It is almost mid-August and I spent most of my vacations working on my other tool for the lighting design: Real IES.
In this period I am quite inspired by the success of Real HDR and I want to convert this inspiration in a long-postponed update for Real IES. There are a lot of changes and new features so I leave HERE the link for the public development roadmap.
Today is a great day and we are happy to release Real HDR 1.1!
Here is the full list of features of this new release, focused on an improvement of usability and precision. Added polar/equirectangular distortion for correct representation in the spherical map, proprietary project file format, OS browsing paths, among other user-requested features.
implemented a new accurate display mode for lights
equirectangular distortion for the spherical map both in the .exr file and the preview mode
project load/save with a .rhd proprietary file format
progress bar for feedback on .rhd load/save status
Real HDR association in Windows registry
OS based file browser for .exr and .rhd files
.exr file up to 4K (8MP) now saves as expected
differentiated selection highlights for SpriteLights and DarkMarks
Since today was the exam day in SPD – and I had plenty of time to spend in class patroling in the attempt to avoid that my students would copy from each other – I took with me my project to work on the file association for Real HDR and Windows OS. I have never done it before but looks like a key has to be written by the installer in Window’s Registry, and precisely:
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.rhd [where .rhd is the file format of Real HDR]
. rhd file association
This is the only step to do to associate the file to the program. Now opening a file will invoke the software and this looks cool.
However, it is not possible at the moment to parse automatically the content and open the file directly. I need to find a way to get the OS path were the file got open by the user, store it in the cache and, once the user is logged in, perform the loading. This feature sounds intriguing but I have other priorities for now.
The previous version of Real HDR was saving the file to the desktop, appending a unique extra string on each file to prevent accidental overwriting. I added now a proper file browser window that starts from the desktop path but that can keep in memory the last used path. This way the user does not need to manually move the files every time.
One of the best parts of working on Real HDR is the customer’s requests. My colleagues and I receive daily feedbacks and, by time to time, requests as well.
A user asked how it is possible to resume the work after saving the EXR file. The answer was quite simple: “you can’t”…yet. So we started thinking how to collect every single information of each SpriteLight and DarkMark in the editor since the values are privately stored in each of them. We ended up with a couple of solutions and we created a sort of batch exporter that stores the data in our own custom .RHD file.
I recorded some video tutorials about the usage of Real HDR. Unfortunately, this process takes too much time and I prefer to remain focused on the development of the tool (plus I have 20 hours of CGI lectures every week, so I really can’t invest more time in education). if you are interested in sharing your knowledge and recorded a tutorial regarding Real HDR, I will be happy to share it here and on other PlaySys’s channels.
How sweet is the new equirectangular projection! Here is how the “windows” stencils look…in pink! We manage to create a real batman generator by the end of the day!
Equirectangular distortion and polar coordinates were quite hard to implement in Real HDR 1.0 since the editor and the renderer were sharing the same level.
With the help of Elena Kartseva (and Tissot’s indicatrices) we created a new formula capable to get x/y coordinates, convert them in a latitude/longitude format and finally return x/y/z values for the light sources. This way, from the next update, Real HDR 1.1 will feature equirectangular perfection and beauty.
This is the (backdated) first post to inaugurate Real HDR’s blog.
Version 1.0 is out since 25 June 2018.
During the first launch of the product, a forum entry attracted our attention. It was related to our development of Real HDR, opening the door to the question “will it endure or will it be discontinued after a few weeks?”. Well, the question is legit; as software users ourselves we are quite excited and worried when a new actor appears on the market… long ago we were a strong supporter of Nevercenter Silo (now discontinued) and we are a strong supporter of Unigine (now better than ever). So, yeah, the question was legit and I and my colleagues are proud to start this new blog to keep a more verbose conversation of our development plans for Real HDR, and the other software we are working on.
