You can apply visual effects
to the 3D View using the Viewport
Filters. These filters can enhance your sculptures and
assigned materials and aid in recreating an environment that mimics
how they’ll be rendered in another application. When turned on,
these filters appear as a post-processing effect that is applied
in real-time to everything displayed in the 3D
View.
NoteViewport filter settings
are not saved with a Mudbox scene file (.mud).
You can save an image
of the 3D View using the Save
Screen Image... feature. For more information, see
Save an image of the 3D View.
You can turn on the following
filter effects to modify how the model appears in the 3D
View (provided your computer graphics card supports these
Cg-based effects):
- Tonemapper
- Depth of Field
- Ambient Occlusion
- Screen Distance
- Normal Map
- Non-photorealistic
NoteAll of the Viewport
Filters rely on features provided by more advanced graphics cards.
If the display of any viewport effect is not as expected, compare your
hardware’s specifications to the hardware listed at
http://www.autodesk.com/mudbox-hardware.
Using the Tonemapper filter
The Tonemapper filter
works by remapping the color values for what displays in the 3D
View. Adjust the Tonemapper properties
to compress, expand, or shift the tonal range of the rendered scene.
You can also simulate
interesting glow effects using the Glare property.
This feature is useful when you use HDRI images for environment
and material maps and you need to evaluate the model with an overall
level of brightness or contrast applied.
- Turn on the Tonemapper filter
by clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then click
the box to the left of the Tonemapper item
name so that the eye icon appears (or click on the name itself).
- Display the Tonemapper properties
by clicking the Tonemapper name.
The properties appear
in the Properties window.
Using the Depth of Field
filter
The Depth of Field filter
lets you simulate the depth of field effects inherent to optical
camera lenses in real time. That is, a specific near and far range from
the camera can be defined where items within the specified range appear
in focus and items outside the specified range appear out of focus,
or blurred.
Depth of field helps
to reduce the overall digital sharpness that is inherent to computer
graphics and makes a model appear with characteristics inherent to
an optical camera lens.
- Turn on the Depth of Field filter
by clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then click
the box to the left of the Depth of Field name
(or on the name itself) so that the eye icon appears.
- Display the Depth of Field properties
by clicking the Depth of Field name.
The properties appear
in the Properties window.
NoteTurning on the grid
can aid in setting the correct Focus Distance when using
the depth of field filter.
Using the Ambient Occlusion
filter
The Ambient Occlusion filter
lets you simulate the occlusion effects that darken cracks, crevices,
corners and points of contact on rendered surfaces.
This filter aids in evaluating
the overall 3D form of a model in fine detail areas, much like moving
a light across the front of the surface helps to evaluate the surface
highlights and subtleties of its overall form.
- Turn on the Ambient Occlusion filter
by clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then
click the box to the left of the Ambient Occlusion name
so that the eye icon appears (or click on the name itself).
NoteIf the following
message appears:
Ambient Occlusion process
took <n> seconds. Filtering of 32 bit floating point textures
may not be supported by your hardware. Disabling texture filtering
in the preferences may improve performance. This indicates
that your hardware and graphics may not be supported for running
Mudbox. Save your work, turn off the
Use Texture Filtering option
in
Render section of the Preferences
window, then restart Mudbox and load your file again to see if the Ambient
Occlusion filter effect is improved. Compare your hardware’s specifications
to the hardware listed at
http://www.autodesk.com/mudbox-hardware.
- Display the Ambient Occlusion properties
by clicking the Ambient Occlusion name.
The properties appear
in the Properties window.
NoteThe Strength property
controls the intensity of the ambient occlusion effect.
Using the Screen Distance
filter
Screen
Distance is useful for quickly creating stencils, stamps,
or displacement maps from your sculpted objects in the scene. Turning
on the filter changes the display of the 3D View so
that objects become shaded from black to white based on their distance
from the camera’s origin point.
Use the Save
Screen Image... feature to capture the 3D
View as a depth map that you can load as a stamp, stencil,
or use as a bump or displacement map.
- Turn on Screen Distance by
clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then
click the box to the left of the Screen Distance item
name so that the eye icon appears (or click on the name itself).
NoteAll objects within
the 3D View are taken into account
when calculating the depth display and affect the resulting effect.
For best results, turn off the grid (Display > Grid)
and any other unnecessary objects.
- Display the Screen Distance properties
by clicking the Screen Distance name.
The properties display
in the Properties window.
- Adjust the contrast of the black and
white values in the display by increasing or decreasing the White
Level and Black Level properties. Turning
on the Invert property reverses the
depth map effect on the object.
- To save an image of the 3D
View, select File > Save Screen
Image...
NoteSince the image produced
by the Screen Distance filter is essentially
a depth map, it can be also used in an image editing application
as a filter effect for depth of field effects for still images.
Using the Normal Map filter
Normal Map shades objects in
the scene using RGB color values based on the orientation of their
surface normals. It’s useful for quickly creating and previewing
simple normal maps using objects you’ve sculpted or imported into the
scene without having to use the extract texture maps feature.
For example, you could
arrange several 3D objects to create a normal map of a wall of bricks
with window openings, window ledges, or an electrical control panel
with gauges and buttons, or a panel effect with recessed grooves for
the wing of a spacecraft, and so on.
- Turn on Normal Map by
clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then
click the box to the left of the Normal Map item
name so that the eye icon appears (or click on the name itself)
- To save an image of the 3D
View, select File > Save Screen
Image...
The saved image can be
applied as a normal map in Mudbox or another 3D application.
Using the Non-photorealistic
filter
The Non-photorealistic effect
displays objects in the scene with a hand-drawn, sketch-like appearance.
This filter is useful if you want to present your sculpted work
so it appears more conceptual in terms of its development.
- Turn on the Non-photorealistic filter
by clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then
click the box to the left of the Non-photorealistic item
name so that the eye icon appears (or click on the name itself).
NoteSince the viewport
filters affect all items within the view, you may prefer to turn
off the grid (Display > Grid).
- Display the Non-photorealistic properties
by clicking the Non-photorealistic name.
The properties display in the Properties window.
TipYou can adjust the
shading Material and Tonemapper properties to achieve interesting
effects when using the Non-photorealistic filter.
- Adjust the noise properties to modify
the fill and stroke effects. For more information on the properties,
see
Non-photorealistic properties.
- To save an image of the 3D
View, select File > Save Screen
Image...
Using the NVidia Ambient
Occlusion filter
The NVidia
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion filter (SSAO) lets you
simulate the occlusion effects that darken cracks, crevices, corners
and points of contact on rendered surfaces.
NoteThe nVidia SSAO viewport
filter is available for use only on computers using late model nVidia
graphics cards. This feature is currently not supported for use
on other graphics cards. It is provided as an alternate to the Ambient Occlusion
filter described above.
This filter aids in evaluating
the overall 3D form of a model in fine detail areas, much like moving
a light across the front of the surface helps to evaluate the surface
highlights and subtleties of its overall form.
- Select New Filter from
within the Viewport Filter window ( ) menu.
- To turn on the filter, click the box
to the left of the nVidia SSAO name so that the
eye icon appears (or click on the name itself).
- Display the nVidia SSAO properties
by clicking the nVidia SSAO name.
The properties appear
in the Properties window.
- Adjust the properties as required. For
more inoformation on the properties, see
nVidia AO filter properties.