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Visible Environment

You can specify Environment maps to be an environment for lighting or the background. Apart from having an HDR image to light the environment, you can specify a different environment for the background and see that background in reflections.

If specified, this environment is used for reflections, refractions, and all camera rays that leave the scene. The regular environment is used just for the direct light calculation. The Visible environment overrides the Normal environment in some specific use cases, giving more control over the final look of the render. If you configure a Medium in the environment, OctaneRender® ignores the Medium when the environment is used as a Visible environment.

Environment nodes (both Daylight and Texture environment) have extra options controlling the environment's behavior when used as the visible environment. When the node is used as a normal environment, these options are ignored:

• Backplate - Uses the Visible environment as a backplate image.
• Reflections - The Visible environment overrides the Normal environment when calculating reflections for SpecularAmount of specular reflection, or the mirror-like reflection of light photons at the same angle. Used for transparent materials such as glass and water. and GlossyThe measure of how well light is reflected from a surface in the specular direction, the amount and way in which the light is spread around the specular direction, and the change in specular reflection as the specular angle changes. Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals. materials.
• Refractions - The Visible environment overrides the Normal environment when calculating refractions for Specular materials.

In figure 1 below, the same Daylight environment is used for both environments, except the Normal environment is at noon, while the Visible environment is at sunset.

Figure 1: Visible environment examples.

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