Cameras and Exposure¶
Lucky Engine renders through two kinds of camera. Each Scene tab has its own viewport camera, the camera you navigate with while editing. A Camera component is a camera that belongs to the scene: Play mode looks through it, and recordings and gRPC camera frames are rendered from it.
Both kinds of camera control exposure, the overall brightness of the image. A Camera component can also model a real lens in Physical mode, with lens distortion, aperture depth of field and vignetting.
In short
Every camera has an exposure mode: Manual, Manual (Physical Camera) or Automatic (Eye Adaptation), which is the default. Set up the viewport camera in the Camera menu at the right end of the Scene tab's toolbar; each Scene tab remembers it for you, but it is never saved in the scene. Set a Camera component in its Inspector; it is saved with the scene. Switch a Camera component's Mode to Physical for lens models, aperture depth of field and vignetting, which take effect in Path Traced mode only.
Which camera is rendering¶
| What you are looking at | Camera that renders it |
|---|---|
| A Scene tab in Edit mode | That tab's viewport camera |
| The active viewport in Play mode | The scene's Main Camera (a Camera component) |
| The active viewport in Play mode with Free Camera on | That tab's viewport camera |
| Other Scene tabs in Play mode | Each tab's own viewport camera |
| Recorded video | The Camera component the recorder's camera binding points at |
| gRPC camera frames | The requested Camera component |
So the viewport camera settings only change what you see while working. To change what a robot's camera records, edit that Camera component. During Play, the Free Camera button in the active viewport's toolbar, or Alt+C, switches between the scene's camera and the viewport camera; see During Play.
Exposure modes¶
The exposure mode is Exposure Mode in every Camera component's Inspector, and Mode under Exposure in the toolbar's Camera menu. Both offer the same three choices and the same settings, under slightly different names. Exposure applies in both Rasterized and Path Traced mode.
| Exposure mode | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Manual | You want a fixed brightness that never changes from frame to frame |
| Manual (Physical Camera) | You want to match a real camera's aperture, shutter speed and ISO |
| Automatic (Eye Adaptation) | You want the camera to adjust to the scene, like the human eye. The default |
The fields below the mode depend on it:
| Camera component field | Camera menu field | Mode | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exposure | Exposure | Manual | 0 to 5 | 0.8 |
Brightness multiplier. Higher is brighter |
| Aperture (f-stop) | Aperture (f-stop) | Manual (Physical Camera) | 0.5 to 32 | 16 |
Lower f-stops let in more light |
| Shutter Speed (s) | Shutter Speed | Manual (Physical Camera) | 0.0001 to 2 s | 0.008 (1/125 s) |
Longer shutter times are brighter |
| ISO | ISO | Manual (Physical Camera) | 50 to 6400 | 100 |
Higher ISO is brighter |
| Exposure Compensation | Compensation | Manual (Physical Camera), Automatic | -6 to 6 | 0 |
Brightens or darkens the result, in stops |
| Min EV | Min EV | Automatic | -16 to 16 | -16 |
Limits how far the camera brightens a dark scene. Raise it to keep dark scenes dark |
| Max EV | Max EV | Automatic | -16 to 16 | 16 |
Limits how far the camera darkens a bright scene. Lower it to keep bright scenes bright |
| Adaptation Time Brighten (s) | Brighten Time | Automatic | 0.01 to 10 s | 1 |
How quickly the camera adjusts when the scene gets brighter. Larger is slower |
| Adaptation Time Darken (s) | Darken Time | Automatic | 0.01 to 10 s | 1 |
How quickly the camera adjusts when the scene gets darker. Larger is slower |
In Manual (Physical Camera), aperture, shutter speed and ISO behave as on a real camera: opening the aperture, lengthening the shutter or raising the ISO brightens the image. They change brightness only. There is no motion blur from the shutter and no noise from the ISO.
If the image goes dark in Manual (Physical Camera)
The defaults of f/16, 1/125 s and ISO 100 are an exposure for bright daylight. If a scene turns very dark after you switch to this mode, open the aperture, use a slower shutter speed, raise the ISO, or add exposure compensation.
Automatic exposure in recordings
In a recording, automatic exposure adapts in recorded time: each recorded frame moves it on by one frame interval, so the result does not depend on how fast the editor renders. The brightness still changes as the scene changes. For a dataset where brightness must stay constant between frames, use Manual or Manual (Physical Camera).
Upgrading from 2026.2
Before 2026.3 every camera used a fixed exposure. Cameras in scenes saved by 2026.2 have no exposure mode stored, so they open in Automatic (Eye Adaptation). Their Exposure value is kept: set Exposure Mode to Manual to get the previous look back. The viewport's camera settings, in the Scene Camera section of the viewport settings in 2026.2, are now in the toolbar's Camera menu.
The viewport camera¶
Click the Camera button at the right end of a Scene tab's toolbar to open the Camera menu. During Play, the active viewport shows Free Camera in its place, with the same menu on the arrow beside it. The menu has the camera's view settings, an Exposure section and a Lens section, and ends with Set Scene Default View. See Viewport camera for the menu itself.
| Field | Default | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vertical FOV | 45 |
1 to 150 degrees | Field of view from the top to the bottom of the viewport |
| Near Clip | 0.001 |
0.001 to 1000 m | Closest visible distance, in both render modes |
| Far Clip | 1000 |
up to 1,000,000 m | Rasterized only, so hidden in Path Traced mode, which does not clip at the far plane |
| Speed | 0.0002 to 0.5 | Base fly speed. The scroll wheel changes it while you fly; see Viewport Navigation | |
| Exposure → Mode | Automatic (Eye Adaptation) | See Exposure modes | |
| Depth of Field | off | Blurs what is in front of and behind the focus distance | |
| Aperture (f-stop) | 16 |
0.5 to 32 | Shown when Depth of Field is on. Lower f-stops give more blur |
| Focus Distance | 10 |
0.05 to 1000 m | Shown when Depth of Field is on. Distance to the plane that stays sharp |
| Focus Target | Shown when Depth of Field is on. Orbit Point sets the focus distance to the camera's current orbit point | ||
| Sensor Height (mm) | 24 |
1 to 100 | A larger sensor gives more blur at the same f-stop and field of view |
| Vignetting | 0 |
0 to 8 | Darkens the image edges. 0 is off; 4 models natural lens falloff |
| Vignette Correction | 0 |
0 to 1 | 0 keeps the vignetting, 1 removes it completely |
The Lens section (Depth of Field to Vignette Correction) is marked Path tracing only. You can set it up in Rasterized mode too, but it takes effect only in Path Traced mode. When Exposure → Mode is Manual (Physical Camera) and Depth of Field is on, the Aperture (f-stop) field in the Exposure section sets both the exposure and the blur, as on a real camera, and the Lens section does not repeat it.
Each Scene tab remembers its viewport camera separately for each scene it shows, and restores it the next time you open the project: the camera's position, field of view, clip planes, exposure mode settings and lens settings. Speed and the Manual mode's Exposure value are kept only until you close the project. These are your own settings: they are never saved in the scene or copied to Camera components. See What each Scene tab remembers.
Set Scene Default View stores this tab's camera position, its overlay and collider settings and its render mode in the scene, as the view people get when they open the scene for the first time. Save the scene to keep it. It does not store the camera's exposure or lens settings.
Focusing on an object¶
- Click Path Traced in the toolbar.
- Open the toolbar's Camera menu and turn on Depth of Field.
- Select the object, hover over the viewport and press F to frame it. Framing moves the orbit point onto the object.
- In the Camera menu, click Orbit Point. The focus distance now matches the object.
- Lower Aperture (f-stop) for a shallower depth of field, or raise it for less blur.
Camera components¶
To add a camera, right-click an empty area of the Scene Hierarchy and choose Create → Camera → From View to place it where the viewport is looking, or At World Origin. The viewport's Create (+) menu also has a Camera button that places one at the current view; see The Viewport.
The Camera component's properties appear in the Inspector, below the entity tree in the Scene Hierarchy:
| Field | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Projection | Perspective | Perspective or Orthographic |
| Vertical FOV | 45 |
Field of view in degrees, from the top to the bottom of the image. Perspective only |
| Size | 10 |
Height of the view, in metres. Orthographic only |
| Near Clip | 0.1 |
Closest visible distance, in metres |
| Far Clip | 1000 |
Farthest visible distance, in metres. Rasterized only; path tracing does not clip at the far plane |
| Exposure Mode | Automatic (Eye Adaptation) | See Exposure modes |
| Main Camera | on | The camera that Play mode looks through |
| Mode | Basic | Basic is a plain camera. Physical adds lens, aperture and sensor settings |
| Viewport Icon → Visible | on | Shows the camera's icon in the viewport. Recording is unaffected |
| Viewport Icon → Size | 1 |
Scales this camera's icon, from 0.05 to 10 |
Only one camera should be the Main Camera
New cameras have Main Camera ticked. If several cameras in a scene have it on, Play mode looks through only one of them. Untick it on every camera except the one you want Play mode to use.
From C#, CameraComponent exposes the projection, field of view, clip planes and
Primary (the Main Camera flag). Exposure and the Physical mode settings are set in the
Inspector only. See CameraComponent in the API
reference.
Physical camera mode¶
Set Mode to Physical to model a real camera. Three groups of settings appear below the mode buttons: Lens, Aperture and Sensor, with a Preset dropdown above them.
The lens model, aperture blur and vignetting take effect in Path Traced mode only: in the viewport during Play, in path-traced recordings, and in path-traced gRPC camera frames. In Rasterized mode the camera renders as a plain pinhole camera, with no lens distortion, no aperture blur and no vignetting. Exposure is separate, and works in both modes (see the note under Aperture below). Path Traced mode needs a ray-tracing GPU; see Rendering.
Switching to Physical changes the image straight away
The Physical defaults model a real lens. In Path Traced mode the camera immediately
gains natural edge darkening (Vignetting Exponent 4) and aperture depth of field
at f/16, focused at 10 m. Set Vignetting Exponent to 0 or Vignetting
Correction to 1 to remove the darkening. Switching back to Basic keeps the
Physical values, so you can toggle between the two.
Presets¶
The Preset dropdown (it always reads Load preset...) fills in a set of example values in one step. Choosing a preset sets Model to Pinhole, fills the Aperture and Sensor fields, and sets Exposure Mode to Manual (Physical Camera) with a matching shutter speed and ISO. The presets are illustrative starting points, not models of real cameras.
Applying a preset is a one-time copy. Editing a value afterwards does not change the preset, and the dropdown does not remember which one was applied.
Lens¶
Model sets how the camera maps the scene onto the image:
| Model | Fields | What it models |
|---|---|---|
| Pinhole | A standard distortion-free camera. The default | |
| Fisheye | FOV (degrees) | An equidistant fisheye lens. Wide angles, with straight lines bending towards the edges |
| Kannala-Brandt | FOV (degrees), K1 to K4 | A calibrated fisheye lens. With all coefficients at 0 it matches Fisheye |
| Radial Distortion (Brown-Conrady) | K1 to K3, P1, P2 | An ordinary lens with slight barrel or pincushion distortion. With all coefficients at 0 it matches Pinhole |
- FOV (degrees) ranges from 1 to 220 and defaults to
150. For Fisheye and Kannala-Brandt it replaces the camera's Vertical FOV in the image. It is the full angle from the top edge of the image to the bottom; a wider image shows proportionally more horizontally. - Radial Distortion (Brown-Conrady) keeps using the camera's Vertical FOV.
- The coefficients range from -1 to 1 and default to
0. K1 to K4 are the Kannala-Brandt distortion coefficients; K1 to K3 and P1, P2 are the Brown-Conrady radial and tangential coefficients. The lens is centred on the image. - Coefficients so strong that the lens folds back on itself leave the affected pixels black.
- Fisheye and Kannala-Brandt do not apply Near Clip, so geometry very close to the camera, such as a camera housing, can appear in the image.
Depth is always rendered as a pinhole camera
Depth streams always use Rasterized rendering, as a pinhole camera with the camera's Vertical FOV, whatever the lens model. With a Fisheye, Kannala-Brandt or Radial Distortion (Brown-Conrady) lens and a path-traced colour stream, the colour and depth images no longer line up pixel for pixel. Use Pinhole when colour and depth must align. See RGBD and Depth.
Aperture¶
| Field | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aperture F-Stop | 0.5 to 32 | 16 |
Size of the lens opening. Lower f-stops give a shallower depth of field and more blur |
| Focus Distance (m) | 0.05 to 1000 | 10 |
Distance from the camera to the plane that stays sharp |
In Physical mode, the Aperture F-Stop also sets the exposure
When Exposure Mode is Manual (Physical Camera), a Physical camera takes its exposure aperture from Aperture F-Stop here. The Aperture (f-stop) field under the exposure settings is used only in Basic mode. As on a real camera, opening the aperture for more blur also brightens the image; compensate with Shutter Speed (s) or ISO.
Sensor¶
| Field | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vignetting Exponent | 0 to 10 | 4 |
Strength of the darkening towards the image edges. 0 is off; 4 models natural lens falloff |
| Vignetting Correction | 0 to 1 | 0 |
How much of the vignetting is corrected away, like a camera's lens-shading correction. 0 keeps it, 1 removes it |
| Sensor Height (mm) | 1 to 100 | 24 |
Physical sensor height. With the field of view, it sets the lens's focal length: a larger sensor gives more blur at the same f-stop |
Two kinds of depth of field¶
Lucky Engine has two separate depth-of-field effects:
| Aperture depth of field | Post-process depth of field | |
|---|---|---|
| Where to set it | Depth of Field in the toolbar's Camera menu, or a Camera component's Aperture in Physical mode | Scene Renderer → Depth of Field |
| Render modes | Path Traced only | Rasterized and Path Traced |
| How it works | Simulates the camera's lens opening | Blurs the finished image by distance |
| Controls | f-stop, focus distance, sensor height | Enabled, Focus distance (m), Blur strength |
| Kept | Viewport camera: remembered by the Scene tab, for you. Camera component: saved with the scene | Saved with the project, for every Scene tab |
Use aperture depth of field for physically based blur from a specific camera. Post-process
depth of field is a quick viewport effect that also works in Rasterized mode, and is the
one the C# SceneRenderer.DepthOfField
API controls. See Scene Renderer panel for its settings.
Where to go next¶
- Lights and Materials covers what the camera is exposing: lights, the sky, emissive surfaces and glass.
- Path Tracing covers denoisers, sampling and view modes.
- Recording sets up camera bindings, including path-traced recording.
- RGBD and Depth covers depth streams from the same cameras.