3D Scene

This panel gives you access to the complete structure of your scene and allows you to interact with it.

The structure is in the form of a tree where each node can have instances, cameras, projectors,… and these nodes have positioning properties in space.
At any time you can re-parent or reorder the structure by dragging and dropping the different elements into each other.
At the bottom of this panel there is a toolbar where you will find: a dynamic search field when you need to find an element of your scene by its name, an expand/colapse hierarchy button, a trash can button to delete the selected elements and the VR button to activate the rendering in a virtual reality headset if there is one on the side of the PC.

• General
• Add objects
• Import
• Import from Kinetic file
• Scene parameters
• Environment map
• Filters
• Area triggers

General

Generally speaking, your scene is organized in nested nodes as in most 3D software. These nodes are used to position elements in 3D space. Each transformation of a node affects its child nodes.

!Warning! The transformations are cumulative, it is possible that according to certain angles the axes of rotation are confused (gimbal lock). To remedy this, a parent node must be created to separate the rotations.

These values can be animated in an animation sheet by dragging and dropping them into the curve editor linked to an animation.
They can also be modified from the graph by dragging and dropping the whole node into one of the existing graphs.
The last way to interact with the node is by dragging and dropping it into a timeline. This will then create a layer to animate its values.

Add objects

By pressing the “add” button on the toolbar, a menu will give you a list of objects that can be added to your scene: prefabs, cameras, projectors, lights, or import a 3D file.

Import

You can import a wide variety of 3D files: collada, fbx, obj, 3ds,… directly into Kinetic thanks to its import function.
Once you have selected your file, you can choose what kind of elements you want to add to your scene.

Once your file is imported, Kinetic will create a node in your scene with the basename of this file.
By default this node is “locked” because it contains transformation information related to the way it was exported. It is nevertheless possible to unlock it to modify its values, but we do not recommend it.

Import from Kinetic file

This option allows you to import only the projectors from another existing Kinetic project.

Scene parameters

In the scene edit panel you will find the following items:

*We recommend to turn off the default light when creating 3D creations in order to have a finer control of the lighting with other light sources.

Environment map

Environment map, or reflection map, is an efficient image-based lighting technique for approximating the appearance of a reflective surface by means of a precomputed texture image.
The texture is used to store the image of the distant environment surrounding the rendered object.
In Kinetic this environment map is in the form of an unfolded cube. This unfold must be in 4:3 or square format.

square skybox

4:3 skybox

!This texture is VERY important for PBR materials and Substance because it is the main contributor to their lighting.

With the two textures above we obtain the following results (no light has been modified):

There is a very clear change in colors in addition to the change in reflections.

To modify this environment map, you must click on your scene in the 3D Panel to display its editor. You will then just have to drag and drop an image from your explorer directly into the “Env. map” field.

!Warning! Like all other assets in your project, these images must be on the same hard drive as your project.

Filters

In the editor of your scene there is a tab to filter its upload/download in the VNodes. By default all scenes are sent to all servers.
These filters work the same way as the media filters.

Area triggers

You can add areas in your scene that will be able to trigger tasks.

To do this, a zone must be declared and parameterized (position, size, group,…). Then you have to drag and drop it into a task as trigger.
Once done, you can decide which instance is going to trigger and when, by entering or leaving the zone.

!Warning! You must activate the area triggers in the scene parameters.

!Warning! You MUST enter the exact name of the instance that will trigger the action.

As the zones are boxes it is possible to make more complex shapes by adding several zones with the same group id. By doing this it is possible to have overlaps without triggering any input or output signal.

3 areas in the same group id