Background Tab

The Background Tab is used to define background image and also for Ground Plane materials.

Collapsed view:

Expanded view:

Background Image

• Click Browse to select an image to use for the background.
• Click Clear to clear the background image.

Background Visibility

• Visible - image is visible (will override any sky settings)
• Reflected - image is reflected in windows.

Background Projection

This determines how the image is projected onto the sky of background.

• Flat
• Cylindrical
• Spherical

Create Planar HDRi Image

Converts a normal image to a HDRi background image.

See: Planar HDRi Backgrounds

Clear

Clear out Background Image

Browse

Select HDRi Image from disk

Positioning

Offsets and Scales

Use the Image Layer Wizard to size and position the background image and set these values.

Rotation

for Cylindrical and Spherical Projections.

Maintain Aspect Ratio

if this is not checked, the background image is stretched to fill the screen.

Adjust Center Line to Horizon

If checked then the image will be scaled and offset so that the horizontal center line of the image matches the horizon of the current perspective view.

The image is scaled and positioned so that it still fills the entire background of the rendered image.

See: Horizon

Reset

Resets Offsets, Scales and Rotation.

Preview/Position

Loads the Background Wizard to easily position and scale the background image.

See: Background Image for examples.

Ground Plane Settings

• On - turns on the Ground Plane
• Alpha Channel - makes the ground plane transparent, but shows the shadows on the ground.
  See: Alpha Channel
• Elevation - set the elevation of the ground plane.
• See: Ground Plane

Ground Plane Material

• From the Background Tab you can define and edit materials for the Ground Plane.

This lets you apply a grass texture for land, or a Procedural Bump Map and reflection to emulate water.

• See: Background Tab

Alpha Transparent Ground Plane

With an Alpha Transparent Ground Plane, you can save the rendering as an Alpha Transparent image, and the ground plane will be transparent. However, shadows on the ground will be visible. This can be used to place the ground plane image on top of a background image and still see where the shadows would appear. (Of course this works best if you are placing he image on a flat surface.)

Setup Options

The Setup Options dialog is the interface for rendering settings in IRender nXt. Options are grouped in the following tabs:

Presets	Lighting Presets, SketchUp on/off (Sun, Sky, Ground), Sky mode, Ambient Light, Light Balance, Other Settings
Render	Image Size, Stop Rendering After, Rendering Engine, Make Panoramic Image, Color Rendering Mode, Autosave, Lights Processed per Pass, Maximum Texture Size, Use Section Planes, Processing Parameters, Show Settings
Styles	Auto Reflection, View Wizard, Batch Rendering Settings
Lights	Light Balance, Ambient Light, Use Indirect Lighting, Light Balancer (channels)
Sky	SketchUp Sun and Sky on/off, Sky [color] mode, Illumination, Automatic Sky, Sun and Sky Intensity, Ground Plane
HDRi	High Dynamic Range image (HDRi) Settings
Background	Background Image
Foreground	Foreground Image
Plants	IRender nXt Plants, Render Plants as 2D Images, Plant Layers to Display
Fog/Haze	Volumetric Fog, Calculation Boundary
Special	Edge Lines, Process 2 sided faces, RPC Objects, Other
Image	Save Image Automatically, Auto image format, Auto Image, Action when done, JPEG images
More	Number of Threads to use for Rendering, Save Option Values, Load Option Values from, Sync SketchUp Materials to Default Materials

See also

• IRender nXt Reference Manual
• IRender