Environment 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.

| Image 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 | Environment Cubic

Shader Type: Material (Soft3D)

Output: Color (RGB) value

Reproduces environments using a very special technique: A highly reflective ball is placed in the center of the environment (where you want most of the action to take place) and photographed from a number (up to six) 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.

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. The shader automatically uses the picture that produces the least distortion of the environment.

Name

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

General

Blending

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

Elevation

Used to compensate if 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 in this way.

Inclination

Similarly to elevation, this parameter sets the inclination (or twist) of the camera, were it not positioned horizontally. For example, if the "Elevation" were 0 degrees and the horizon didn't appear horizontal in the viewfinder, this parameter should be adjusted. If the horizon appears to slope downwards 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.

Image 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

From each tab you can define a unique image. There is a one tab for each angle of the ball.

Image

Defines an image clip to use. Click Edit to open a property page for the image clip currently being 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

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

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