9.Render

In this section, you can setup everything else that is rendering related. This is the place where you can adjust the overall look of the scene for creating some pretty nice screenshots.

Shadows

Here you can adjust the general shadows settings. World Creator uses high resolution cascade shadowmaps. Due hardware and polygonal limitations, shadows settings need to be adjusted depending on the viewer distance to the terrain / objects.

Close View Distance quickly adjusts all values for a close view and Large View Distance adjusts everything for a large view.

Use the Distance to adjust the distance in which shadows shall be rendered. The smaller, the higher the quality. Bias> and Normal Bias lets you fine tune the position and definition of your shadows.

Strength determines how dark your shadows are.

Reflections

Reflections are used to create a more realistic rendering based on global illumination techniques.

Intensity lets you adjust the general reflection intensity (strength). Terrain Base Color lets you choose the default terrain color of your terrain that is the color you see if your terrain is not textured. Smoothness and Metallic lets you specify the material of the terrain.

Color Grading

Color Grading is the process of altering or correcting the color and luminance of the final image. You can think of it like applying filters in software like Instagram.

Shade lets you color shade the entire scene.

LUT Texture lets you choose and apply a LUT texture from the library. You can also import your own LUT's. World Creator ships with a NEUTRAL LUT texture you can use as a starting point for creating your own LUT's.

Tone mapper lets you choose one of three available tone mapping modes: None, Neutral, Filmic (ACES).

Neutral tone mapping only does range-remapping with minimal impact on color hue & saturation and is generally a great starting point for extensive color grading. Its operator is based on work by John Hable and Jim Hejl. It offers full parametric control over the tone mapping curve and is the recommended tone mapper to use in most cases.

The Filmic (ACES) tone mapper uses a close approximation of the reference ACES tone mapper for a more filmic look. Because of that, it is more contrasted than Neutral and influences actual color hue & saturation. This tone mapper is the simplest to use as it requires no user input to give a standard filmic look to your scene.

Sharpen lets you sharpen the scene. Post Exposure (EV) adjusts the overall exposure of the scene in EV units. This is applied after HDR effect and right before tone mapping, so it won’t affect previous effects in the chain.

Temperature sets the white balance to a custom color temperature. Tint sets the white balance to compensate for a green or magenta tint.

Hue Shift shifts the hue of all colors. Saturation pushes the intensity of all colors.

Contrast expands or shrinks the overall range of tonal values. Brightness adjusts the overall brightness of all colors.

Channel lets you select the output channel to modify.

Red modifies the influence of the red channel within the overall mix. Green modifies the influence of the green channel within the overall mix. Blue modifies the influence of the blue channel within the overall mix.

The Color Mode is used to perform three-way color grading in either Linear or Log space. When working in LDR it is recommended to use Linear trackballs for a better experience. When working in HDR it is recommended to use Log trackballs for greater control, but linear trackballs can still be useful.

Bloom

Blooming is the optical effect where light from a bright source (such as a glint) appears to leak into surrounding objects. Bloom is a very distinctive effect that can make a big difference to a scene and may suggest a magical or dreamlike environment especially when used in conjunction with HDR rendering. On the other hand, given proper settings it’s also possible to enhance photorealism using this effect. Glow around very bright objects is a common phenomenon observed in film and photography, where luminance values differ vastly.

Bloom enables the effect. Intensity lets you adjust the blooming intensity. Regions of the image brighter than this Threshold receive blooming.

HBAO

Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion (HBAO) is a post processing image effect to use in order to add realism to your scenes. It helps accentuating small surface details and reproduce light attenuation due to occlusion.

HBAO toggles the effect on / off. Radius lets you adjust the radius of sample points, which affects extent of darkened areas.

Max. Radius Pixels lets you adjust the number of maximum pixels to use for the entire sampling radius.

Bias lets you adjust the bias. Intensity lets you adjust the intensity of the darkened areas.

Luminance lets you adjust the luminance. Max. Distance lets you adjust the maximum distance in which the effect is applied (in meters). Distance Falloff lets you adjust the distance falloff.

Vignette

In Photography, vignetting is the term used for the darkening and/or desaturating towards the edges of an image compared to the center. This is usually caused by thick or stacked filters, secondary lenses, and improper lens hoods. It is also often used for artistic effect, such as to draw focus to the center of an image.

Vignette lets you toggle the vignette effect. Intensity is used to control the amount of vignetting on screen.

Smoothness lets you smooth the vignette borders. Lower Roundness values will make a more squared vignette.

Rounded indicates whether the vignette should be perfectly round or be dependent on the current aspect ratio.

Grain

Film grain is the random optical texture of photographic film due to the presence of small particles in the metallic silver of the film stock.

World Creator's grain effect is based on a coherent gradient noise. It is commonly used to emulate the apparent imperfections of film and often exaggerated in horror themed games.

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Intensity lets you control the grain strength. Higher means more visible grain. Luminance Contribution controls the noisiness response curve based on scene luminance. Lower values mean less noise in dark areas.

Size lets you control the grain particle size. Colored enables the use of colored grain.

Thermal Vision

Thermal vision is used to identify warm and hot regions on the screen.

Thermal Vision enables the thermal vision effect.

Blur

Performs a gaussian blur effect with customizable intensity.

Blur enables the effect. Intensity lets you control the blur amount.

Pixelate

The pixelate effect creates a retro style render of the current screen.

Pixelate lets you control the pixel size.

Eye Adaption

In ocular physiology, adaptation is the ability of the eye to adjust to various levels of darkness and light. The human eye can function from very dark to very bright levels of light. However, in any given moment of time, the eye can only sense a contrast ratio of roughly one millionth of the total range. What enables the wider reach is that the eye adapts its definition of what is black.

This effect dynamically adjusts the exposure of the image according to the range of brightness levels it contains. The adjustment takes place gradually over a period, so the player can be briefly dazzled by bright outdoor light when, say, emerging from a dark tunnel. Equally, when moving from a bright scene to a dark one, the “eye” takes some time to adjust.

Eye Adaption toggles the effect on / off. Min. Exposure is the minimum average luminance to consider for auto exposure. Max. Exposure is the maximum average luminance to consider for auto exposure.

Dark Adapt Speed lets you adjust the adaption speed from a dark to a light environment. Light Adapt Speed lets you adjust the adaption speed from a light to a dark environment.

Purkinje

In the dark, the human eye gets its capability to distinguish colors reduced. In the retina rods are responsible for vision at low light levels and they do not mediate color vision. Purkinje effect or purkinje shift simulates this fact transitioning to grayscale with a customizable blue tint under low light conditions.

Purkinje enables the purkinje effect. Shift Amount lets you control the amount of spectrum shift. Threshold indicates the threshold at which the effect is applied.

Chromatic Aberration

In photography, chromatic aberration is an effect resulting from a camera’s lens failing to converge all colors to the same point. It appears as “fringes” of color along boundaries that separate dark and bright parts of the image.

Chromatic Aberration enables the effect. Intensity lets you control the strength of chromatic aberration.

Depth-of-Field

Depth of Field is a common postprocessing effect that simulates the properties of a camera lens. In real life, a camera can only focus sharply on an object at a specific distance; objects nearer or farther from the camera will be somewhat out of focus.

DoF enables the effect. Visualize visualizes the effect's settings so you can adjust them better

If Focus Location is locked, you can choose a specific location on the terrain you would like to focus (hold down LEFT-CTRL while clicking on the terrain with the LEFT-MOUSE BUTTON).

Focus Plane lets you adjust the starting location of the DoF effect, along the camera view (only adjustable if Focus Location is disabled. Else, the Plane's location is automatically set.

Range lets you adjust the range, starting from the Plane's location. Near Falloff specifies the falloff blending of the near plane.

Near Blur Radius specifies the blur amount along the near plane. Far Falloff specifies the falloff blending of the far plane.

Far Blur Radius specifies the blur amount along the far plane.

Anamorphic Flares

Also known as JJ Abrams flares, they add a truly cinematic touch to your scene.

Anamorphic Flares enables the effect.

Tint lets you choose a color that is used as the base color of the effect. Intensity lets you control the strength of the effect.

Threshold lets you adjust the threshold at which to apply the effect. Spread lets you adjust the flares spread.

Vertical will create vertical flares (else horizontal). Reduce Flicker reduces flare flickers. Ultra creates the effect in a higher resolution.

Sun Flares

Fast GPU flares with diffraction ghosts, halo and animated Sun rays.

Sun Flares enables the effect.

Tint lets you choose a color for the sun flares. Intensity lets you adjust the sun flares strength.

Diffraction Intensity lets you adjust the diffraction intensity. Diffraction Threshold lets you adjust the diffraction threshold. Solar Wind Speed lets you adjust the solar wind speed.

Inner Corona Length, Inner Corona Streak, Inner Corona Spread lets you adjust the inner corona in general.

Outer Corona Length, Outer Corona Streak, Outer Corona Spread lets you adjust the outer corona in general.

Lens Dirt

Spreads the light on the screen when looking to bright sources according to different customizable patterns and spread ratios.

Lens Dirt enables the effect.

Intensity lets you control the lens dirt strength. Threshold lets you control the threshold at which the effect is applied.