Watch the video on vimeo ↑

Main features:

1. Change color and brightness of hdr map highlights.
2. Fill highlights with background.
3. Align image orientation.
4. Convert any highligt to separated light.

Installation

Clone this repository, and add path to it in houdini.env file.

HOUDINI_PATH = "path/to/cloned/lighter;&"

Image viewer

The viewer contains a preview of the lights. Here you can rotate the image, interact with individual highlights. Each frame is the border of a bright area that can be edited or made a separate light source. Areas that are part of the image are marked in blue, already separated lights in green.

General settings

• Primpath - root xform primitive for new lights.
• Extract Lights - Convert lighter to set of native houdini lights.
• Input HDR Map - input texture
• Output HDR Map - path for baked environment map. Textures for individual lights will save near the environment.
• Bake All Textures - bake textures for environment map and all potentially detachable lights.
• Output HDR Res - resolution of output environment map. (Same as input, 1024x512, 2048x1024, 4096x2048)
• Light Bake Res - texture resolution for individual lights. (64x64, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512)
• Light Bake Blur - texture blur (more blur - less details and less noise)

Highlight Detection

• Detect Map Res - resolution of analisis map (512x512, 1024x512, 2048x1024). It uses for build light bounds.
• Clip Lights - brightess more then this thresold will detect as highlights.
• Blur - blur analisis map if you want to average details.
• Dilate/Erode - expands and then narrows highlights. This parameter is needed to glue a lot of small spots.
• Threshold - threshold for converting highlights into a two-tone image for the trace. Pixels smaller than this value will be black.
• Rotate map - rotate hdr in polar space.

Lights settings

• Master Intensity - intensity for environment light and all separated lights.

Environment light

• Use EnvLight - create domelight.
• Color Tint - color multiplier.
• Exposure - exposure.
• Name - name of environment light primitive.
• LPE Tag - lpe tag.
• Bake EnvLight Texture - bake only environment map.

Highlights

• Separate Light - create light fron this highlight
• Fill Background - delete highlight on environment map and fill it with background colors.
• Renderable - make light renderable in karma.
• Color Tint - color multiplier.
• Exposure - exposure.
• Name - name of separated light primitive.
• Lpe Tag - lpe Tag.
• Light Type - avalable types: Distant, Point, Sphere, Disc, Rectangle.
• Distante Angle - angle of spot for distance light.
• Distance - distance between separated light an center. Use this parameter for setting position of light in 3d space. Size will changed automaticaly for save size as in hdr map.
• Use Texture - avalable only for Rectangle light type.
• Bake Light texture - Bake texture only for this highlight.

Known issues and limitations that I plan to improve later.

• Text fields respond to mouse wheel when parameter not selected.
• When clicking on a text field, the value is not selected as in Houdini text fields.
• When you press enter key, while editing the value, it dive inside the lighter node.
• Light shapes multiselection not supported