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Aura

tools/aura·v1.5.1

Aura Manual →IN:0 OUT:1

SUMMARY

Aura runs the Aura Render Engine, a renderer built on NVIDIA OptiX and DLSS, inside TouchDesigner. It collects the POPX Geo operators matched by Geometry, the POPX Lights matched by Lights and the Camera, renders them on the GPU and outputs the image as a TOP. Surfaces take their look from the POPX Material feeding each Geo: base color, metallic, roughness, specular, anisotropy, clearcoat, transmission with dispersion, emission and texture maps; fields render as volumes and fire through the Material's Volume page.

Render Mode picks the renderer. Path Tracing follows random light paths for the most accurate lighting (area lights, soft shadows, reflections, refractions, emissives, volumes and bounce light from one physically based transport) and resolves their noise with Denoise: DLSS Ray Reconstruction for real time, a Temporal filter, or Refine, which accumulates Samples Per Frame every frame for stills and video and traces full light paths. Hybrid lights every pixel directly, one ray per effect, with ray-traced shadows, reflections and refractions, and is clean and deterministic from the first frame; Antialiasing (FXAA, DLSS, Temporal or Refine) smooths its edges. Resolution Scale is the main speed control in both modes.

Bounce lighting comes from light probes placed on the surfaces the camera sees (Probes, with Bounce Count and Probe Spacing) or from bounce rays per pixel with a radiance cache for the further bounces (Raytraced); Show Bounces draws them on the scene. Shadows are set per light type (ray-traced or shadow map), Reflections Raytraced, Hybrid or Cached, Refractions multi or single bounce or screen space, plus ambient occlusion and volumetric scattering from every light with optional drifting smoke. The Camera page adds depth of field, motion blur, tone mapping (ACES, AgX, Khronos PBR Neutral), exposure and auto exposure.

The AOVs page turns on render passes (albedo, normal, depth, motion, diffuse and specular light), each on its own output, POPX_out2 to POPX_out7, cropped like the image. With Viewport on the operator is an editor viewport over the live render: a toolbar with Navigate, Select, Move, Rotate, Scale and Universal tools, snapping, camera and projection menus, shading modes (Render, Clay, the passes, bounces, ambient occlusion), overlays, guides, isolate, pause, restart and snapshot, a grid, light and camera icons, gizmos, a stats HUD, quad view, a render region, and the Aura and object parameter panels. Navigation and shortcuts follow TouchDesigner's geometry viewer.

PARAMETERS

PAGERender

Plugin Path	Pluginpath	Sets the path to the Aura Render Engine plugin file.
Reinit Plugin	Reinitplugin	Reinitializes the Aura Render Engine plugin.
Unload Plugin	Unloadplugin	Unloads the Aura Render Engine plugin while on, so its file can be replaced.
Camera	Camera	The camera the scene is rendered from.
Geometry	Geometry	Sets the POPX Geo operators to render. Accepts a pattern of operators.
Lights	Lights	Sets the POPX Light operators that light the scene. Accepts a pattern of operators.
Resolution	Resolution	Sets the width and height of the rendered image.
[+]Render Mode	Rendermode	The renderer. Path Tracing follows light paths with random samples for the most accurate lighting, resolved by Denoise. Hybrid lights every pixel directly with one ray per effect: clean and stable from the first frame, with Antialiasing for its edges.
[+]Denoise	Denoise	How the path tracer's noise is resolved. Off shows the raw render, one sample per pixel each frame. DLSS denoises and upscales with NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction, Temporal smooths the image over time (with DLSS upscaling below 100 % Resolution Scale), Refine keeps adding samples for stills and video, tracing full light paths.
[+]Antialiasing	Antialiasing	How Hybrid's edges are smoothed. Off shows the raw image, FXAA smooths edges within the frame, DLSS uses NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution (anti-aliasing and upscaling), Temporal jitters the camera and averages over time, Refine keeps averaging jittered frames for video and stills.
[+]Resolution Scale	Resolutionscale	Internal render size. DLSS upscales to the output size (100% = DLAA). Temporal: below 100% NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution upscales to the output size. Denoise Off, Hybrid Antialiasing Off / FXAA: below 100% NVIDIA Image Scaling upscales and sharpens to the output size.
Samples Per Frame	Samplesperframe	Sets the number of samples per pixel added each frame in Refine mode.
[+]Refine Denoiser	Refinedenoiser	Denoises the Refine image with the NVIDIA OptiX AI denoiser. None shows the accumulated samples as they are.
Limit Frames	Limitsamples	In Refine mode, stops tracing once Max Frames have been accumulated. The image stays on screen.
Max Frames	Maxsamples	Sets how many frames Refine accumulates before it stops. Each frame adds Samples Per Frame samples per pixel.
Reset Refine	Resetrefine	Restarts the Refine render from its first sample.
Max Luminance	Maxluminance	Clamps light samples to reduce fireflies. Set to 0 to disable.
Viewport	Viewport	Turns the Aura into an editor viewport: toolbar, camera navigation, selection, gizmos, grid and overlays drawn over the live render. Off shows only the render.

PAGELighting

[+]Point Lights	Pointlights	Determines how point lights cast shadows: Raytraced traces shadow rays, Shadow Map renders a depth map, Off casts none.
[+]Spot Lights	Spotlights	Determines how spot lights cast shadows: Raytraced traces shadow rays, Shadow Map renders a depth map over the cone, Off casts none.
[+]Area Lights	Arealights	Determines how area lights cast shadows: Raytraced traces shadow rays, Shadow Map renders a depth map, Off casts none.
[+]Directional Lights	Directionallights	Determines how directional lights cast shadows: Raytraced traces shadow rays, Shadow Map renders a depth map, Off casts none.
[+]Environment Lights	Environmentlights	Determines how Environment and Ambient lights cast shadows: Raytraced traces shadow rays, Off casts none.
[+]Emissives	Emissives	How emissive materials light the scene: with shadows, without shadows, or not at all (they stay visible to the camera).
[+]Shadow Quality	Shadowquality	Sets the quality of soft shadows from Point, Spot and Directional lights and POP Lights. Higher is smoother, at a cost.
[+]Shadow Map Resolution	Shadowmapresolution	Sets the shadow map resolution of every light in Shadow Map mode. Higher is sharper and costs more memory and build time.
[+]Volumetric Lighting Resolution	Volumelighting	Sets the resolution of the light inside volumes, relative to their voxels. Lower updates faster when a field changes every frame.
[+]Bounce Mode	Bouncemode	Determines how bounce light is computed: Off renders direct light only, Probes gathers it in light probes placed on the surfaces the camera sees, Raytraced traces bounce rays per pixel and keeps the further bounces in a radiance cache.
[+]Bounce Quality	Bouncequality	Sets the quality of the bounce light: the rays per probe in Probes mode, the bounce rays per pixel block in Raytraced. Higher is cleaner and settles faster, at a cost.
Bounce Intensity	Bounceintensity	Boosts the brightness of the diffuse bounces. Not physically accurate: pushed too far, surfaces reflect more light than they receive.
Bounce Count	Bouncecount	Sets how many light bounces each probe ray follows in Probes mode. 1 suits outdoor scenes, 2 to 3 fill out interiors. Raytraced always follows the full path.
Probe Spacing	Probespacing	The distance between light probes near the camera, in scene units; the cells grow with distance. Smaller spacing gives finer bounce lighting, at a cost.
Probe Smoothing	Probesmoothing	Blends each probe with its neighbors on the same surface, for steadier bounce light at a small Probe Spacing.
Show Bounces	Showbounces	Shows the bounce lighting data on the scene: the probes in Probes mode, the radiance cache cells in Raytraced mode.
[+]Reflections	Reflections	Determines how reflections are rendered. Raytraced is accurate, Hybrid and Cached are faster and less accurate, Off shows only lights.
Max Reflection Bounces	Maxreflectionbounces	Sets how many mirror-like reflections a ray follows in realtime rendering. Higher is brighter in facing mirrors and slower.
[+]Refractions	Refractions	Determines how refractions are rendered: Multi Bounce, Single Bounce, Screen Space (fastest), or Off to hide refractive surfaces.
Refraction Limit	Refractionlimit	Sets the maximum sideways shift of the view through a refractive material. 1 means no limit. Limits artifacts of the simpler modes.
[+]AO Mode	Aomode	Determines how ambient occlusion is rendered: SSAO is fast but sees only the screen, Raytraced is accurate, Off disables it.
[+]AO Blend	Aoblend	Determines how the occlusion is blended: Multiply darkens the image, Replace shows the occlusion alone, Add adds it as white light.
AO Amount	Aoamount	Sets how strongly the occlusion is blended in.
AO Distance	Aodistance	Sets how far the occlusion rays reach, in world units.
AO Falloff	Aofalloff	Shapes the occlusion falloff with distance. 1 is linear, higher values keep the occlusion tight to contacts.

PAGEScattering

Scattering	Scattering	Light scatters in a fog that fills the view: every light draws beams and haze (each light scales it with its own Scattering Intensity).
Scatter Intensity	Scatterintensity	Sets the brightness of the beams and haze without thickening the fog. 1 is physically based.
Smoke Density	Smokedensity	Breaks the fog into drifting smoke: 0 is an even haze, 1 ranges from clear air to twice the Density.
Smoke Scale	Smokescale	Sets the size of the smoke detail. Higher values give smaller wisps.
Smoke Speed	Smokespeed	Sets how fast the smoke drifts.

PAGECamera

Depth of Field	Depthoffield	Enable thin-lens depth of field, set by Focus Distance and Focal Blur.
Focus Distance	Focusdistance	Sets the distance of the plane in focus.
Focal Blur	Focalblur	Sets the lens radius, which controls how strongly out-of-focus content blurs.
Show Focus Plane	Showfocusplane	Draws the focus plane while Depth of Field is on.
Focus Plane Size	Focusplanesize	Sets the size of the focus plane drawn by Show Focus Plane.
Motion Blur	Motionblur	Enable real-time motion blur along the motion vectors.
Shutter	Shutter	Sets the length of the motion blur as a fraction of a frame. Higher values give longer blur trails.
Blur Samples	Blursamples	Sets the number of samples taken along each pixel's motion for the blur. Higher is smoother, at a cost.
[+]Tone Map	Tonemap	Determines how the rendered light maps to the display: ACES and AgX are filmic, Khronos PBR Neutral keeps colors true, Off is linear.
Exposure	Exposure	Multiplies the brightness of the rendered light before tone mapping.
Auto Exposure	Autoexposure	Adapts the exposure to the average brightness of the image, like an eye or a camera.
Exposure Bias	Exposurebias	Brightens or darkens the auto exposure, in stops.
Adaptation Speed	Adaptationspeed	Sets how fast the auto exposure follows a change of brightness.
Gamma	Gamma	Applies a gamma correction to the final image.

PAGEAOVs

Albedo Pass	Albedopass	Enable an extra output with the linear base color of the first surface the camera sees.
Normal Pass	Normalpass	Enable an extra output with the world-space shading normal of the first surface the camera sees, XYZ in RGB.
Depth Pass	Depthpass	Enable an extra output with the distance from the camera to the first surface, in scene units. 0 where nothing is hit.
Motion Pass	Motionpass	Enable an extra output with the screen-space motion of each pixel since the previous frame, in UV units, in RG.
Diffuse Pass	Diffusepass	Enable an extra output with the diffuse light of this frame, linear, before exposure and not denoised.
Specular Pass	Specularpass	Enable an extra output with the specular light of this frame, linear, before exposure and not denoised.

OUTPUTS

Output 0 TOP - Image