Instructions for Use

The scene beautification feature is only available in Rendering Engine V2 mode. It supports replacing the material of S3M tiles with UE material types to achieve data beautification.

Through the scene beautification feature, you can open the material manager. The material manager provides a set of local material libraries, which include various built-in PBR (Physically Based Rendering) materials such as concrete, masonry, metal, plastic, and stone. The material manager can also manage PBR materials within the material library, including adding new material files, deleting material files, pasting material files, and renaming material files. Additionally, by selecting a material in the material manager, you can edit and adjust PBR material parameters through the edit material panel.

Currently, the system offers multiple supporting material libraries and material assets (extraction code: smsw, click the blue text to access). Place the supporting material libraries and material assets in the SuperMap iDesktopX installation path /templates/Materials folder, i.e., in the same path as the default materials, to use them in the system.

Function Entries

• Scene tab -> Scene Beautification group -> Scene Beautification button

Operation Steps

1. Open a scene or create a new scene, open the S3M tile data to be operated on, select the model dataset layer in the layer manager, and right-click Jump to Layer.
2. Click the Material menu button in the Scene Beautification group under the Scene tab. The "Material Manager" dialog box will pop up below the current window.
   
3. The material manager includes a toolbar, material library list, material list, and other components.
   • The toolbar provides functions for creating a new material library and refreshing.
     • New Material Library: Supports creating a new custom material group in the local material library, i.e., creating a new material folder in the local material library.
     • Refresh: Refreshes the content in the current material library list.
   • The material library list displays the local material library, which provides built-in PBR materials such as Concrete, Masonry, Metal, and Stone.
   • The material list shows all materials in the currently selected material library and also supports displaying the effect of materials after parameter adjustments.
   • Right-click a specific material to perform operations such as copy, rename, open file location, and delete.
     • Copy: Copies the storage path of the current material file to the clipboard.
     • Rename: Modifies the file name of the currently selected material.
     • Open File Location: Opens the folder where the currently selected material is located.
     • Delete: Removes the currently selected material file from the current material library.
   • Right-click a blank area in the material list to perform create new, paste, and open file location operations.
     • Create New: Creates a new PBR material in the current material library.
     • Paste: Pastes the previously copied material into the current material library.
     • Open File Location: Opens the folder where the current material library is located.
   • The context menu for the local material library and material group nodes provides rename and delete folder functions.
     • Rename: Sets a new name for the currently selected material library or material folder.
     • Delete Folder: Deletes the currently selected folder.
4. Edit Material: The edit material panel allows you to adjust and save various parameters of the selected material.
   • Base Color Adjustment
     • Texture Settings: Sets the texture map file that represents the surface color of the object. Click the texture image to open the "Texture Editor" dialog, where you can edit the texture source (replace, delete, export), and parameters such as texture offset, rotation, and scaling.
     • Base Color: Sets the surface color of the object. Click the dropdown menu to specify a color from the color palette.
     • Translation: Enables translation movement of the base color texture. Translation movement supports setting the speed along the U and V directions, in units of texture units per second.
       • Period: The time taken for a single translation.
       • U: The movement speed of the texture along the X-axis (positive values move against the X-axis; negative values move along the X-axis).
       • V: The movement speed of the texture along the Y-axis (positive values move against the Y-axis; negative values move along the Y-axis).
     • Scaling: Enables scaling movement of the base color texture. Scaling movement supports setting the speed of scaling changes along the U and V directions, in units of texture units per second.
       • Period: Sets the time for a single scaling operation, in seconds.
       • U: Sets the scaling frequency of the base color texture along the X-axis (positive values compress against the X-axis; negative values stretch along the X-axis).
       • V: Sets the scaling speed of the base color texture along the Y-axis (positive values compress against the Y-axis; negative values stretch along the Y-axis).
         
   • Metallic Roughness Settings

     When the metallic roughness texture is not used, the metallic roughness effect is determined solely by the metallic coefficient and roughness coefficient. When the metallic roughness texture is used, the effect is determined by the product of the texture and the coefficients. The figure below shows an example of how the metallic effect changes with the metallic value (with roughness at 0, the metallic effect varies; from left to right, metallic values are 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1).
     
     The figure below shows an example of how the roughness effect changes with the roughness value (with metallic at 0, the roughness effect varies; from left to right, roughness values are 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1).
     

     • Texture Settings: Sets the metallic roughness texture map file. The R channel in the texture controls metallic, and the G channel controls roughness. When using a texture map, set both metallic and roughness coefficients to 1. Click the texture image to open the "Texture Editor" dialog, where you can edit the texture source (replace, delete, export), and parameters such as texture offset, rotation, and scaling.
     • Metallic Coefficient: Controls how "metallic" the material surface appears, ranging from 0 to 1. Higher values indicate a higher level of metallic properties. Higher surface metallic properties result in surface color being more driven by environmental reflections, making the material's own appearance color blurrier. Lower surface metallic properties reduce the impact of reflection environments, making the material's own appearance color more distinct.
     • Roughness Coefficient: Controls the roughness of the material surface, ranging from 0 to 1. Higher values indicate greater roughness. Material roughness affects light reflection: rougher surfaces have higher micro-surface details, resulting in blurrier environmental reflections; smoother surfaces have stronger reflectivity, reflecting the environmental objects more clearly.
   • Normal Settings
     • Texture Settings: The normal map texture file.
     • Intensity Factor: The influence degree of the normal map texture.
       
   • Emission Settings

     When no self-luminous texture is used, the emission effect is determined solely by the emission color value. When a self-luminous texture is used, the effect is determined by the product of the self-luminous texture and the color value. The emission effect is shown in the figure below.
     

     • Texture Settings: Click the self-luminous texture image and select the specified self-luminous texture map (*.png/*.jpg/*.bmp/*.gif/*.tif/*.jpeg) from the browse folder that pops up.
     • Color Value: Enter the RGB value corresponding to the color in the input box after emission to control the color of the material's self-luminous surface.
   • Occlusion Settings: Click the occlusion texture image and select the specified occlusion texture map (*.png/*.jpg/*.bmp/*.gif/*.tif/*.jpeg) from the browse folder that pops up.
     
   • Mask: Click the occlusion texture image and select the specified mask texture map (*.png/*.jpg/*.bmp/*.gif/*.tif/*.jpeg) from the browse folder that pops up.

     Figure: Example of PBR Using Multiple Textures

     Figure: Overall Material Effect

   • Alpha Rendering Mode: Sets the transparent rendering mode for objects.
     • Opaque: This is the default setting, suitable for ordinary solid objects without transparent areas.
     • Mask: In this mode, there are no semi-transparent areas; textures are either fully transparent or fully opaque. Complex hollow effects can be created using base color textures with transparency, without needing intricate modeling.
     • Transparent: Renders by blending with the background based on the Alpha value in the material's texture or color. Higher Alpha values make the foreground clearer and the background less clear, and vice versa. Suitable for rendering realistic transparent materials, such as transparent plastic or glass.
       
   • Alpha Filter Threshold Setting: In mask rendering mode, areas below the set filter threshold appear fully opaque, while areas above it appear fully transparent.
   • Double Sided: Sets whether to enable double-sided rendering.
     • Disabled indicates single-sided rendering. Single-sided rendering renders only one side of the model surface, not the back. This means only the model surface facing the camera is affected by lighting and materials, while the surface facing away is not rendered. This rendering method applies to most scenarios, especially when the model's back is invisible or lacks important details. Single-sided rendering improves performance by reducing unnecessary computational overhead.
     • Enabled indicates double-sided rendering, which renders both sides of the model surface and increases rendering overhead.

5. After setting, click Save in the edit material panel to save the adjustments. Use the Reset button to clear previously adjusted parameters.

6. Apply Material: Select the target material in the material list and drag it to the specified object in the scene to apply it.

7. Save Result: Click the Save Result button in the Scene Beautification tab to save the material application effect.