Physical Sky

The Sky Manager is Physical Sky's control center. This is where you can edit just about any setting that has to do with Sky's effects.

You can also open the Sky Manager by double-clicking the Physical Sky object. the Sky Manager's settings can also be found in the Attribute Manager. The following descriptions use the Sky Manager.

At the top-left of the Sky Manager is a preview of the current Sky settings, taking into account 2D clouds, sun, moon, and stars. All other Sky effects, such as rainbows, fog, and sunbeams are not taken into account.

You can rotate the preview image by right clicking on it and dragging.

If you want to return the preview to its original position, right-click on the preview image and select Reset Rotation or double-click on the preview image.

Under the preview is a list of several sky effects. Upon activation, each effect's parameters will be visible to the right in the Sky Manager.

Save as Preset Menu

Selecting Save as Preset at the top left of the Sky Manager lets you choose between Sky and Weather.

Selecting either of these commands will open a dialog windowin which you can enter the usual information for saving an asset.

So, what's the difference between Sky and Weather?

  • Sky: Contains all Sky effects, including volumetric clouds, position, date, Environment object and Sky object, which are saved to the Asset Browser.
  • Weather: Contains the Sky object's settings without position, time, date, volumetric clouds, rainbows, fog and sunbeams.

General details regarding the Preset System in Cinema 4D can be found there.

Continue to Object Properties

Which light sources does Physical Sky use?

After Physical Sky has been selected, internal light sources will automatically be placed into the scene. These light sources can only be edited to a certain degree.

These light sources are:

  • A sun light source, similar to an Infinite Light, whose properties are automatically defined by the time of day with respect to position, color, and brightness. Hard shadow and area shadow are located in the Sky Manager's Sun tab.
  • A moon light source, similar to an Infinite Light, whose properties are automatically defined by the time of day with respect to position and brightness. It uses a Hard shadow.
  • A large, semi-spherical Area Light that simulates the light a sky would radiate. This light source's color is the average of the color of the sky (without clouds), and casts no shadows. It will be turned off if you use GI.
  • Only relevant for GI: The sky itself, consisting internally of a Sky object, also emits light for each (internal) Luminance material channel.

Sun and moon light sources can be replaced with your own light sources (see Sun Light Tab).

Of course you can place light sources as you see fit, but they will not influence the Sky effects. As is so often the case, there is an exception to the rule: you can light volumetric clouds with your own light sources (see Volumetric).

Limitation

Physical Sky cannot be output separately as a Multi-Pass.

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