thea for form z - thea render€¦ · “formz window” is selected the resolution of the active...

Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

THEA FOR FORM•Z

www.thearender.com/formz

Thea for form•Z v1.05.06.309.1434

http://www.thearender.com/formz

2 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3

Application Prerequisites ............................................................................................................. 3

Installation .................................................................................................................................... 4

3.1 Windows..................................................................................................................................... 4

3.2 MacOSX ...................................................................................................................................... 4

Licensing and activation ............................................................................................................... 5

Thea Darkroom ............................................................................................................................ 6

5.1 Top Toolbar ................................................................................................................................. 7

5.2 Render Controls.......................................................................................................................... 8

5.3 Display ........................................................................................................................................ 9

5.4 Network Log ............................................................................................................................... 9

Viewport rendering .................................................................................................................... 10

Thea tool .................................................................................................................................... 11

7.1 IR Tools ..................................................................................................................................... 11

7.2 Instancing ................................................................................................................................. 11

7.3 Model Import ........................................................................................................................... 12

7.4 Scene Export............................................................................................................................. 12

Render settings .......................................................................................................................... 13

8.1 Rendering ................................................................................................................................. 14

8.2 Display ...................................................................................................................................... 14

8.3 Environment ........................................................................................................................ 14

8.3.1 Sky ................................................................................................................................ 14

8.3.2 IBL ...................................................................................................................................... 16

8.3.3 Medium ............................................................................................................................. 16

8.3.4 Infinite Plane ..................................................................................................................... 17

8.3.5 I/O ..................................................................................................................................... 17

8.3.6 Camera .............................................................................................................................. 17

Instancing ................................................................................................................................... 18

Content Browser ..................................................................................................................... 20

Materials ................................................................................................................................. 22

Lights ....................................................................................................................................... 25

Object Attributes ..................................................................................................................... 26

Thea Render menu .................................................................................................................. 27


14.1 Update .................................................................................................................................... 27

14.2 About ...................................................................................................................................... 27

14.3 Log .......................................................................................................................................... 27

14.4 License .................................................................................................................................... 27

14.5 Preferences ............................................................................................................................ 28

14.5.1 General ............................................................................................................................ 28

14.5.2 Content Browser ............................................................................................................. 28

14.5.3 EXR .................................................................................................................................. 29

Moving files between machines ............................................................................................. 29

INTRODUCTION

Thea for form•Z is an integrated plugin that brings Thea Render inside AutoDesSys form•Z. The plugin offers a wide a range of features that allow rendering directly inside form•Z. With the “Export to Thea Studio” functionality you can also transfer your scene inside Thea Studio and take advantage of additional advanced tools. At this manual all the basic installation and getting started steps are explained, along with Thea plugin settings and options inside form•Z. For seeing the Getting Started video please visit Thea for form•Z landing page at: www.thearender.com/formz This manual covers plugin settings and options only, for a deeper and more detailed understanding of Thea Render features such as materials, engine modes, etc. please refer to Thea Render User Manual.

APPLICATION PREREQUISITES

Although the majority of the plugin’s features do not require an external application to function, there are some specific dependencies from the main Thea Render standalone application, Thea Studio. These include the use of the Material Lab, the License and Update panels and certain resources such as rooms for material previews, render presets, etc. This means that Thea Render Studio should be already installed on your computer for having a fully functional Thea for form•Z plugin. On MacOSX please make sure that you have also run Thea Studio application at least once (after you drag & drop it typically to your Application folder) in order to complete the installation process. Find Thea Studio and plugins download links at the corresponding webpage. Note that the plugin will work on OSX 10.6 and above. Thea for form•Z plugin supports all versions of form•Z 8 and form•Z 8.5 (Free/Jr/Pro). form•Z 7 is not supported.

http://www.thearender.com/versions/TheaRenderManual_v1.5.pdf

http://www.thearender.com/versions/TheaRenderManual_v1.5.pdf

https://www.thearender.com/downloads

https://www.thearender.com/downloads


INSTALLATION 3.1 Windows

The plugin comes with an installer that helps you define the version of form•Z to which you want to install the plugin and also its directory. The installer guides you through all the necessary steps of installation (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Installing Thea for form•Z

3.2 MacOSX

Thea for form•Z for MacOSX comes with a dmg file. Inside the dmg file you will find the Thea Render folder. Drag and drop this folder inside the plugins folder of the form•Z installation. Then, within this folder, you will find two separate zip folders; one for each form•Z version. Select the needed one, according to your version, and simply double click on it to be extracted. Plugin is ready for use just afterwards (the remaining unused files can be deleted). It is recommended to install also the corresponding version of Thea Render standalone Studio as well. The next time that you will start form•Z, the plugin should be listed in the Extension Manager menu.

Figure 2: Thea for form•Z plugin in Extensions Manager

Note: If you are not installing the plugin in one of the default plugin folders of form•Z you will have to manually enable it from the Extensions panel (Extensions > Extensions… Manager > Search Paths…)


LICENSING AND ACTIVATION

To run the plugin without resolution restrictions and watermarks, you will need to activate your license. This is done by going to Extensions > Thea Render > License. A new dialogue box opens to help you add your full name, email address and serial number for activating the plugin (see Figure 3). Do not forget to add also the Thea for form•Z plugin serial at the plugins tab (see Figure 4). Afterwards restart your application for the changes to be applied. For finding more details on licensing, please refer to Thea Render User Manual corresponding chapter.

Figure 3: License panel

Figure 4: Plugins licensing


THEA DARKROOM

Thea Darkroom is the main rendering window of the plugin. You can access it from Palettes > Thea Darkroom. Inside the Darkroom you can render your scenes in production or interactive mode. A variety of tools that offer more control over rendering and post-processing are also available. It is recommended to assign a shortcut to the window for easier access. To do that go to: Edit > Key Shortcuts… > Palettes > Thea Darkroom

Figure 5: Thea Darkroom

In the remainder of this section the most important parts of the Darkroom are explained.


5.1 Top Toolbar

Figure 6: Render Engines

Engine From this menu you can set the active rendering engine. The upper part of the list contains engines that work in production mode; any changes made after rendering has started are not taken into account. The rest of the engines -which have the IR prefix- operate in interactive mode, changes in the form•Z window are reflected in the rendered image.

Figure 7: Resolutions List

Resolution From this menu you can set the resolution of the rendered image. When “FormZ window” is selected the resolution of the active form•Z window is used. If you want to use a resolution that is not listed, you can select the “Custom” option and set the desired values for Width and Height in the Camera tab of the Display Options (see Render Settings section).

Figure 8: Aspect Ratio

Lock

Keep Aspect Ratio Check this box if you need the rendered image to have the same proportions with the form•Z window. Enabling this option will edit the Height value so that the original aspect ratio is not altered.

Figure 9: Focus Tool

Focus When the Focus tool is enabled you can define the focus point for your scene. To do that just click at the appropriate location on the rendered image. For the camera to focus on the desired point an appropriate f-number value must be set. Tip: the Focus actively changes the camera settings so it can be used only when an interactive engine is running.

Figure 10: Pick Region

Tool

Pick Region With the Pick Region tool you can select a rectangle area on the image and limit the rendering on your selection. To define the rectangle area the plugin expects two clicks on the rendered image. When an interactive engine is used, picking a region restricts the rendering to that region immediately. If the tool is used during production rendering you will have to stop and re-start the render to activate region rendering.


Figure 11: Clear Region

Tool

Clear Region The Clear Region tool deletes the defined region.

Figure 12: Pick Material

Tool

Pick Material This tool can be used to select the material of an object. While interactive rendering is in progress just click on the object of your choice and its material will be set as the active material in the Materials Palette.

5.2 Render Controls

Figure 13: Save Image

button

Save Image This button opens a dialog to save the rendered image.

Figure 14: Refresh Image

button

Refresh With the press of this button you can refresh the displayed image. Refresh can be used to get an updated version of the image after changing the display settings or selecting a different channel. Although the image is refreshed automatically during rendering, automatic refresh stops after rendering has stopped/finished.

Figure 15: Start

Rendering button

Start Starts rendering (Production or Interactive).

Figure 16: Stop

Rendering button

Stop Stops rendering (Production or Interactive).

Zooming & Panning You can zoom in the rendered image using your mouse wheel. Additionally, you can pan the image by dragging the mouse.

Render resolution & Zoom percentage With any rendering mode you can see the resolution of the image being rendered at the top-right corner of the image area. Note that the actual rendering resolution might be different from the selected resolution if for example a region is selected or if the plugin runs without an activated


license. If you have used your mouse wheel to zoom in the image the zoom percentage will be also displayed. (Demo resolution is limited to 720p.)

5.3 Display

Display Settings consist of various options such as Exposure, Filtering and Photometric Analysis that can greatly enhance the final image. For a complete description of each option please refer to the Thea Render manual.

Figure 17: Display Settings in Thea Darkroom

5.4 Network Log

With network rendering multiple computers can contribute to the same rendering. To enable network rendering check the Server button in the Distribution section of the render settings. When one or more remote machines contribute to the rendering the network log presents information and statistics about each of the connected computers.

Figure 18: Network Log


VIEWPORT RENDERING

Thea for form•Z adds a new rendering mode in form•Z, Thea Render IR. It can be enabled from the Display Menu or directly from the Thea icon in the Display toolbar.

When initiated, interactive rendering starts inside the active form•Z window. As it happens with any other interactive rendering mode, Thea Render IR is stopped by switching to another mode. During viewport interactive rendering the view tools can be used in the rendering window to change camera’s position. Furthermore, doing changes in the scene or editing Thea settings automatically update the image. The Focus & Pick Region tools described in the previous section are also available for viewport interactive rendering through the Thea tool (see next section).

Figure 20: Viewport interactive rendering

Figure 19: Thea icon at the Display Toolbar


THEA TOOL

Figure 21: Thea tool in the

Modeling toolbar

Various important features are grouped under the Thea Tool in the Modeling toolbar. Selecting the tool displays the available options in the Tool Options palette. The options are separated in four categories: IR Tools, Instancing, Model Import & Scene Export. Each category can be enabled by clicking the respective icon. Tip: if the Thea tool is not visible you will need to reset the workspace (Workspace > Reset Workspace)

7.1 IR Tools

Figure 22: IR tools tab of Thea

tool

This tab contains the Focus and Pick Region tools for viewport interactive rendering. The functionality of the tools is described in section 5 (Thea Darkroom).

7.2 Instancing

Figure 23: Instancing tab

Thea for form•Z comes with an integrated mechanism for instance creation. Instancing is described in detail in section 10.


7.3 Model Import

Figure 24: Model import tab

From the Model Import tab you can load a Thea model (files with mod.thea extension) and convert it to a form•Z object. You can select a model either through a normal Open File dialog or through the integrated Content Browser. For more information on the Content Browser see section 10. Note that converting a complex model can be a lengthy process. If your intention is to render the model as it is, it is preferred to insert it in your scene as an external proxy (see Instancing section).

7.4 Scene Export

Figure 25: Scene export tab

From this tab you can export your form•Z scene directly to Thea Studio. Below we see in detail the available options for the export.

Figure 26: Scene Type

Scene type The difference between a normal scene file and a scene pack is that the latter encloses all external dependencies such as textures in the generated file. Use the “pack” option if you want to transfer the scene to another computer.

Figure 27: Layer

Layers Select the layers you want to be exported.

Figure 28: Models Export

Models Select how each model will be exported according to its visibility status. The available options are Export, Export as Disabled and Do Not Export.


Figure 29: Lights Export

Lights Select how each light will be exported according to its visibility status. Same options as above.

Figure 30: Open in Thea Studio

Open in Thea Studio Check this button if you want to immediately open the scene in Thea Studio after it has been saved. Note: To export the scene, rendering (production or interactive) must be stopped.

RENDER SETTINGS

Figure 31: Render Settings

Render settings for Thea Render are placed in the Display Options window. You can go there either from the Display menu (Display > Display Options) or from the Thea Render icon in the Display toolbar (Right Click > Options…). Render Settings are grouped in four major tabs: Rendering, Display, Environment, Camera which we analyze below.

Figure 32: Opening Display Options from the Display toolbar


8.1 Rendering

Figure 33: Render Presets

At the top-right of the Rendering tab you can see the Presets menu. Presets contain ready-to-use settings for various rendering situations (see Figure 33). Clicking the Presets arrow will list all the preset files already present in the standard Thea Presets folder. Additionally, you can load a presets file from another location or save the current render settings in a new presets file. The rendering tab contains settings tightly connected to the rendering engines (see Figure 31). To change the settings for an engine first choose Production or Interactive from the Rendering Mode menu and then pick the engine from the Engine Core menu. The number and type of settings depend on the selected engine but there are some settings that are common for all engines (Motion Blur for example).

8.2 Display

The Display tab contains the Display settings as described in Section 5 (Thea Darkroom). Display Settings are also presented here for easier access during viewport interacting rendering.

8.3 Environment

8.3.1 Sky

The Sky tab contains parameters that control Thea's physically-based sky model.

Figure 34: Physical Sky settings

The physical sky settings contain all the parameters needed for setting the sky (see

Figure 34). These options are physically-based parameters of the sky model used inside Thea Render. Note that Physical Sky and Image Based Lighting (IBL tab) are mutually exclusive options therefore selecting one of them will disable the other.


Sun Position

The sun light’s position can be calculated either from Thea Location & Time settings or directly from a form•Z Distant Light.

Figure 35: Setting the Sun’s position from Thea

Settings

Figure 36: Settings the Sun’s position using a form•Z

distant light

Sun Settings

Besides sun’s position, you can control other properties of the sun light from the Sun Settings panel.

Figure 37: Sun settings


8.3.2 IBL

Figure 38: Image-based Lighting panel

Image-Based Lighting Here you can use an image to provide illumination for your scene. As already mentioned, Image-based Lighting and Physical Sky are mutually exclusive options. The loaded image will also act as a background, reflection or refraction map if the respective panels are disabled.

Figure 39: Background Mapping panel

Background Mapping A background map is used as the background for the scene. Loading a background map will override any image loaded in the IBL section for background display.

Figure 40: Reflection panel

Reflection A reflection map is used during computation of the reflections of the objects. If none is loaded, the image added in the Image-Based Lighting will be used.

Figure 41: Refraction panel

Refraction A refraction map is used during the computation of the refraction of the objects. If none is loaded, the image added in the Image-Based Lighting will be used.

8.3.3 Medium

Figure 42: Medium settings

This tab contains settings that account for a global medium simulation during light-matter interactions.


8.3.4 Infinite Plane

Figure 43: Infinite options

An infinite plane, as the name suggests, appears as an infinite surface when rendered. When enabled, it is represented as a rectangular model in the form•Z window. The plane’s height can be adjusted by changing the model’s position in the Z axis. By enabling Reflection, a glossy material is added to the ground plane. That way the plane can also capture the reflection of the rendered objects. Strength (0-100%) corresponds to the index of refraction (1-10) of the glossy material. Roughness can be used to modify the roughness of the ground plane's surface.

8.3.5 I/O

Figure 44: I/O Options

In this tab you can load and save Thea Sky objects (files with sky.thea extension). A Sky object groups together the settings found in the Sky and IBL tabs and the Display options. Loading Sky objects can be done from a normal dialog or through the Content Browser (section 10).

8.3.6 Camera

Figure 45: Camera settings

The last tab contains settings that control the Thea camera. The resolution settings work in the same way as in the Darkroom. Below them, you can set values for the lens and depth of field of the camera as well as Z-clipping distance values. For more details on each parameter please refer to Thea Manual.


INSTANCING

Instancing can be used to reduce the complexity of a form•Z scene by displaying complex models only once and to reduce the required memory during rendering as instances need a lot less space. All instancing-related functionality is placed in the instancing tab of the Thea tool.

Figure 46: Proxy Selection

Proxy Proxy is the entity used as the base model for the instances. A proxy can be one (or more) of the existing form•Z objects or a Thea model that exists in the disk.

Figure 47: Type of Instances

Type Two types of instances can be created: model and surface. Model instances share exactly the same geometry and materials and can only differ in transformation (position, rotation or scale). Surface instances share the same geometry but besides different transformations they can also have different materials.

Figure 48: Form Selection

Form Form concerns how the instances will be represented in the form•Z scene. When Bounding Box is selected a bounding box is created for each one of them. This is the best option when a big number of instances are wanted or the selected instance type is Model. With the Geometry option instances are created as normal objects. This puts additional complexity to the form•Z scene but it is useful for Geometry instances in order to be able to inspect and change the materials of individual instances.

Figure 49: Placement Method

Placement With Manual placement single instances are created with subsequent mouse clicks in the form•Z window. If the click is not on an existing form•Z surface the instance is placed on the current reference plane. With Automatic generation multiple instances are created at once on the surface of the picked object. Note that with this option instances will be generated only if an existing form•Z object is picked and a positive value is assigned to the Population setting (see below). For both Manual and Automatic placement the generation of the instance(s) is controlled by the settings in the Transformation tab.


Figure 50: Pivot Point Selection

Pivot Point The pivot point is specified with regards to the proxy model and controls how the origin of the generated instance(s) will be determined. The pivot point can be computed from the bounding box of the proxy by specifying a value (average/min/max) for each of the three axes or directly by clicking in the form•Z window at the point you want it to be placed.

Figure 51: Perturbations

Perturbations Settings in this panel control the rotation and scale of the instance(s). Direction: This option specifies if instances will be directed by the normal of the picked surface (0%), by global z-axis (100%) or somewhere in between. Normal: Increasing this slider gives a random varying orientation to the instance(s). Roll: Roll works similarly to the normal slider for only for rotation around the Z axis. Scale: This edits the size of the created instances. Higher percentage leads to bigger difference between the smallest and the largest instance.

The following two panels are used only for automatic instance generation.

Figure 52: Placement

Placement Minimum Distance controls how close the instances will be placed to each other. Front Side determines if the instances will be created on top of the picked surface or on the opposite side.

Figure 53: Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous Population is the number of instances you want to be generated. Note that the final number of generated instances might be different from the value specified here if the Minimum Distance value is set to a high number.


CONTENT BROWSER

The Content Browser lets you preview and import resources created in Thea Studio such as materials, models and skies. You can browse directories in the file system and move up and down in the folder hierarchy. For more flexibility, you can save directory paths for quick access.

Figure 54: Content Browser for materials

Figure 55: Extra Options

Add Here you can add folders for quick access. After a folder has been added it will be listed at the end of the favorites menu. Remove Use this to remove previously added folder(s) from favorites. Set Home Directory The Content Browser has a home directory which is visited every time you click the Home icon. From this button you can set a folder of your choice as the home directory.

Figure 56: Home Directory

Clicking the home icon always loads the Home Directory of the Browser.

Figure 57: Move Up Folder

With this icon you move one level up in the folder hierarchy.

Figure 58: Preview More Items

In case the items are too many to be displayed in the browser you can use the previous and next arrows to preview more items.


Figure 59: Folder List

Folder List This list contains all the subfolders of the current directory. With a single click on a folder the items contained in the folder are displayed in the preview area. With a double-click the folder becomes the current directory.

Figure 60: Preview Area

Preview Area Here you can see a preview for each one of the items in the selected folder as well as its filename. Note that the Content Browser will automatically apply a filter to display only specific files, for example when launched from the Material Parameters window, the Content Browser will display only Thea Materials files (mat.thea) and nothing else.


MATERIALS

Thea for form•Z adds its own Material Type in the Material Parameters palette.

Figure 61: Thea Render material type

Figure 62: Use Shaded option

The default option is to use the Shaded material type. This way you can load your form•Z scene and start rendering without worrying about creating new materials, the plugin will automatically create a Thea material from the Shaded parameters.

Figure 63: Use Thea Material option

To use physically-based materials and for better control over the material design you can choose to work directly with a Thea material.

Figure 64: Convert from Shaded option

This button can be used at any time to create a Thea material from the Shaded type. This is equivalent to selecting Use Shaded but it exists here as a way to reset the Thea material if you have made changes to it.


Figure 65: Edit in Material Lab

button

With this button you can open the material in the Material Lab for further editing. The Material Lab opens in an external window and offers an advanced set of features such as layers, emittance, displacement and others. Note that in order to launch the Material Lab, Thea Studio must be installed.

Figure 66: Thea Material Lab

Figure 67: Thea Material

Browser

From here you can launch the Content Browser and browse Thea materials in your computer. Selecting a material from the browser will make a copy of it and assign it to the active material. For more information on the Content Browser see section 10.

Figure 68: List of Material

Presets

From this menu you can select one of the available material presets for your material. Material presets include Matte, Translucent, Lacquer, Car Paint, Glass and more. Each one of the presets comes with a set of parameters that give more control over the appearance of the material.


Figure 69: Example of resulting materials with the use of a Thea Preset

Figure 70: Update Shaded

option

Check this box if you want the Shaded type to be updated every time you make a change to the Thea material. Updating the Shaded type means that the plugin will try to make an approximate conversion from the Thea material to the Shaded type.

Note: having “Automatically update Shaded” checked when working with materials of high resolution textures might result in delays in the interface as the textures will have to be re-loaded by form•Z for the Shaded type. To avoid this, you can have the plugin to create a low-resolution version of the textures for the Shaded type. For more information see the Preferences section.

Figure 71: Material Room

selection

This menu sets the scene that will be used to create the preview of the material that appears in the right side of the Material Parameters window. If “FormZ Scene” is selected the plugin will use the selected form•Z scene which can be changed from the icons below the material preview. Note that the plugin will first convert the scene to a Thea scene therefore the visual result will look different from that in the Shaded type. Every Thea material can be associated with one preview scene. The preview scene is usually the one that was active in the Material Lab when the material was saved. With the “Material Room” option the plugin will try to locate and use that scene. The rest of the list is filled with the default rooms that come with the installation of Thea Studio. These room scenes are located in the Thea Data folder for material preview scenes so it is possible to have your own customized rooms by adding them in that folder.


LIGHTS

With Thea Render you can use four different light types: Omni, Spot, Projection and IES. All four types can be added and edited from the Light Parameters window. By expanding the Type menu you will see four new entries added by Thea for form•Z: Thea Omni Light, Thea Spot Light, Thea IES Light and Thea Project Light. An Omni Light emits lights uniformly in all directions (similar to a form•Z point light). A Spot Light on the other side, targets a specific set of directions (similar to a form•Z cone light). An IES light uses photometric data to illuminate the scene which can be loaded from IES files. Installing Thea Studio puts a number of IES files in the default Thea Data folder. A projector light can give an illuminating screen effect by targeting a rectangular area. Thea for form•Z also supports three of the native form•Z light types. Point lights are automatically converted to Thea Omni lights and Cone lights are converted to Thea Spot lights. If you have distant lights in your scenes you can pick one of them to be used as the Sun light (see Render Settings section). The ambient light type is taken into account.

Figure 72: Thea Lights in the Light Parameters window


OBJECT ATTRIBUTES

Thea for form•Z adds its own object attributes. To edit them go to the Attributes panel and choose Thea Render Attributes from the drop-down menu (see Figure 73).

Figure 73: Object Attributes

The following attributes are offered:

Visible: this determines if a model will be visible or invisible during rendering. An invisible model can still contribute to the rendered image, by casting shadows for example.

Shadow Tight: is used to offer solution to a problem known as the “terminator artifact” (artifact seen at the limit of lighting models that have low-poly subdivision). This solution produces smooth renders even for very low-poly models. Shadow tight can be disabled in cases of not well defined meshes where smooth rendering may not be desired.

Caustics Transmitter: when this is true the object can produce caustics (biased engine only).

Caustics Receiver: when this is true the object can receive caustics (biased engine only). There are three additional Thea attributes that are determined indirectly from form•Z attributes:

Enabled: this is determined by the visibility of the object. Ghosted and invisible objects are disabled.

Shadow Caster: this corresponds to the “Casts Shadows” property in the Rendering section of the Basic Attributes.

Shadow Receiver: this corresponds to the “Receives Shadows” property in the Rendering section of the Basic Attributes.


THEA RENDER MENU

Thea for form•Z adds a submenu under Extensions (Extensions > Thea Render). The submenu contains the following options:

14.1 Update

Figure 74: Update panel

The Update panel lets you check for new Thea versions and resources libraries (models, material, skies) and download them. Note that Thea Studio must be installed for the Update panel to be enabled.

14.2 About

In the About panel you can check the current plugin version you are using.

14.3 Log

The log window contains the output of Thea Render which consists of feedback about the rendering, possible warnings and other information. You can save the log to a file from the Save button or clear the log from the reset icon.

14.4 License

From the License panel you can activate your Thea Render and Thea for form•Z license. For more information see section 2.


14.5 Preferences

14.5.1 General

Figure 75: Advanced User Mode

Advanced user mode reveals additional settings for each engine in the Rendering tab of the Display Options. These settings are usually not altered from novice users so they are hidden by default. For an exact list of the extra settings please refer to Thea Studio manual.

Figure 76: Fixed Interactive render

size

This option controls how interactive rendering in the Darkroom behaves when the user resizes the window. When this button is unchecked, resizing the Darkroom during interactive rendering changes the rendering resolution accordingly. When it is not checked, the resolution is changed only from the resolution menu and resizing the window does not have any effect on the actual resolution of the render.

Figure 77: Low-resolution Textures

This option controls what textures will be loaded in the Shaded material type if the Automatically update Shaded button is checked. Using Thea materials with high resolution textures might delay the user interface during the update of the Shaded type as the textures will have to be re-loaded and processed by form•Z. If this box is checked textures that exceed the specified Max texture size will not be used. Instead, the plugin will create a lower-resolution version for each one of these textures and use that one. The low-resolution texture will be saved in the same folder with the original texture with an appropriate suffix in its name.

14.5.2 Content Browser

Figure 78: Listed Folders option

This is the maximum number of folders that will be displayed in the list at the left of the Content Browser window.

Figure 79: Rows/Columns

Rows & Columns specify how many items will be displayed in the preview area of the Content Browser. There is no limit to the values that you can set here but the Browser window has maximum dimensions so setting too many columns or rows will result in some items no being displayed correctly or not being visible at all.

Figure 80: Thumbnail size

This is the size of the preview thumbnail in the preview area. As noted above, the Browser window cannot exceed some certain dimensions so specifying a large value here might result in some of the columns or rows to lie outside the window’s boundaries.


14.5.3 EXR

Figure 81: EXR tab in the Preferences window

All settings related to the EXR file type can be found here. Each time you save an EXR file from the Darkroom the file will be created using these settings.

MOVING FILES BETWEEN MACHINES

Although Thea materials and all plugin settings are saved in the form•Z project file, resources such as textures, IES files, etc. are handled as external references. To ensure that these files will be loaded when the scene is transferred to another machine, the plugin searches in additional directories, if a resource is not found in its original location. There are two standard locations that will be searched by the plugin if a resource is missing:

A folder named external in the same directory where the form•Z project file resides (Figure 82)

The folder which contains the form•Z project file (Figure 83)


Figure 82: Having a specific folder for external

resources

Figure 83: Having the resources in the same folder

with the form•Z project file

For more plugin details, download links and resources please visit https://www.thearender.com/formz

https://www.thearender.com/formz

thea for form z - thea render€¦ · “formz window” is selected the resolution of the active...

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