3dCMS Knowledge Base
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Effects & Atmosphere

Color grading & LUTs

Post-processing that sets the final look of the image — bloom and vignette, hue/saturation grading, and cinematic color LUTs (built-in or your own imported .cube / .3dl).

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Beyond lights and atmosphere, a scene has a final look — the screen-space pass applied after everything renders. It lives in Settings ▸ Viewport Feel ▸ Post-processing, alongside sun god rays & lens flare. Everything here is off (or neutral) by default.

Publishing the look

One master toggle — Show effects in published scene — decides whether visitors see your post-processing. When it's on (the default for new scenes), the published scene matches your editor: bloom, vignette, depth of field, glitch, grain, lens distortion, and hue/saturation grading all travel. Turn it off and the published scene renders plain while you keep the effects in the editor. Sun rays, lens flare, and the Color LUT always publish regardless of this toggle — they're treated as part of the scene's intended look.

Color grading

Turn on Color grading for four quick sliders that shift the whole image: Hue, Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast. Good for a fast warm/cool nudge or dialling saturation up for a punchier look.

Color LUT (cinematic looks)

A LUT (look-up table) remaps every color in the frame at once — the way a film grade does. Turn on Color LUT, pick a Look, and slide Intensity (0–1) to blend it against the ungraded image. The LUT is applied after tone mapping, so it's the very last thing that touches the picture. Built-in looks:

Warm / Golden hour Cool / Moonlit Teal & Orange (cinematic) Vintage film (faded) Noir (B&W) Sepia Vibrant

Import your own LUT

Have a grade from your own color workflow? Click Import LUT… and upload a .cube, .3dl, or image LUT. It's stored in your Asset Library and appears under a My LUTs group in the Look dropdown; selecting it grades the scene and it publishes to visitors like the built-ins. Imported LUTs live in the Trash tab if you remove one, so they stay reclaimable.

Grade last, lightly A LUT is the final polish, not a fix — light and expose the scene first, then set a Look and pull Intensity back to taste (often 0.4–0.7 reads more natural than a full-strength grade). Stack a subtle Vignette and a touch of Grain for a filmic finish.
Spotted something off, or want a topic covered? Email buck.rackley@gmail.com.