you want to have four images, take one at 0 degrees and the others at 90 degrees, 180 degrees, and 270 degrees. Once you digitize the images, you should crop them so that the perimeter of the ball just touches the edges of the image.

NoteNo render tree connections are possible with this shader.

Blending

When multiple images are used, this value controls how much adjacent pictures blend into each other. This is quite useful, since the pictures seldom match precisely.

Elevation

Used to compensate, if for some reason the images were not taken from a horizontal position. It is the amount of elevation in degrees that the camera has relative to the horizontal with the ball at the origin. For example, if your camera is higher than the ball so that the ball is in the center of the viewfinder when the camera points 10 degrees downward, set the elevation to 10 degrees. This is not useful for multiple images, since you cannot control individual images this way.

Inclination

Similar to elevation, this parameter sets the inclination (or twist) of the camera if it was not positioned horizontally. For example, if the "Elevation" was 0 degrees and the horizon didn't appear horizontal in the viewfinder, this parameter should be adjusted. If the horizon appears to slope downward to the right in the viewfinder, adjust the twist to a positive value.

The Elevation and Inclination have the same effect on every image used. It is not possible to make corrections for individual images. These parameters are, however, very useful when only one source image is used to rotate the environment.