Adjusting HDRI image from KS6

[rembem]

I made HDRI backgrounds in KeyShot 6 and when I open/import them into KeyShot 7 I can't select the lights. It is just one image ....... I hope that I missed something, and if NOT then I'm fucked and can re-make all the KS6 HDRI backgrounds.

[soren]

You can convert the KeyShot 6 and earlier environments to KeyShot 7. By clicking the 'Extract HDZ' icon just above the pin list (see attachment).

KeyShot 7 handles pins and environments quite differently, so a step where you may need to extract any image pins or background images is needed to take advantage of the new, more efficient, handling of environments and pins. When you click 'Extract HDZ' you may be prompted to save any images present in the HDZ-file on your disk (if there are no image pins and a uniform background, no files will be written though).

Søren

[DMerz III]

This button does not appear for me if I am working on an environment that was created in KS7.

What is the best method for extracting pins from one KS7 .bip to another KS7 .bip.
I've tried saving the .hdz using the Export HDRI button in the editor, however, as far as I can tell, there isn't a way for me to bring that .hdz into another KS7 document. I must be missing something because we used to do this all of the time in KS6. Save an .hdz, and open the environment in a new document, pins all editable.

I know I can insert the .hdz as a background image...but this flattens the pins. Under settings tab, there clearly is a folder icon as well as a 'reload file' icon, but they are greyed out for me. Not sure why that is. Tried making a new blank environment, still a no go. Can someone demonstrate this?

I thought I'd be able to figure this out, but I'm losing confidence, please help! =)

[soren]

If you create an environment in KS7 you should 'Save To Library' instead of export. A hdz can contain pins or no pins. The way the hdz format encodes pins is inefficient, which was one of the reasons we decided to change behaviour.

The hdz's you _export_ from KeyShot 7 does not contain pins - it is similar to hdr and exr. You cannot export exr/hdr if you reference hdz-images in the KeyShot environment. If you save to library, you will save a small file (a few kilobytes) which will reference any images your environment uses - similar to how materials are saved to library.

So in short: if you need to archive an HDRI export as hdz. If you need to edit the HDRI in an external tool, export as exr or hdr.
If you need to reuse an environment between project, save to library (in a format called KLF).

Søren

[designgestalt]

also I realized, that the lighting slightly changes when converting the HDRI´s from KS6 to KS7 !
I had to re-adjust all the pins in their intensity to get to the same result as in KS6 .
so it is not just a simply plug´n play operation!
it seems like the coverted HDRI is slightly brighter !
at least this was my observation!

designgestalt

[soren]

That should not happen - can you provide a HDZ from KeyShot 6 showing the behaviour? As simple as possible is best.

[DMerz III]

EDIT; Is the .KLF accessible outside of the Library? If I need to send it to another member of my team, how do I find that file? Thanks in advance.


Thanks Soren, but I feel like this doesn't solve my problem when working in a team environment. If I save to my Library, my other team members do not have access to that pin information.

Why does this matter? Well when we are working in a team environment, consistency between lighting becomes very important. Since we custom light most of our projects. We are often using pin setup as a starting point between several files. I appreciate how KS7 handles HDRs now, embedding most of the information in the .bip itself, but I would still love the flexibility to export that information as a standalone file. I thought since .hdz is a proprietary format, that you would keep the editability there while flattening the exported .hdr and .exr files. Is this something we could see change in the future?

[DMerz III]

There's also a few other odd things that are happening while working with environments. I did a whole writeup that I shared with support, but I might as well post it here to demonstrate.