The Physical Sky system in Maxwell Render uses a novel approach, offering a wide range of real-life and physically correct parameters to control the look of the sky and the subsequent lighting in the scene. Results range from common Earth values to exaggerated fantasy skies. Users can create pre-sets of sky settings to quickly load a new sky, or share their pre-sets with other users. It’s also possible to save the current sky as an HDR map.
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- From Disk: Allows you to choose a location to load a .sky pre-sets file.
- From Google Earth File: Allows you to choose a location by loading a Google Eath location file in .kml or .kmz formats.
- Preset: The dropdown will list all the saved pre-sets found in the Maxwell/ skies folder.
Save:
- As Preset: Saves a .sky preset file in the Maxwell/ skies folder.
- As HDR: First specify a location for the HDR file, then a resolution. The default format is a longitudinal HDR map (2:1 width to height ratio).
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Tips for working with the Physical Sky: • - Keep in mind that the atmosphere parameters influence each other. For example, if you raise the Turbidity Coefficient (more particles in the atmosphere), the Wavelength Exponent, Reflectance and Scattering Asymmetry parameters will then have a greater influence on the look of the sky: they are affecting a larger amount of particles.
• - To keep the horizon from turning too bright, lower the Planet Reflectance and decrease the Scattering Asymmetry.
• - Maxwell Studio and some of the plug-ins can interactively show an accurate OpenGL view of the current sky coloration and brightness. In Studio, press the “K” key to activate/ deactivate the Sky Preview. This OpenGL view also takes into account the cameras’ f-Stop, ISO and Shutter Speed settings.
• - The scene illumination and coloring change depending on what sky settings you use. If you raise the ozone level, which makes the sky scatter more blue light, your entire scene will have a bluer illumination.
• - Because the Maxwell camera has a fixed white balance of 6500K, you can save your render in any of the HDR (High Dynamic Range) formats available, such as tiff32, .EXR, .HDR, and white balance your image in an image editing application that can handle HDR files.
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