Environment and background
The lighting environment that every surface reflects, and the backdrop behind your scene.
Two things sit behind a scene, and they do different jobs:
- The environment is a 360° photograph (an HDRI) wrapped around the scene. It lights it and it is what shiny surfaces reflect. You can show it behind the scene or keep it hidden.
- The background is what sits behind everything when the environment is hidden: a colour, a gradient, an image, or nothing at all.
The environment
Open Environment in the left column. It has three tabs.
Library
Facet's own HDRIs: day, night and studio lighting. Click one to apply it.
Each card shows its resolution at the top right. Where there is more than one, it is a menu: 1K loads fastest and is the default, 2K gives sharper reflections on polished metal and glass. Changing the resolution of the HDRI you are already using keeps its rotation.
Yours
Press Pick HDRI to upload your own, as an .hdr, .exr or .jpg panorama. Your HDRIs stay in your account for every project. Point at one and press the cross to remove it.
Controllers
The settings for the environment in use:
| Setting | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Intensity | How strongly it lights and reflects |
| Brightness | How light the picture itself is |
| Rotate X, Rotate Y, Rotate Z | Turns it around the scene. Rotate Y moves the bright parts, and so the highlights, around your object. |
| Contrast, Saturation, Hue | Grade the environment. This changes the reflections and the backdrop, never the objects themselves. |
The picture button in the panel header shows or hides the environment behind the scene. Hidden, it still lights and reflects.
Metal and glass need something to reflect
A polished metal or a clear glass with nothing around it renders almost black. Choose an environment first, then design the material. If you want a plain backdrop behind them, hide the environment rather than removing it.
Background
Double click an empty part of the canvas to open the Background panel. Choose a type at the top:
Plain
One colour.
Gradient
Six kinds: Linear, Radial, Angular, Diamond, Dusk and Mesh, each with a handful of presets to start from.
- Stops are the colours along the gradient. Add, move and recolour them.
- Angle turns a linear gradient.
- A position pad places the centre of radial, angular and diamond gradients.
- Grain, Spread, Turbulence and Shrink soften and break up the gradient, so it reads as light rather than a flat ramp.
Image
Press Choose image to put a picture behind the scene. Then choose how it fits:
| Fit | |
|---|---|
| Contain | The whole image, with space around it if the shapes differ |
| Cover | Fills the frame and crops the overflow |
| Scale down | Like Contain, but never enlarged |
| Fill | Stretched to the frame |
The position pad moves the image within the frame. Dropping a picture onto the editor does this for you and shapes the canvas to it. See Images.
Transparent background
The drop button in the Background panel header makes the background transparent. The canvas shows a checkerboard so you can see it. A transparent background carries through to embeds, so the page behind shows through the scene, and into WebM video renders.
Glass mode
The glass button in the Background panel header lets glass objects bend and refract the environment while it stays hidden behind them. Use it when you want a plain or gradient backdrop but still want glass to look like glass.
Per screen size
The environment's intensity, rotation and grade, and the background, can all be set differently on each breakpoint. The HDRI itself is the same on all of them.