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How our version of IBLA works
In our version of IBLA, we have two options to manage the influence of the irradiance, applied to the scene.
The main one, which is also the stock version required for all tracks, it's the Global Irradiance probe. This is a main probe, that must be placed in a a representative area area of the track.
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| In general all probes should be placed around 2m above the ground in order to ensure that they provide a representative reflection of the surrounding environment. Placing too high or too low will result in too much or too little sky reflections, and effect the colour of shadows. |
The second option is to use 3D Volumes (Convex Hulls), which are the best option for occluded areas of the track, like garages, tunnels, or roads in between high buildings... and any similar situation where we need to sample the light from the inside of a volume. In the case of a pitlane with garages, that Hull would be nothing more than an easy volume mesh, covering that area, and with a probe inside it, placed in the best position to sample the surrounding.
In general, for a track with garages, a Global Probe and a Hull volume, it's enough to give the entire track a balanced ambient light.
If needed, we can use more hulls, just in case we have tunnels, and other places where the track has very unique situation than the rest of the course. Like, for example, a course that does flow in the middle of a grass field, and then enter in a city. In this case more hulls are probably the best option to sample and interpolate the two different situations.
We can only have 1 Global Probe.
Where to place a Probe in the track scene
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The fourth is for the probing coordinates. As before remember to swap the Z-up with the Y-up when you paste the coords from 3Ds Max to the .SCN;
Last step, we need to load our Hull mesh, in the scene file (.SCN), as we do for any other instance in the scene. Be sure the mesh is flagges as NoRender.
You can place this at the top of the scene file, just before any other instance, or where you usually keep the "feature" instanced, like the NoRainZone, Skyboxi, etc... That is not mandatory, you can place it where you want in the scene file, just try to keep it in a place where you can easily check and verify its presence;
Repeat this operation for any Hull you want in the track. For a tunnel is pretty much the same thing; create a volume that can contain the entire tunnel, and place its probe just inside the tunnel, in between the road ground and the tunnel ceiling. Give the Irradiance range a distance that does interpolate properly with the "inside" (Hull) and "outside" area (Global_Probe). If the Hull is pretty much matching the tunnel mesh, you can use a very short range, like couple of meters, so you get a cool transition between the light inside the tunnel and the light outside it.
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