The point cloud shape is used to visualize a point cloud file generated by Turtle. It is used by photon maps and final gather points, as well as point clouds generated from baking. A point cloud shape is created either via the Turtle shelf, or with the following command in the script editor: createNode ilrPointCloudShape;
This field displays the type of the loaded point cloud. Depending on the type different options are available. For Irradiance and Radiance point clouds additional settings can be found under Final Gather Options.
If this setting is enabled, the color information from the point cloud file will be use instead of the color specified above. This can be useful e.g. for visualizing the intensity of a final gather cloud.
View point cloud with selected gamma inside Maya. Note that point cloud files are always stored in linear gamma (1.0).
If the point cloud contains information about normals, this setting can be used to displace the points along their normals in the viewport. This may be useful when using smooth shading in the viewport to avoid intersection (depth culling) of points lying on surfaces.
If points contain directions (e.g. incident direction for photons), this setting is used to set the length of the visualization of the direction.
Uses the depth property of points to determine if they should be visualized. Useful if you want to visualize the result of Final Gather at a certain depth.
Only show points that given this Max Movement are valid at the time specified by the Time attribute. Has not effect if Max Movement is zero.
If the loaded point cloud is a Float Array Point Cloud, how should the values be interpreted? All available choices are shown in this dropdown. Once an interpretation is selected, additional settings can be made under Spherical Harmonics Options or Radiosity Normal Options. For colored SH point clouds the visualizer assumes that all R-coefficients come first, then all the G-cofficients and then the B-cofficients. An eventual A-channel is ignored. For colored RNM point clouds the visualizer assumes that all the coefficients for the first basis vector comes first (RGB), then all coefficients for the second vector etc. If an extra fourth basis vector is available it is assumed to encode the color in the normal direction.
Specific for spherical harmonics and radiosity normal clouds. Sets the space to evaluate the SH/RNM function in (usually the space it was baked in).
If this settings is enabled, SH-points and RMM-points are visualized using spheres. If disabled, directional lights will be used to specify the evaluation direction of the SH/RNM-function.