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Apply visual effects

You can apply visual effects to the 3D View using the Viewport Filters. These filters can enhance your sculptures and assigned materials and aid in recreating an environment that mimics how they’ll be rendered in another application. When turned on, these filters appear as a post-processing effect that is applied in real-time to everything displayed in the 3D View.

You can turn on the following filter effects to modify how the model appears in the 3D View (provided your computer graphics card supports these Cg-based effects):

- Tonemapper
- Depth of Field
- Ambient Occlusion
  NoteAll of the Viewport Filters rely on features provided by more advanced graphics cards. If the display of any viewport effect is not as expected, compare your hardware’s specifications to the hardware listed at http://www.autodesk.com/mudbox-hardware.

Using the Tonemapper filter

The Tonemapper filter works by remapping the color values for what displays in the 3D View. Adjust the Tonemapper properties to compress, expand, or shift the tonal range of the rendered scene.

You can also simulate interesting glow effects using the Glare property. This feature is useful when you use HDRI images for environment and material maps and you need to evaluate the model with an overall level of brightness or contrast applied.

1. Turn on the Tonemapper filter by clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then click the box to the left of the Tonemapper item name so that the eye icon appears (or click on the name itself).
2. Display the Tonemapper properties by clicking the Tonemapper name.

   The properties appear in the Properties window.

Using the Depth of Field filter

The Depth of Field filter lets you simulate the depth of field effects inherent to optical camera lenses in real time. That is, a specific near and far range from the camera can be defined where items within the specified range appear in focus and items outside the specified range appear out of focus, or blurred.

Depth of field helps to reduce the overall digital sharpness that is inherent to computer graphics and makes a model appear with characteristics inherent to an optical camera lens.

1. Turn on the Depth of Field filter by clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then click the box to the left of the Depth of Field name (or on the name itself) so that the eye icon appears.

2. Display the Depth of Field properties by clicking the Depth of Field name.

   The properties appear in the Properties window.

NoteTurning on the grid can help when setting the depth of field.

Using the Ambient Occlusion filter

The Ambient Occlusion filter lets you simulate the occlusion effects that darken cracks, crevices, corners and points of contact on rendered surfaces.

This filter aids in evaluating the overall 3D form of a model in fine detail areas, much like moving a light across the front of the surface helps to evaluate the surface highlights and subtleties of its overall form.

1. Turn on the Ambient Occlusion filter by clicking the Viewport Filters tab, then click the box to the left of the Ambient Occlusion name so that the eye icon appears (or click on the name itself).
   NoteIf the following message appears: Ambient Occlusion process took <n> seconds. Filtering of 32 bit floating point textures may not be supported by your hardware. Disabling texture filtering in the preferences may improve performance. This indicates that your hardware and graphics may not be supported for running Mudbox. Save your work, turn off the Use Texture Filtering option in Render section of the Preferences window, then restart Mudbox and load your file again to see if the Ambient Occlusion filter effect is improved. Compare your hardware’s specifications to the hardware listed at http://www.autodesk.com/mudbox-hardware.
2. Display the Ambient Occlusion properties by clicking the Ambient Occlusion name.

   The properties appear in the Properties window.

NoteThe Strength property controls the intensity of the ambient occlusion effect.

Related topics

Tonemapper properties

Depth of Field properties

Ambient Occlusion properties