Sunlight Environment Parameters

The Scenes tab in the Palette includes the following parameters that appear when you click New Sunlight Environment.

The sunlight environment parameters are on the General, Sunlight, and Advanced subtabs.

General    
  Name Lets you rename the environment image.
  Background Type Environment or Color.
  Background Color Sets the background color of the 3D Viewport outside the environment sphere.
  Brightness Adjusts the overall brightness of the environment image.
  Rotation Rotates the environment image on the environment sphere.
  Location (Read-only.) Displays the latitude and longitude of the simulated geo-location.
  Date and Time (Read-only.) Displays the month and time of day of the simulated geo-location.
  Location, Time and Date Lets you change the location, date, and time of the simulated geo-location.
  Month Sets the time of year to simulate.
  Time Sets the time of day simulated on a 24-hour clock. In combination with Month, Latitude, and Longitude, Time determines the Sun Incline.
  Set Time to Now Uses your system time for Month and Time.
  Sun Incline Use the slider below Time to set the angle of incoming sunlight, and adjust the Time of day accordingly.
  Latitude Sets the longitude of the location to simulate.
  Longitude Sets the latitude of the location to simulate.
Sunlight    
  Haze Sets the amount of haze in the simulated air.
  Red-Blue Shift Sets the degree of red or blue shifting in the white balance of the simulated light, relative to neutral sunlight (5500 Kelvin).
  Saturation Sets the saturation of the color shift (if any) of simulated light.
  Horizon Blur Sets the degree to which the horizon blurs out to simulate the visibility limits.
  Sun Brightness Sets the intensity of the simulated sunlight.
  Sun Diameter Sets the size of the solar disk in the sky.
  Sun Glow Sets the size and diffusion of the glow around the sun's disk.
  Floor Color Sets the floor plane color.
  Night Color Sets the night (ambient) color. Ambient light is an artificial illumination level that represents infinite diffuse reflections from all surfaces within a 3D scene, ensuring that even surfaces without direct illumination are visible.
Advanced    
  Tone Mapping Brightness. Sets the luminance. Higher values increase brightness; lower values decrease it. Changes are made in real time.
  Transform
  • Flatten Floor. When selected, the environment is a half sphere. When cleared, the environment is a full sphere.
  • Size (meters). Determines the radius of the environment sphere.
  • Rotation. Rotates the environment image on the environment sphere.
  Floor Effects
  • Caustics. Enables advanced algorithms used to replicate the effects of focused and reflected light through solid translucent objects or reflective objects.
  • Floor Caustics. Sets the level of focused effects and reflected light on the artificial floor. Floor Caustics affects the reflected light with the Caustics option enabled.

    When the Caustics option is enabled, the Floor Caustics slider is locked to the Floor Roughness and Floor Reflection sliders. You can get the best visual result of Caustics on the floor plane if you move all three sliders to their maximum value. This functionality affects performance.

  • Floor Reflection. Adjusts the visibility of the floor reflection where 0 is off and 1 is full reflection.
  • Floor Roughness. Adjusts the roughness of the floor reflection where 0 is crisp and 1 is rough.
  • Floor Shadow. Shows/hides the projection of shadows on the floor in performance and raytrace modes.
  Preview Options
  • Show Grid. (Available only when Raytracing is off.) Shows/hides a grid in the XZ-plane.
  • Cull Below Floor. (Available only when Preview mode is active.) Hides any portion of the model that goes below the floor.