Set up a procedural sky

Enable the procedural sky

1. Open a model and select Environment Settings from the toolbar.
2. Expand Environment and set Mode to Sky.
3. Set IBL Intensity for the ambient light and reflections produced by the sky. This does not change the direct Sun intensity.
4. Expand Sun. Adjust Azimuth to turn the sun around the scene, then adjust Elevation to move between twilight, sunrise or sunset, golden hour, and midday.
5. Enable Shadows if the model should receive and cast shadows, then choose the required shadow options and quality.

Balance the sun and sky lighting

IBL Intensity

Scales the procedural sky's ambient and reflection lighting.

Azimuth

Changes the sun's horizontal direction around the scene. It also updates the procedural atmosphere and reflections.

Elevation

Changes the sun's height. Lower values warm and dim the direct light automatically; higher values produce a more overhead daylight direction.

Intensity

Controls direct Sun strength separately from IBL Intensity.

Sun Size

Changes the apparent angular size of the visible sun disk.

Halo Size and Halo Falloff

Control the size and edge falloff of the glow around the visible sun.

Adjust Azimuth and Elevation first, then balance IBL Intensity and Sun Intensity. This keeps reflection brightness and direct shadows easier to judge independently.

Refine the atmosphere

• Haze blends distant model geometry into the environment. Haze Density controls the strength of that effect and also changes the procedural atmosphere.
• Ground Color tints the lower hemisphere near and below the horizon. It also contributes to diffuse lighting and reflections; for example, a blue tint can suggest light bouncing from water.
• Bloom and Bloom Intensity control the spread from bright highlights and emissive materials.
• Lens Flare is available while Bloom is enabled and needs a sufficiently bright source in the rendered view to become visible.

Add procedural clouds

1. Enable and expand Clouds.
2. Use Coverage to control how much of the procedural weather field forms visible cloud.
3. Use Density to make cloud bodies lighter and more transparent or darker and more opaque.
4. Set Wind Speed for animation speed. Set it to 0x to freeze cloud movement.
5. Choose Cloud Quality. Start with Medium, reduce it for better performance, or raise it when edge and detail stability matter more than GPU cost.

Clouds currently affect the visible background only. They use the procedural sun direction for their own shading, but they do not change the sky's image-based lighting or reflections and do not cast cloud shadows onto the model.

Save or reuse the setup

• Save a native .tridi project to keep the environment and presentation settings with the scene.
• With Tridi Plus, Application Actions > Save Current as Startup can restore the model-independent environment presentation when Tridi starts.

Performance and troubleshooting