Alias Design

In this tutorial you will learn how to:
• Locate HDR environment downloads on the Alias Design site.
• Apply an HDR environment to a model
• Manipulate the environment with tone-mapping sliders
• Embed HDR environments to the file

Locating Environments Downloads

To begin locating Environment downloads, go to aliasdesign.autodesk.com • From the home page, click on DOWNLOADS on the top menu bar
• When the item list pops up, click on ENVIRONMENTS
• Select an environment from the list and click on the link. Be sure to select one according to the software noted in the PRODUCT column – Autodesk AliasStudio.



• From here, you can download the file. It will most likely be an .hdr, .ibl or a .zip folder.
• When saving, drop the file in the environments folder within AliasStudio data folders.
• For Windows, typically, you’ll find it under:
C: / Program Files / Autodesk / AliasStudio2009 / shaders / environments

Applying HDR Environments in AliasStudio

One thing to keep in mind when using environments in AliasStudio is that once applied, the model will not be placed with an environment. HDR Environments are instead, mapped to surfaces which reflect the image produced by that applied environment.

HDR Environments work much the same way as SHADERS in AliasStudio and can be edited in the same Multi-lister window. However, the term “Environment” really describes the entire scope of shader and HDR environment options.

To activate the downloaded environment, select the appropriate surfaces. Once completed, open the HARDWARE SHADE options window.


Open the pull down for ENABLE ENVIRONMENT EFFECTS and you should see that USE ENVIRONMENT is checked off by default. In the same menu, you’ll see an EDIT ENVIRONMENT button. That is where you will load and manipulate the HDR environment’s properties.


With the options window opened, you will be looking to load the environment under the IMAGE BASED LIGHTING pull down in the REFLECTION MAP slot. Click on the Browse button to locate the environment file you downloaded previously.


At this point, hitting SHADE ON in the hardware shade options will show the primary effects of the reflection map produced by the applied environment.

MANIPULATING TONE-MAPPING SLIDERS
To begin with, the applied reflection map is placed onto a basic shader. Adjusting the reflections and the material itself is, for the most part, trial and error based on certain variables, such as the shader, lighting, original HDR environment brightness, etc. Above is the initial result when applying the downloaded Terrace Environment. You can see that all of the sliders are positioned at the 50% position. There are three sliders to adjust: Gamma, Exposure and Saturation. Here is a quick run through for the effects of each.


GAMMA
On the left, the Gamma slider is dropped down to 0.400 (minimum) and on the right, maxed out at 2.200. Again, the Exposure is at 0.000 and the Saturation at 1.000, both are ‘halfway’ values.

EXPOSUREM
With Gamma set back to its halfway position of 1.300, The Exposure value is dropped to -2.000 in the left image, and thrown up to 2.000 in the right. The affects look similar between the two sliders, but the exposure slider is controlling the amount of Glare coming off of the surfaces.

SATURATION
Now adjusting the Saturation values will alter the reflected colour values. The image on the left shows a grey scale reflection at the low end level of 0.000. On the right, you’ll see full colour saturation at 2.000

Moving back and forth between the HDR environment sliders and the shader options in the hardware shade options will produce the desired affect with a little playing around. Below is an example of a final shader with reflection map.

Here is a look at the Shader options box for the final result:




It should be noted that you DO NOT need to mess around with lighting to view the applied reflections. As the reflection map is image based it will take the lighting from the image file itself, although, adjusting the lighting will still produce varying results.

To save these environments to your personal library, it’s as simple as middle clicking the environment icon in the Multi-lister window (Top left in the Resident Shaders box of the Visualize control panel) and dragging it into the environments tab in the Shader Library.

When saving the file regularly it is important to know that all reflection or texture maps are only LINKED to these files. That being said, if you were to send this file to be worked on by others, they would not receive all of the reflection mapped data. To avoid any mix ups, open the Save as options when saving, and check the EMBED FILE REFERENCES option. This will make sure that all of the data used in the model is attached and baked into one file.


This has been a very basic introduction to the use of HDR Environments as reflection maps. Hopefully this will be helpful in your reflection mapping exploration. Thanks for reading.