Saving UberEnvironment IBL presets
Herald of Fire
Posts: 3,504
As the title would suggest, I'm trying to save presets for different material settings for my IBLs to speed up my workflow. The problem is that if I save it as a light preset then it literally saves a light and doesn't apply it as a material to an existing UE light but rather adds it as an extra one. I can't save it as a shader preset, because it requires geometry, and it won't save as a material preset for the same reason.
So, how can I add a shortcut way of applying the IBL textures and settings similar to how the default UE materials work? I have a lot of IBL's I'd like to turn into presets, so this would be a serious benefit.
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I may be wrong but I think that is the only way to save a preset so it loads a new UE2 everytime and not the settings and IBL on thier own.
With the base now being a DUF rather than a DAZ all you need to do is load the base into an empty scene, manually apply your changes to it, then save it as a scene subset.
Hmm, perhaps. But the settings which actually come with UE2 in the first instance include material presets which change the environment sphere and the light settings without the need to load in a new light. There are also settings presets for upgrading the light quality. Surely if it can be done by the developer, it can be done by the user?
Only the Bounce light is an actual preset, the rest are DAZ scripts, coded to change one or two settings on a specific item, the "Set HDR" ones only change the map being used.
Are we talking about UberAreaLights? If we are, aren't they saved as Material Presets?
Only the Bounce light is an actual preset, the rest are DAZ scripts, coded to change one or two settings on a specific item, the "Set HDR" ones only change the map being used.
I made a bunch of presets in DS3 by hand editing the base 'Set HDR' script...because I coudln't find a way to actually save out a preset otherwise. The scene subset is probably the easiest way, without doing that...
You need 3 images...a lo-rez jpg and a hdr pair and the png tumbnail (it goes with the resaved script file). I put them in the omnifreaker texture folder, that way it was only 1 change in the script file, the first line...change it to the name of the environment map, no extension, the script does the rest.
If you want to distribute them, then some other way is probably better...
Again thanks guys for confirming this.
I tried something earlier, I used one of my UE2 light sets that I use for checking shaders, I applied the kitchen preset to the UE and rendered, after it finished I deleted the environment sphere and rendered again, I then spent the next ten minutes trying to find a difference between the two renders and couldn't, so the sphere might not be required, at least not with Occlusion w/soft shadows, might be worth checking if it's the same with the other settings.
Yeah the Sphere has no bearing on lighting it is just a visual reference and DS4.5 has an Enviroment Sphere for the same purpose in the Content Library now so you can add one yourself to your presets.
The sphere can be scaled down to a small size to help 'point' the bright spot...but other than that, because the UE2 included images are 'blurred' and can't be used as backgrounds, it's pretty much worthless.
There are better ways of doing environment spheres, anyway...
Not entirely true. When using directional lighting, the rotation dictates the direction the light will come from based on the image used for your lighting. As such, it's an extremely useful point of reference when dealing with IBLs.
I've now got my presets sorted, and even put in some lovely custom icons using the famous Utah teapot, just to blend better with the defaults.
Humm that is what I said wasn't it, it was just a visual reference.
Anyways that doesn't matter. Nicely done
On another note: The only trouble with using Directional Shadows in UE2 is that I have never seen a HDRI map in UE2 capable of giving good quality and accurate directional shadows. I have even heard this from some folks that know a lot about HDRI and who make them and thier advice is always use Soft Shadows and a Distant light. Just thought I would mention it. :)
You claimed it had no bearing on the lighting, which was a bit misleading. As for directional shadows, it depends heavily on the IBL map you use. Bright spots on it become effective light sources, which gives shadows in the correct direction. It seems to work better when there's a single point of high brightness as opposed to multiple bright spots.
I've gotten some decent results out of directional lighting, but it can be a mixed bag depending on what HDR maps you're using.
The sphere doesn't have any effect - it's a visual guide, not part of the light.