Advanced Rendering Reference

Scenes > [scene] > Attributes > Advanced Rendering Properties

See Advanced Rendering Properties.

Scenes > [scene] > [displayer] > Advanced Rendering Effects

See Advanced Rendering Effects.

Scenes > [scene] > [displayer] > Advanced Rendering Effects > Advanced Rendering Materials

See Advanced Rendering Materials.

Scenes > [scene] > [displayer] > Preset Material

See Preset Material.

Tools > Rendering Materials

See Rendering Materials.

Advanced Rendering Properties

This node provides parameters for advanced rendering capabilities, which you apply to the entire scene rather than to an individual displayer.

Quality

Controls quality of the final image in a range from 0.0 (minimum) to 1.0 (maximum), with higher quality requiring longer rendering time. The time to produce an image depends as well on the complexity of the scene setup, thus simple scenes require less time to render compared to complex scenes with the same quality value. Some effects, such as soft shadows, or more physically correct options like the Metal rendering material, can also require longer render times than, for example, using the simpler Non-Physical material with hard shadows.

Shadow Override

Allows overriding displayer settings for shadow appearance:

• Use Displayer Property: this property is deactivated, leaving the displayer settings in effect.
• No Shadows: deactivates all shadows in the scene.
  
  
• Soft Shadows: enables shadows and sets Directional Light Shadow Sharpness to 0.5 on all displayers, giving all shadows in the scene a soft edge (see Directional Light Shadow Sharpness).
  
  
• Hard Shadows: enables shadows and sets Directional Light Shadow Sharpness to 1.0 on all displayers, giving all shadows cast by directional lights a hard edge.
  
  

Note

Shadow sharpness only affects the lighting controlled by directional lights that you access in the Scenes > Attributes > Lights node, not light-emitting material lighting or lighting effects from the background. Lights from light-emitting materials are area lights that produce shadows naturally. Both distance and geometry size contribute to shadow sharpness: the farther from a shadow caster or the smaller the light-emitting geometry, the sharper the shadow.

Blend Epsilon

Controls blending, in a range from 0 to 1.0, among the multiple rendering modes that are used with advanced rendering. This parameter helps lines and points to blend correctly in the advanced rendering.

Min/Max Samples per Pixel

Specifies the sampling coverage of each pixel. The values set minimum and maximum bounds for samples shot per pixel. The actual number of samples shot per pixel varies depending on the quality settings, but it is always within the bounds set with this parameter.

[displayer] > Advanced Rendering Effects

This node becomes available in a displayer when you activate the Enable Advanced Rendering property of the scene.

Enable Shadows

When activated, computes shadowing on part surfaces in the displayer.

Directional Light Shadow Sharpness

On a scale from 0 to 1, ranges from a very soft shadow, to various degrees of softness of shadows, to completely sharp. For information on setting shadow sharpness for the scene directional lighting, see Shadow Override.

Note

Shadow sharpness only affects the lighting controlled by directional lights that you access in the Scenes > Attributes > Lights node, not light-emitting material lighting. Lights from light-emitting materials are area lights that produce shadows naturally. Both distance and geometry size contribute to shadow sharpness: the farther from a shadow caster or the smaller the light-emitting geometry, the sharper the shadow.

Casts Effects

When activated, the geometry in the displayer participates in the lighting of the scene by casting shadows, and reflecting and refracting light onto other objects. When turned off, the displayer does not interact with the lighting in the rest of the scene at all. It does not cast shadows. It is not reflected in nor does it refract light onto other objects or itself, and it is not visible through refractive surfaces.

Advanced Rendering Materials

This node lets you add special rendering effects. The Advanced Rendering Materials node allows you to use the color that the displayer uses, for example a constant surface color or a scalar value color, and apply additional effects such as the reflection and refraction of the transparent body. This approach differs from using the Preset Material object, which is activated by an entirely separate color mode, Preset Material.

You can access rendering options in the Effect property of this node, listed in the table below.

Option	Activated Child Nodes
Non-Physical By setting the Reflection and Refraction values greater than 0, you can imitate water. For a more realistic rendering of water, use a Transparent Body rendering material (see Rendering Materials).	Non-Physical This option imitates OpenGL rendering, particularly when the Absorption property is set to the default value of 1.0. It provides the following settings: Index of Refraction The index of refraction (IOR) that is used with the Refraction setting, on a range from 1.0 to ∞. Reverse Surface Orientation When activated, reverses the direction of the local surface normal vector, for example for a case where the normals point into a surface. The following settings control the percent contributions, along a range from 0 to 1.0, of surface characteristics: Absorption: Surface color Reflection: Reflected light Refraction: Refracted light Note Beginning in v12.06, the absorption, reflection, and refraction values can add up to any sum you want. However, for advanced rendering images prepared in versions prior to 12.06, continue to keep these settings summing to 1.0.
Metallic	Metallic Provides the following settings: Specular Color This color approximates a mirrorlike finish. It is defined by RGB colors. Roughness Controls the roughness of the surface with a numeric parameter ranging from 0 to 1.0. Clearcoat IOR Index of Refraction (IOR) of the clearcoat applied to the material, on a range from 1.0 to ∞. (1.0 equals no coat.) It is recommended to keep the IOR in a physically plausible range. Values larger than 3.0 can be used for artistic purposes but are not realistic. For example, water has a refractive index of about 1.3, glass about 1.5. Diamond, which is very refractive, has a value of about 2.4. To produce more vivid highlights on the model, consider adding some brighter light sources to the scene, or using an environment that includes some contrasting colors.
Matte	Matte Provides the following settings: Sigma Controls the roughness of the surface, on a range from 0 to 90 degrees. Lower values give the appearance of a smoother surface, while higher values result in a rougher surface. Clearcoat IOR See the description above for the Metallic option.
Transparent	Transparent For the effect of a thin-walled fresnel (glass-like) material, provides the following settings: Index of Refraction The index of refraction (IOR) that is used with the Refraction setting, on a range from 1.0 to ∞.
Transparent Body	Transparent Body For the effect of a volumetric fresnel (water or glass-like) material, provides the following settings: Index of Refraction The index of refraction (IOR) that is used with the Refraction setting, on a range from 1.0 to ∞. Roughness Controls the roughness of the surface with a numeric parameter ranging from 0 to 1.0. Reverse Surface Orientation When activated, reverses the direction of the local surface normal vector, for example for a case where the normals point into a surface.
Light-Emitting	Light-Emitting For the effect of a material that acts as a light source, provides the Intensity setting, on a range from 0.0 to ∞. The color of this light-emitting material is the surface color of the materials in the displayer.

Preset Material

This object gives access to predefined materials that you can save and quickly apply to a displayer. The materials are represented by objects in the Tools > Rendering Materials node. The Preset Material node makes it easier to simulate metals without an RGB color, such as gold or copper, and to record a physically accurate index of refractions.

The Material property of this node lets you select rendering materials using an editor.

The Preset Material node becomes available in a displayer when the Color Mode property of that displayer is set to Preset Material. When activated, it hides the Advanced Rendering Effects > Advanced Rendering Materials node. This option is not available for the scalar displayer, which does not have a Color Mode property.

Rendering Materials

This manager node within the Tools node contains the supplied material effects, organized in subfolder nodes by type, with which you can set up your advanced rendering. You can also create your own materials.

The New Rendering Material submenu lets you add a material from among the following types:

• Non-Physical: material simulating simple rendering shading, with options of adding reflection or refraction effects.
• Transparent Body: material simulating fresnel properties, such as water or glass. This option produces refraction and reflection based on the direction of the rays.

  Note	It is recommended that you use this material only for watertight and/or closed geometry. To ensure accurate results in cases of single sheets of geometry, use Transparent.

• Metal: material that realistically simulates metal appearance, such as gold or copper. This material includes actual lighting data from physics sources. See Additional Rendering Materials - Values.
• Metallic: material simulating metal with user-defined RGB color. This material has simpler settings than Metal, and so is more intuitive to edit for adjusting the appearance of the image.
• Matte: material with a diffusely lit appearance (no specular component), such as rubber.
• Light-Emitting: material that acts as a light source, allowing you to add dynamic lighting effects.
• Transparent: material simulating a sheet or shell of a fresnel material. An example would be a car window. A Transparent Body material would treat the car interior as a single solid block of glass.

In addition, each subfolder of the Tools > Rendering Materials node has a right-click action that lets you create a material of the type represented in that subfolder. For example, the Rendering Materials > Metal node has the right-click action New Metal Material.

Properties Lookup

The following table shows which properties are used by which material type.

	Non-Physical	Transparent Body	Metal	Metallic	Matte	Light-Emitting	Transparent
Absorption Percent contribution of surface color (range 0 to 1.0).
Absorption Coefficient Coefficients for red, blue, and green wavelengths.
Clearcoat IOR Index of Refraction (IOR) of the clearcoat applied to the material, on a range from 1.0 to ∞. (1.0 equals no coat.)
Color Enter RGB values for the color of the light. See Defining Colors.
Diffuse Color Enter RGB values for the base body color.
Index of Refraction The index of refraction (IOR) that is used with the Refraction setting, on a range from 1.0 to ∞.
Intensity Controls the strength of the light with text entries that are typically fractions of 1. Although values higher than 1 are allowed, they are appropriate for advanced rendered scenes with photorealistic materials. With OpenGL materials, values above 1 generally cause the surface to saturate quickly with the color of the light. (For example, a white light causes the surface to become solid white.)
Reflected Color This color tints the reflected ray.
Reflection Percent contribution of reflected light (range 0 to 1.0).
Refraction Percent contribution of refracted light (range 0 to 1.0).
Reverse Surface Orientation When activated, reverses the direction of the local surface normal vector, for example for a case where the normals point into a surface.
Roughness Controls the roughness of the surface with a numeric parameter ranging from 0 to 1.0.
Sigma Controls the roughness of the surface, on a range from 0 to 90 degrees.
Specular Color This color approximates a mirrorlike finish. However, it is defined by RGB colors, as opposed to photorealistic materials which do not use RGB.
Transmitted Color This color tints the refracted ray.

Additional Rendering Materials - Values

The rendering materials that are listed in this table are not included in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ by default. To add these materials to your simulation:

1. Right-click the Tools > Rendering Materials node and select New Rendering Material > Metal.
2. Rename the new Metal node to indicate your choice of material.
3. Enter the corresponding values for the material in the Index of Refraction and Absorption Coefficient properties.

Additional material information is available at the RefractiveIndex.INFO database: https://refractiveindex.info/.