3D Scenes

The 3D Scenes panel is where you can organize and manage your different 3D scenes.

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Top bar

The top bar of this panel indicates which 3D Scene is currently displayed in this panel and in the 3D Viewer and gives access to the following scene functions:

Button	Description
Current scene	Select the 3D scene from the dropdown list
	Edit the scene parameters
	Add a 3D scene
	Delete the current 3D scene
	More actions: Duplicate the 3D scene or export the 3D scene
	Activate the rendering in a VR headset

*Note: You can have as many 3D scenes active in your project as you wish, the dropdown menu only selects which one is actively being displayed in the 3D Viewer and 3D Scenes panels.

To activate or deactivate a 3D scene select the root node and toggle its Visible property in the Editor panel.

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Export

You can export your 3d scenes in one of the following formats:

The default and recommended export format is glTF (GL Transmission Format).

After selecting a format a pop-up window will propose the following export options:

Option	Description
Meshes	Exports all geometry
Materials	Exports all materials
Lights	Exports all lights
Projectors beam	Toggles projector beams in the export
Projectors as mesh	Exports projectors as boxes
Cameras as mesh	Exports cameras as boxes
Projectors as real camera	Export the projectors as cameras compatible with other 3D software
Cameras as real camera	Export the cameras as cameras compatible with other 3D software

!Warning: 3D exchange files do not support horizontal and vertical lens shifts in cameras. If your cameras/projectors in your project uses these properties, they will be ignored when exporting.

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Scene parameters

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Clicking the gear icon in the top bar gives you access to the following settings for the active 3D scene:

Parameter	Description
Name	3D scene name
Locked	Locks the scene, it can no longer be edited
Culling	Toggle to only draw objects that are seen by the camera(s)
Shadow culling	Toggle to only draw shadows that are seen by the camera(s)
Show in designer	Toggle the rendering in the 3D Viewer panel
Trigger area enable	Activates the area triggers
Dynamic shadows	Toggle to recalculate shadows at every frame
Env. map	Drag & drop a custom environment map
Env. map intensity	Set the intensity of the lighting from the environment map in the 3D scene. Higher values give a brighter environment.
Env. map lighting	Toggle lighting of objects with the environment map
Env. map rotation	Rotate the environment map along X, Y or Z axes
Exposure value	Set the exposure of the cameras in your scene. Higher values give a darker scene.

Lighting controls

Env. map intensity and Exposure value are related as they both control in different ways how light is rendered in the scene and then captured by the default camera.

If the default settings need to be tweaked, we encourage you to test out different values on both settings.

*Note: These parameters only affect the render mode Rendered and have no effect on the Study render mode.

The Env. map intensity value affects the visibility of light emitted by light sources or projectors in your scene : the higher the intensity, the less other light sources will be visible in your scene.

Each camera has the possibility to set a Custom exposure in its settings, available in the Editor panel when the camera is selected in the 3D Hierarchy

The following settings can be used as reference:

Reference	Env. map intensity	Exposure
Broad daylight (noon)	30000	15.0
Night (with moon)	2.0	5.0
No external light	0.0	3.0

Alternatively, lighting from the environment map can be deactivated in the 3D Scene settings.

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Environment map

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Environment mapping (or reflection mapping) is an 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.

Kinetic supports two types of formats for environment maps :

• SDR skyboxes: this environment map is in the form of an unfolded cube. This unfold must be in 4:3 or square format.
• HDR skyboxes: these modern environment maps are encoded in an equirectangular format. They are widely available on different online platforms in .hdr files.

*Note: This texture is very important for PBR materials and Substance materials because it is the main contributor to their lighting.

Sample HDRi	4:3 SDR Skybox

The two textures above give the following results (no other light has been added):

Images will be updated soon

There is a very clear difference in the rendering of colors and in the reflections between the two images.

By default, every 3D scene is loaded with the default Day environment map with a display opacity of 0. This setting can be adjusted in the 3D Scenes settings and every viewport in the 3D Viewer panel and/or instantiated camera in the Timelines can be set to display or not the Environment map, in a clear or a blurred view. This setting is available in the view settings.

In the 3D Scenes settings, you may also choose between a default Day environment map featuring a clear blue sky or a Night environment map which adds very little lighting to the scene and displays a starmap of the Milky Way.

You can also add a custom environment map by selecting Custom and drag & dropping a custom environment map file in the corresponding field.

*Note: Like all other assets in your project, these files must be on the same hard drive as your project.

We recommend copying your environment maps directly in your project folder to not break links when backing up or restoring your project.

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Credits

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*Credits for the Night sky starmap:

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC. Constellation figures based on those developed for the IAU by Alan MacRobert of Sky and Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott and Rick Fienberg).

Higher resolutions and more information can be found on the NASA official website

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Filters

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When editing the 3D Scene settings, a FIlter tab enables you to filter the upload/download of the scene to the VNodes in your project.

By default all scenes are sent to all servers.

These filters work the same way as media or layer filters.

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3D Scene structure

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The tabs below the top bar give access to everything that makes up the current scene:

Tab	Description
Hierarchy	List of parent/child nodes that organize your scene
Materials	List of colors/textures/shaders that allow to render the scene
Cameras	List of existing cameras
Projectors	List of existing projectors
Meshes	List of geometry in the scene
Lights	List of existing light sources
Animations	List of existing animations
Skeletons	List of existing skeletons
Dimensions	List of existing dimensions
Annotations	List of existing annotations

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VR

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Once installed, run Steam VR on the Designer.

Click on button to display the selected camera in the VR headset .

Parameter	Description
Show envmap	Toggles the rendering of the envmap in the VR headset
Render	Select the polygon type : Fill (default) renders the scene normally, Wireframe renders only the edges of the meshes
POV	select the camera you wish to display in the VR headset
FXAA	Level of anti-aliasing to apply

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