Aligning Indigo Sun to iClone Directional Lights

From time to time, you may need to generate a scene including the sun; thus you may choose the Indigo Sun and Sky radio button in the Indigo Environment section to activate the Indigo Sun and Sky as the lighting source.

However, since the Indigo Sun and Sky can not be seen in iClone, you need to frequently adjust the position of the sun through the iClone Indigo Render Plug-in Panel to get an ideal position of the sun in Indigo.

However, you may set the sun's position by using the transformation data of the directional lights in iClone, which is much easier to determine than the direction of the Indigo Sun.

  1. Create a project in iClone. Make sure that there is at least one directional light set.
  2. Export the project to Indigo for rendering by turning off the Indigo Sun and Sky and using the iClone light only.

    Note:

    • The lighting source in the sky is the directional light from iClone.
    • Because there are no settings for the sky in this iClone project, then the sky rendered in Indigo will certainly be black.
  3. In iClone, set the Indigo Environment with the Indigo Sun and Sky radio button in the iClone Indigo Render Plug-in Setting panel.
  4. Select the directional light you wish the Indigo Sun to align to by using the Align to drop-down list.

    Note:

    • Only the Directional Light can be the target for aligning.
    • If you want to manually determine the direction of the Indigo Sun, then select the NONE in the list and adjust the Direction and Angle sliders.
  5. If you export this project to Indigo for rendering, then you will see the Indigo Sun and iClone directional light in the sky at the same time.

    Note:

    • The near light (looks larger) is the iClone directional light, and the other one is the Indigo Sun.
    • Since the iClone directional light is actually a 3D entity with emission settings, then the Indigo Sun causes it to cast a shadow on the ground as you can see in the illustration below:
    • The colors in the scene will be influenced by both the Indigo Sun and the iClone directional light.
  6. In iClone, turn off the directional lights in the iClone Indigo Render Plug-in Setting panel.
  7. Render the project again in Indigo, you will see that the Indigo Sun is set to the same direction (in accordance with the orientation of the shadows) as the iClone directional light.

    The direction of the iClone directional light.

    The Indigo Sun aligned to the direction of the iClone directional light.