What's New in Version 3

Shine a light into existing HDR locations with the new Blend modes

Use synthetic light sources to make adjustments to the underlying content - be that other lights or existing HDR locations. These new blend modes provide totally interactive control over the lighting from existing HDRI environments. Blend modes can be used in conjunction with the 'Inv' button to reverse their effect.

Precise control to shape the light - Custom Fall-off

Use the powerful custom fall-off ramp to control the graduation of light precisely across its fall-off shape. This provides more subtle studio lighting effects than ever - allowing precise control of how graduations of light will appear in reflections. Custom fall-off also provides users with the ability to precisely control the areas adjusted by the new light blend modes.

Color Gradients - Synthetic and Picture Lights

Why should a light have only one color? Now you can create a ramp of color from the center to the edge of a synthetic and picture light. The effect can be subtle or outrageous. You can also use the color gradient to control the brightness across a picture light, like a fall-off ramp, ideal for fine control of Soft boxes.

Advanced Color Picker - Designed for lighting artists

We designed a new color picker focused on the the needs of a lighting artist. The color refinement grid allows artists to try subtle changes in color to see their effect in real time. The color matching tools let users match color from HDR and LDR images, plus there's a Kelvin Color Temperature picker - an essential ingredient for lighting.

LiveLight - faster and full of new enhancements

• LiveLight is now faster with an improved render engine.
• Added support for loading Collada files into LiveLight - including multiple cameras.
• Select your camera views from .mi and Collada files containing multiple cameras.
• Metallic reflection mode has been added.
• Floor Shadow - grounds a model giving it a more realistic feel, without the need for importing floor geometry that blocks light and reflections from the HDRI.
• Choose an image (JPEG, TIF, BMP) or a solid color for the LiveLight background.
• Tone-mapping has been replaced with a gamma setting.

General improvements

General

• It's all real-time - a far more interactive experience! Every setting in HDR Light Studio 3.0 now updates the HDR canvas in real-time. Adjust a light color, the background gradient, HDR background rotation or brightness - and instantly see the results without waiting to press OK.
• HDi project files now have an icon in Windows, and can be double clicked to open them in HDR Light Studio.

Main Interface

• Re-name lights - double click a light in the list to re-name it.
• Picture Lights are given their Picture Light name - but can be re-named afterwards.
• Click and drag lights up and down the light list to easily re-order them.
• Hover over a light in the list and a cross appears on the HDR canvas showing the location of that light, making it easier to identify your lights.
• The light visibility states are now saved in the HDi project files.

HDRI Background Settings

• Fine tune the HDRI rotation with both Degree and Minute precision.
• Colorize your HDRI background - ideal when used with studio background images to create any background color from a single grey-scale HDRI.
• Flip - now you can flip the referenced HDRI horizontally.