KeyShot Essentials - Environments 101

you what's going on everyone welcome to part 6 of our key shot essential series my name's Kareem merchant and in this video I'll be covering the basics of using and acquiring HDRI lighting environments in key shot if you've been following our key shot essential series you've most likely just come from our lighting 101 episode where we covered the basics of using the lighting tab in that video I also gave a brief introduction to HDRI environments which I'm now going to explore further HDRI stands for high dynamic range imaging which is a high dynamic range technique also known as HDR that attaches lighting and shadow information to an image the image will then serve as a backdrop to your scene that provides reflections color tones and lighting intensity unique to the given image you may be familiar with the term HDR due to its prevalence in the TV and film industry in recent years now that we have an idea of what HDR is actually are let's talk about how we can implement them in our lighting workflows to get started let's talk about the environment tab you can find the environment tab in the project panel located on the right of your workspace here you'll find controls that allow you to organize create save and customize your applied environments advanced users can also make lighting environments entirely from scratch if you are a pro user you will have access to both the settings sub tab which allows you to customize basic lighting parameters such as brightness contrast and orientation as well as the HDRI editor or you'll be able to add new lights customize existing ones or start from an entirely blank canvas and create an environment from scratch I'll cover some of the basics of both sub tabs in a moment but it's important to note that the HDRI editor is only available for users of key shot Pro to understand the environment tab let's start at the top here you'll find an environments list that shows all created environments and works in the same manner our camera list does the icons directly to the left allow you to duplicate environments create new environments linked cameras and environments and delete unwanted environments you can also drag and drop preset to your eyes to add them to the list without losing the previous environments information the environment that is currently open and visible in my list is key shots start up HDRI this is the default environment that keyshot uses to light all new scenes below the environments list you'll see a preview of the HDRI editor canvas which acts as a 2d representation of your lit environment this is where you can see where lights have been placed as well as the shape an individual light is projecting below that you can find the two HDRI sub tabs that let you control your lighting let's start with the settings sub tab the settings sub tab is available to all key shot users with a tab open you'll notice four accordions the first one is the adjustments accordion here you can make quick adjustments to your environments brightness as well as adjust the contrast of your lighting note that these adjustments only affect the lighting environment and not the image directly for image adjustments you would use the image tab the second one down is the transform accordion here you can control the size and height of your lighting environment as well as rotate the environment to change how highlights shadows and reflections are cast on your object if you ever notice your scene to be darker than expected even when a new environment has been applied try adjusting the environment size sometimes when importing an object that is larger than the current scene scale you'll need to readjust the environment size to maintain accurate lighting notice when my size is set to zero the object appears flat and dark however by adjusting it to a size that is complementary to my object scale and evenly illuminates my scene under this accordion you also have the ability to rotate the environment using the rotational dial which you can see here or by inputting an exact degree of rotation in the field to the right the next accordion is the background accordion here you can select what the background of your scene will look like by default the lighting environment option will be selected which will leave the HDRI visible in the background in this scenes case I have the color option selected with a blue color chosen to match my subject for a more stylized look by clicking the color preview to the right you can adjust the background to your desired tone in this window you can also color pick to match colors exactly as well as change your color mode from RGB to a number of other options using the drop down below the color background option you also have a backplate image option which lets you import any image you'd like to use as your background this works great when rendering objects that need to be in specific project related spaces lastly in the settings sub tab we have our ground accordion this is where you have control over ground effects such as occlusion shadows and reflections it's also where you would be able to adjust the color of your shadows this only applies to the default ground surface that quisha uses if you look at my current scene toggling these effects on and off creates no change in my real-time view this is because I've added ground plane geometry to create a slightly more realistic surface if I toggle my ground plane off you can see how these ground effects will appear the second sub-tab I'm going to discuss is the HDRI editor as I mentioned before the HDRI editor is a key shop pro feature if you are a key shop pro user then you will be able to use this tab to create custom HDRI lighting or augment and customize existing HDRI environments with the sub tab open the first thing you'll see is the pin list that contains all lighting pins applied to your environment these pins will be listed in the same manner that the environments or cameras are in their respective lists to the immediate left of this list you will find icons that allow you to delete unwanted pins scroll up or down through your list add folders to better organize your lighting pins and set highlights the last icon the set highlight icon represented by a target is one of my most used features when working with HDR eyes this icon allows you to make quick and accurate lighting adjustments without having to physically manipulate your HDRI editor canvas if a new or existing lighting pin is selected and the set highlight function is toggled on you can simply click on the area of your model that you'd like to apply a highlight to and the pin will automatically orient itself to create that highlight this takes a lot of the guesswork out of setting up your lighting and will significantly decrease the time it takes to set up your environments above the list is another series of icons that allow you to add different pin types as well as save and export HDR is that you'd like to keep for later use there are four types of pins available in this section and each will affect your scene differently all these pins can be customizing controlled through the options below the list just below the pin list you can change the overall shape of your pin as well as decide whether you will use a full pin or a half pin half pins can be particularly useful when creating sharp cut off highlights on objects such as lenses windows or screens below the shape options we have the radius slider that determines the overall size of your pins and three accordions that provide adjustments to color and brightness as well as light fall-off and pin position the color accordion lets you choose the color of your given pin using the familiar color window as well as letting you adjust the brightness of the given pin you can also choose how the pin will blend with your current environment key shots blending modes work in a similar manner to Photoshop blending modes but if you're interested in learning more about what exactly is occurring with each blending mode there are some great resources online including Wikipedia that dive into specifics in the adjustments accordion you have control over light fall-off intensity as well as fall off mode types through the available drop down the drop down allows you to choose between five different options which will determine how the fall-off appears in your scene for those not familiar with the term fall-off it can best be illustrated by a single light in a darkroom illumination will decline the further away you move from the light and the effect usually produces a gradient like visual as you move further away from the light source finally the last accordion we have is the transform accordion which allows you to manually control light position through the sliders it also allows you to create fine adjustments to your lighting pins position if you'd like to learn more about how to implement these features into your workflow check out our advanced environments tutorial where Ryan levy takes a deeper dive in the environment usage and setup the last topic I'd like to briefly touch on is acquiring HDR eyes you may remember from the last video that key shot has a list of preset HDR i environments that can be dragged and dropped from the library panel for those who didn't get a chance to see the previous video these HDR eyes can be found in the environments tab of the library panel this tab has a variety of environment options that can all be viewed in one list or can be viewed separately by selecting the different sub categories in the list this makes finding environments that suit your scene easier and more efficient if you've made it through the list and still haven't found an environment that works for your needs the next place to look would be key shots cloud library which can be opened by selecting the cloud library icon to the far left of the toolbar at the bottom this is a great place to find both key shot approved and user generated lighting environments for your scenes in our next video I'll take a deeper dive into using the cloud library so if you're curious to learn more about what it can do for you definitely tune in to learn more thanks for watching the 6th part of our key shot essential series as I mentioned in part 7 we'll take a deeper look at key shots cloud library and walkthrough how to download assets to use and how to upload assets you may want to share don't forget to let us know your thoughts on this tutorial in the comment section below and if you found this video useful give it a like and share with your friends [Music] you

Channel: KeyShot

Views: 26,579

Keywords: keyshot, cg, 3d rendering, 3d animation, engineering, product design, marketing

Id: at60y4YaiCM

Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020