Rendering style

The new style will be available in the Entities tree into the Styles > Rendering Styles folder.

Right-clicking on a non-current style offers the Make Current command. It will be then used by default in the Realistic rendering command.

Right-clicking on a current style offers the command Deactivate. It is then the Normal style that will be the current one and used in the Realistic rendering command.

This option, when on, allows you generate an image with a transparent background (the background color of the image will not hide the background of the page). Background can be:

• Black.

• Environment: the background environment is displayed as background.

• Screen background: actual screen background is used (degraded or background image).

• Transparent: the image background is defined as transparent for all save formats which manage it (all except JPEG).

• White.

This cursor allows to smooth the elements border.

This cursor allows you to improve rendering quality by reducing the « noise » produced by extended lights and materials reflects. Improvement is similar to the one obtained by increasing antialiasing, but it is much faster. This setting is only on if the scene includes complex lighting that is likely to be adjusted (radiosity, sky light, extended lights).

This parameter only calculates the indirect rays of the sky. This produces a smoothed rendering more quickly, but this calculation is approximate.

This option allows you to accurately simulate the ambient light reflected by the scene itself, and no longer only the direct light from luminous sources.

In a classic image calculation, an area that is not directly lit by light is black. In reality, this area receives light re emitted by the walls and scene objects. Global illumination takes this effect into account and avoids obtaining unlit areas.

This option is particularly useful for implementation and architecture images.

By checking this option this style will be the current style and it will be used by default in the Realistic Rendering command.

It will appear in bold in the Styles > Rendering styles folder of the entities tree.

• Format: select the extension of the backup file, BMP, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, Radiance HDR and OpenEXR.

• Quality: influences the overall quality of the image (set at 90 by default). Only available with the format .JPEG

• Recursion depth: allows to set the shadow, the reflection and the refraction depths together. For example, if several mirrors reflect one in the other, with a value of 1, the shadow will be reflect in only one mirror. With a value of 2, this reflection can also be reflected in another mirror. This setting is only for beamed shadows..

• Ray cutoff: when a beam is reflected or refracted, part of its intensity is lost. When the intensity of a beam goes under the bottom value, this beam is no longer considered in the calculation of the image. This setting allows you to balance the duration and the accuracy of the calculation in scenes rich in reflection and/or refraction.

• Volumetric lighting: indicates if volumetric lighting effects are to be calculated.

• Volumetric step length: precision of the calculation; the new intensity and radii are calculated at each indicated step length.

• Volumetric sample count: number of rays added to the calculation during scattering.

• Caustics: a caustic is the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface.