HDR Canvas

Position lights#

HDR Canvas shows the equirectangular environment. Horizontal position is longitude and vertical position is latitude. Select a numbered handle to choose its light; drag to move it. When live dragging is enabled, the canvas and Render Preview update during movement. The device Settings control this preference.

Display controls#

• Stretch HDR Canvas fills the available canvas area. Contain HDR Canvas preserves the 2:1 display aspect ratio. This changes the view, not the exported projection.
• Light numbers shows or hides the handles' number labels.
• Grid shows or hides the canvas grid.
• Full Screen expands the panel; Exit Full Screen or Escape returns to the workspace.
• Mirror buttons choose horizontal, vertical or both-axis linked-light creation. See linked lights.

Stretch, light numbers and the map grid are enabled by default. A collapsed canvas hides its editing controls; entering full screen expands it.

Channels · Professional and Advance#

Use the channel dropdown in the panel header; CHANNEL appears inside its menu to inspect RGB, RGBA, Red, Green, Blue, Alpha or Luminance. Before it, Quality shows 1K, 2K, 4K or 8K when closed and the full 2:1 dimensions when opened (1K: 1024 × 512 through 8K: 8192 × 4096). This sets the environment used for lighting; the interactive canvas retains its responsive 1K display/probe buffer. Output Filters cap lighting at 4K, and device texture limits can reduce the available sizes. During dragging, lighting uses a temporary 1K draft. Channel display is for inspection; it does not change the saved light colors or exported file. Alpha displays composed coverage, including transparent uncovered areas when transparency is enabled. Radiance HDR cannot store alpha; use OpenEXR for transparent output.

Pixel probe · Advance#

Enable Pixel Probe, then point at the image. The readout occupies a reserved area below the canvas so it does not obscure your light. It reports the sampled pixel's color and numerical information. Sample again after a lighting update completes.

The probe reads the working preview buffer. It is not a measurement of the full-resolution exported file. Use the output itself when verifying exact high-resolution results.

A reference can differ from the render#

Lights excluded from Render Preview can remain visible on HDR Canvas. This is intentional for reference layers. See HDRi File and HDRi Environment.

Edit inside a Composite#

In Advance, opening a Composite switches HDR Canvas to that parent’s local image. The title names the parent. Render Preview continues showing the whole scene. Use Scene or Up above Light Stack to return. See Composites.

Exposure in full screen#

The panel's full-screen top bar includes the wider Exposure slider and EV field. It stays synchronized with the header, full-screen Render Preview and Scene Settings, including Undo/Redo. This is Global Exposure and is baked into exported HDRi lighting.

When editing inside a Composite, the local canvas still shows the child image before scene exposure and parent placement. Global Exposure continues to affect the full scene in Render Preview and export; return to Scene to inspect it on the complete HDR Canvas.

Identify a light without selecting it#

With Show light numbers enabled, hover a numbered handle to reveal its name. Its Light Stack row receives a dashed hover cue. Hover a stack row to highlight the matching number in the other direction. Gold remains the selected state; hover does not select or edit a light. Linked copies share their source's number with letter suffixes. Stack numbers follow the current sibling order, including inside a Composite.

A click selects a handle without creating an empty lighting Undo entry. Movement begins after a small drag threshold. Locked lights can be identified and selected but cannot be dragged.

Open Export HDRi#

Use the leftmost Export HDRi action in the HDR Canvas heading, with its yellow download icon, or Studio menu → Export HDRi. The main application header no longer repeats this action. Export settings and output behavior are unchanged.