Camera, lights and rendering

These settings decide how the scene looks. Without them the widget shows the models from a default camera, on a light grey background, lit the same way as earlier versions of the widget. Every setting here is optional.

This example from a robot dashboard uses the current lighting: physical light units, a panorama image that lights all objects, and ambient occlusion for soft shadows where parts meet:

"camera": "Camera",
"cameraLookAt": { "x": -0.1, "y": 0, "z": 0.3 },
"spotLight": { "x": -5, "y": 5, "z": 20, "castShadow": true, "angle": 0.5, "intensity": 100, "penumbra": 1.5 },
"renderSettings": {
  "lighting": "physical",
  "toneMapping": "neutral",
  "backgroundColor": "#899094",
  "fps": 20,
  "environment": { "type": "equirectangular", "file": "environmentmap/sunrise.exr", "azimuthDegrees": 90 },
  "ambientOcclusion": { "enable": true, "radius": 0.05, "intensity": 0.5 },
  "bloom": { "enable": true, "strength": 0.1, "radius": 0.1, "threshold": 1.8 }
}

Camera

Each coordinate of cameraPosition and cameraLookAt is optional. The default camera has a vertical field of view of 45° and shows what is between 0.1 m and 50 m away from it.

With view navigation on, the camera orbits around cameraLookAt: drag to turn the view, scroll to zoom, and drag with the right mouse button to move it. Disable view navigation in the widget’s properties keeps the camera where the file puts it.

A camera from the model is useful when you want a fixed view with the field of view you chose in Blender. If camera names an object that is not a camera, the widget warns and uses the default camera.

Lights

The widget adds a light only when the file asks for it. Without hemisphereLight and spotLight, the scene gets its light from the environment alone, and without an environment too, the models are dark.

Shadows also need castShadow and receiveShadow on the objects that cast them and that they fall on.

With "lighting": "physical", lights use physical units and need higher values for the same brightness: about 3 times higher (×π) for the hemisphere light. A spot light then fades with the square of the distance, so its intensity must grow with π × distance²: a spot light of 0.2 at 19 m needs about 230. Set decay to 0 to keep a far-away spot light from fading.

Rendering

renderSettings collects the settings for how the scene is drawn.

A lower fps and pixelRatio 1 keep the dashboard light on panel PCs and tablets: the cost of a frame grows with the square of the pixel ratio.

Environment

An environment lights every object from all sides and shows in shiny surfaces, as the surroundings do in a real room. It works best with "lighting": "physical" and a toneMapping. Choose where it comes from with type:

• Generated
• Panorama
• Cube map

"renderSettings": {
  "lighting": "physical",
  "toneMapping": "neutral",
  "environment": { "type": "generated", "generator": "hall", "intensity": 1 }
}

"renderSettings": {
  "lighting": "physical",
  "toneMapping": "neutral",
  "environment": {
    "type": "equirectangular",
    "file": "environmentmap/sunrise.exr",
    "azimuthDegrees": 90,
    "intensity": 1,
    "background": false
  }
}

"renderSettings": {
  "environment": {
    "type": "cubemap",
    "files": {
      "px": "env/px.jpg", "nx": "env/nx.jpg",
      "py": "env/py.jpg", "ny": "env/ny.jpg",
      "pz": "env/pz.jpg", "nz": "env/nz.jpg"
    }
  }
}

These fields work with every type:

"type": "none" switches the environment off.

Ambient occlusion

Ambient occlusion darkens corners, gaps and the places where parts touch, so the model looks less flat. It is computed every frame and costs about 40% more time per frame. Transparent parts and trace lines are left out.

Bloom

Bloom adds a glow around bright parts, such as LEDs and lamps. Make a part glow with an emissive material, or with an emissiveIntensity link.

With an environment, raise threshold above 1, otherwise shiny parts that reflect a bright environment glow as well.