Environment & Lighting

Light plays a crucial role in rendering. Even a simple scene can become spectacular with skillful lighting techniques.

Creating visually stunning scenes requires experience and technique. To streamline this process, Studio utilizes global illumination called "Environment" (also known as HDR environment). Our environment library includes dozens of environment maps covering various settings like indoor, outdoor, and studio. You can adjust parameters such as intensity, rotation, hue, and blur for these environment maps.

Another method to illuminate scenes is through local lights. To better observe their effects, try disabling global illumination and adding local lights to your scene.

Of course, you can also combine both approaches – the choice depends entirely on your desired visual outcome.

HDR Environment

In Realishot, the environment functions as global illumination. Below, you see the cover of the currently used HDR environment map. Realishot uses .hdr format environment maps, commonly employed for global illumination in various 3D software.

In such maps, bright areas serve as light sources to illuminate scenes. You can adjust or completely disable environment lighting through multiple methods.

Studio's HDR environment library contains a rich collection of environment maps spanning indoor, outdoor, and studio settings for immediate use. You can also upload your own .hdr environment maps.

You can adjust the following parameters for environment maps:

• Intensity: Controls illumination strength. Enter values >100 manually, or set to 0 to completely disable environment lighting.
• Rotation: Changes environment map orientation to alter lighting angles.
• Saturation: Use negative values to desaturate overly colorful lighting/reflections, or higher values to enhance color vibrancy.
• Blur: Softens environment reflections on scene objects.
• Environment Shadow: Toggles shadows cast by objects based on HDR lighting.

Local Lights

Realishot offers four local light types: point light, spot light, directional light, and area light. Local lighting arrangements vary based on requirements – study rendering examples from different renderers for reference.

Point Light

Point light – Emits light uniformly in all directions like a light bulb.

Spot Light

Spot light – Projects light in a conical shape from a single point. Adjust light size and softness.

Directional Light

Directional light – Simulates sunlight from an infinite distance, casting parallel shadows. Only controls light direction.

Area Light

Area light – Emits light from a rectangular plane. Adjust length/width to create shapes like narrow strip lights.