Introduction
As a “Platform Pioneer“ at 3DEXCITE, I embarked on my first 3DEXPERIENCE journey by taking on the task to create visuals for a fictive watch maker. I have gone through the process of creating variants and materials in Rendering Scene Design, lighting in Ambience Studio and finally linking it all together in Creative Experience for the final result. To visualize my story, I created the following video:
Music and SFX credits go to Bensound.com and Freesound.org respectively.
Intro
1 | Training Material, Quick Tips and User assistance
This post gives a broad view on all of the topics which have been tackled during this project. To know more information about certain topics and / or view tutorials, consult the Quick Tip Series and Training Material:
User assistance: https://help.3ds.com/2021x/English/DSDoc/FrontmatterMap/DSDocHome.htm?contextscope=cloud&id=8035c5268f214ad7b32912ed227f3b30
How?
1 | Creating textures from black and white to normal map in Photoshop
Based on reference pictures I created multiple textures which would then resemble watch face patterns once applied to the material. To create a normal map, I first designed a black and white map aka a bump map: black is the lowest point and white is the highest point. The different shades of grey determine the transition between these points. It is possible to use this map with the PBR (Physically Based Rendering) 3DS Enterprise material available on the platform. However, a normal map holds more information and as it is easy to convert a bump to a normal map in Adobe Photoshop. (You can find plenty of tutorials online on how to create normal maps in Photoshop.)
Note: normal maps are often saved as .tiff, but this is not supported (yet). Use a .png instead as it is lossless.
2 | The platform triangle: Rendering Scene Design, Creative Experience and Ambience Studio
2.1 | Rendering Scene Design application
After creating these textures, we can add them to the material in Rendering Scene Design. We can add variants by duplicating geometry and adding a unique material to it. At this moment, it is not possible to switch materials on one geometry. In regards to applying materials, it is advised to use PBR material with Covering type. The other option, core material, is usually used as test / stress materials. Covering materials on the other hand are added neatly underneath the scene tree in a separate material parent. From the material name in this parent you can see which material it is and on which geometry it is applied on. Finally, you can also add materials on different levels, I usually apply it on the ”white stairs” sub-level. Both material types can be assigned on any of the levels.
Note: make sure that each material is linked to a piece of geometry so all of them are saved to your material library.
It is also possible to split geometry with Rendering Scene Design if needed to. You can do this by double clicking on a part. By doing so, you switch from Rendering Scene Design to Generative Shape Design. First, add a geometry set. This will be the parent to which the extracted part gets sent to. The geometry set gets added to the sub-tree you have selected. Secondly, select the part and use the extract function visible in the pop-up menu when you hover over a selected part. Finally, place the extracted part in the geometry set by using the distribute function.
2.2 | Ambience Studio application
I would advise to open Creative Experience first and import your model (with your materials and variants from Rendering Scene Design). Once open, you can click on the compass again and go to Ambience Studio. Thus, both apps can be launched and opened at the same time. This is possible for any app, as long as your system can cope with the performance demand. The advantage by having both apps open, is to be able to let them interact with each other as they will sync once one of the app projects is saved. Example: add a custom hdr or start from any of the preset Ambiences, save the Ambience and then go back to your Creative Experience. Once you have added your Ambience to your Creative Experience project, they are linked up. So, any time you change anything in Ambience Studio such as the rotation or exposure, these changes will transfer over to Creative Experience once you save.
Note: change the size of your Ambience to finite if you would like to adjust the rotation in Creative Experience as well. Otherwise, these parameters will not be exposed in the properties tab of the imported Ambience in Creative Experience.
Note: make sure to use hdr files with a resolution with the power of 2.
2.3 | Creative Experience application
Through Natural Language, we are able to add interactive features to our experience without any scripting knowledge. Although scripting is also possible in Creative Experience, not everyone has this knowledge and it is often faster to create certain actions through Natural Language as it is easily readable without the need to add basic functions manually.
From there we can decide what each action does and to which each action is linked to, based on the Natural Language logic we add: IF, EACH TIME, OR, AND, etc. Depending on your preference or desired output, you can trigger these actions by for example clicking on a certain part of your product, a button, an image, a specific key, a separate geo in the scene, etc. The latter are called actors and can be added from the tool bar, are placed in the scene and thus also scene tree and can be interacted with through Natural Language (Add Scenarios).
There are also a couple of preset behaviors you can trigger such as explode view and basic rotation. Custom behaviors like a script or an animation are also possible and are added through the same menu.
3 | Output – how to render efficiently
If you need to cope with a lot of variants, I highly suggest you use the following features: the variant manager, product configurations, render batching and denoiser. You can see all these features, apart from the denoiser, in the following video:
In regards to the denoiser, here is an overview of a sample test I did with this particular watch project. Each render was rendered with Stellar on a 4k resolution.
Note: pay attention to the conclusion on the last image of this test. Although logical, it is very handy to know!
Note: in the render settings, you can find the denoiser setting in the miscellaneous tab.
Finally, render batching. You need to record your scene as a Stellar file in order to start the rendering process. You launch a recording by either clicking the render image button (image) or use the Ctrl-alt-b shortcut. The recorded scene then gets send to as a rendering task to the Background Renderer. You can see your task queue in the Background Render Monitor:
You can restart, adjust settings, stop and rearrange render jobs within this monitor. You can also see some render info when you hover over the “I” icon such as time and sample count. There is also a status bar and to save, simply click on the left icon with the arrow.
Note: Stellar recordings are stored on your pc locally or on the server hard drive. Locally, it is stored in CATTemp < BatchRendering < Cache < Stellar folder. Do clean this folder from time to time as these files add up very quickly!
Note: as the name suggests, this monitor renders in the background, so you can continue on adding recordings while they are being rendered sequentially.
4 | glTF Campaign - Experience a new dimension with glTF™
For the glTF campaign, I made additional images to show the watch in a 3/4 perspective and finally also did a glTF export - both to be showcased on the campaign website: https://ifwe.3ds.com/gltf-4-ecommerce?linkId=139903568
5 | Overview
This is an overview of all of the configurations I made renders of in the full front angle. All of these were loosely based on existing watch models, adding my own spin to it:
6 | Testimonial series
After publishing the above content, due to the project's / post's succes I received the request to create a three-part testimonial series to explain my first experience and show my journey on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. And so I did: I placed a couple of my cameras in front of me, prepared what to say and composited all together. You can watch the result below:
Do not hesitate to contact me and feel free to comment on this post if you have any questions, would like to know more and/or have any thoughts you would like to share!
