Spherical harmonics tutorial

[vlado]

Hello guys,

We've added a short tutorial on spherical harmonics here: http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/maya...s_sph_harm.htm

Best regards,
Vlado

[GatesB]

What is the advantage of SPH baking over traditional baking?

[vlado]

The advantage is that you can change the envronment map with a completely different texture, or add/move directional lights and the color bleeding will be automatically readjusted from the spherical harmonics - you don't need to redo the baking process.

Best regards,
Vlado

[jasonhuang1115]

Hi, vlado,
Thank you and the team to implement this into Vray and the tutorial.

I have couple questions:
1. What is the intention behind baking Spherical Harmonics to the .xml for parsing in a foreign application? Interactive relighting?
2. Can one use the .xml file in ex. Nuke to achieve SH-based lighting and how?

Thanks,
Json

[vlado]

Once the spherical harmonics are exported to a .xml file, they can be converted relatively easily to various formats as required by game engines and other interactive applications.

I haven't looked into the Nuke spherical harmonics yet; while it is probably possible to use the spherical harmonics data, it is unlikely that you can use the .xml file directly. Should not be too hard to convert it though - will look into it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[jasonhuang1115]

Thanks for the reply, vlado.
I believe Vray is interested in the VFX market too as more companies have adopted it.
It would be great to see Vray being connected closer to Nuke through Katana or direct implementation like the AtomKraft (http://www.jupiter-jazz.com/atomkraft) such that one can do relighting, lighting, or even look-dev inside of Nuke.

cheers,
Jason

[timdog]

Jeees.. Atomkraft looks interesting indeed!

[instinct]

Mind you there was also an announcement for 6.2 wich seems to have the first steps towards integrating some Katana tech....starting with integrating Renderman complient renderers. We'll see

[Paul Oblomov]

Nice! Standalone parser for nuke - sounds very cool.

[Reaversword]

Thanks for the tutorial documentation.