Environment & Sky

The Environment panel controls the sky, background, and overall lighting. D5 Lite offers two systems: Geographic Sky (Geo) for a realistic sun study, and HDRI Sky for quick, complete environment lighting and background. It opens in Geographic Sky by default.

Sky type	Best for	Main controls
Geographic Sky (Geo)	Scenes that need real time, location, and sun direction	Time, date, latitude/longitude, north, custom sun angle
HDRI Sky	Quick environment light and background mood	HDRI file, intensity, rotation, sunlight intensity, sun direction

Geographic Sky (Geo)

• Reads the time, date, latitude/longitude, and north from the modeling software to reproduce a realistic sun study; these are read-only in Lite and cannot be edited directly. SketchUp reads from the Shadows panel and geo-location; Rhino reads from the current environment once Sync Environment is on; Revit does not provide this data, so set a custom sun angle in Lite.

• To adjust the lighting direction temporarily, set a custom sun altitude and azimuth in Lite; this does not write back to the modeling software's time and date.

• Geographic Sky is suited to judging orientation, shadows, and daylight. It provides realistic sun and lighting.

HDRI Sky

HDRI Sky offers two sources: built-in presets and local upload. The Environment panel includes 5 built-in sky presets. Click a preset thumbnail to apply; hover to see the preset name. The first time you select a preset, it downloads from the cloud and caches locally; after that it applies instantly. HDRI presets are available in SketchUp, Rhino, and Revit. You can also upload a local HDRI file for a custom sky. Both sources share the following parameters:

• Upload : supports custom HDRI files in .hdr / .exr / .jpg.

• Intensity : adjusts the overall brightness of the HDRI.

• Rotation : rotates the HDRI to change the lighting direction and background angle.

• Sunlight Intensity : off by default; when the HDRI's own direct light is weak, or you only want the HDRI as a background, turn it on to add direct sunlight.

• Sun Direction : follows the brightest point of the HDRI by default; switch to a custom direction to set the altitude and azimuth yourself.

• Sun Radius : range 0–10, default 5; higher values give softer shadow edges, lower values sharper ones.

• Sunlight Temperature : range 1700–12000 K, default 6500 K; lower values are warmer, higher values cooler.

• Name display : after you upload a local HDRI, the file name (with extension) is shown above the preview; with a built-in preset, the preset name is shown. Hover to see the full name if it is too long.

• Reset : you can reset to the default HDRI at any time; resetting also clears the selected preset.

Sync Environment

SketchUp

• Off by default. When turned on, Lite first reads SketchUp's current environment and uses it to override Lite's temporary settings; scenes already saved in the Scene List are not affected.

• In SketchUp 2025 and later, HDRI rotation, intensity, and sun position support two-way writeback between Lite and SketchUp; SketchUp 2024 and earlier sync Geographic Sky one way.

Rhino

• With Sync Environment on, Rhino's current environment and Lite sync both ways; with it off, the two are independent and changes in Lite are saved only in Lite's own scene data.

• Rhino has a single global environment. With Sync Environment on, switching scenes in Lite overwrites Rhino's current environment with that scene's HDRI parameters; the environment and effect parameters of other scenes are still saved in the .3dm file and are not expanded in Rhino's environment list.

• Sync Environment and Live Sync are separate switches; Sync Environment can be used on its own with Live Sync off.

Revit

• Sync Environment is not available; the environment is set independently in Lite.