Welcome to the UVeclipse and 5AMIN tutorial. This is by no means an exhaustive tutorial. But hopefully it will guide you in some of the basics to create and use your first UVeclipse solution.

UVeclipse is a program created by David Rutten. The following is clipped from the UVeclipse home page:

"The purpose of UVeclipse is to lubricate the tedious task of a lighting setup prior to rendering. In order to render an image in a photoreal context you need lots of lighting factors to approach the real thing. In most cases photons are colliding with objects all over the place and adding 2 spotlights to your scene isn't going to make up for that. Some platforms feature skylights but often these lack the necessary colour controls which would make them really useful."

"UVeclipse can generate a realistic lighting setup within seconds, based on easy to get image data. Lightdomes are used to simulate a light-casting environment, including coloured, directional shadows and hotspots."

The counter part is to use an importer with your rendering The focus of this tutorial is to work with AutoCAD and Accurender 3. The latest version of 5AMIN can be downloaded from the ArchSymb web site , just click on the "Bonus & Free Stuff" link. You can also visit the MarketPlace > UVeclipse for samples and the programs. Version 2.2.3 is the latest version.

Get an Image

The first thing you will need to do is get an image. The Exchange > Textures > Backgrounds is an excellent resource for UVeclipse images. For this tutorial I used the Grace Image. This can be found under Backgrounds/Mirror maps. Basically you can use any panoramic image, it is best to select one that you can use in your environment in Accurender.

UVeclipse also comes with a default image which can be used also for creating your light solution.

Launch UVeclipse

Launch the UVeclipse program. If you did a standard install, you can find the icon on your desktop. Otherwise, you can find it under your Start button, Programs, UVeclipse.

By default the program will launch the "Open new enviroment image" dialog. If you already have an image loaded or clicked on Cancel, you can bring it up again by clicking on the Folder icon.

Navigate to the location were you saved your image and click Open.