solvecraft/docs/render-settings.md

Persistent render settings

Named setups save common render settings and, optionally, the complete numerical configuration of one selected image method, including an optional embedded HDR. Saving does not start a render, apply the navigation camera or require an installed CPU/GPU executor. render.preflight and render.start consume the same saved configuration and still check the current host, geometry, capabilities and memory limits.

Commands

{"command":"render.settings.set","params":{"name":"Studio","set":{"width":1600,"height":900,"exposure_ev":1.5}}}
{"command":"render.settings.get","params":{"name":"Studio"}}
{"command":"render.settings.get","params":{}}

set creates a named setup from defaults or replaces supplied top-level fields in an existing setup. A supplied camera or job replaces the whole value; it is not a recursive patch. Omitted fields retain their values. job: null explicitly clears the job and restores the legacy request protocol. Unknown fields (including camera/job fields), invalid types and invalid values fail before document mutation. A new empty set saves the defaults; setting an existing setup to identical values is a no-op, preserving redo history and revision. Each effective edit is one undo step and marks the document dirty. There is no delete or rename command in this slice.

Named get returns {name, setup} or an error for a missing name. Without a name, it returns {setups, defaults}. Reads do not evaluate the model or change history.

render.lights.list {setup: "Studio"} returns a uniform {lights: [...]} read model without applying or saving anything. An unsaved client draft can instead pass {settings: <complete RenderSetup>}; {} inspects the default setup. Neither form selects a UI shot. Unknown parameters, null selectors, both selectors, missing setup names and invalid settings refuse without mutation or evaluation. CPU/GPU hard-directional/sun/point/spot/rectangle sources expose id, kind, name, name_key, number, implicit, intensity, colour and their world-space geometry. Background and environment illumination are separate from this source list. Implicit fixed studios and CPU presets are expanded; explicit empty lists remain empty. GPU sky/HDR suppresses its implicit studio.

Light IDs use the kind and zero-based source slot (directional:0, point:0, spot:1, area:0); point and spot share indices in the punctual list. IDs survive numerical edits and repeated reads, but changing kind, reordering/removing lights or replacing a rig can change them. These are setup-local addresses, not durable document identities. Unnamed lights display Key, Fill, Rim, then Light 4, etc.; clients translate name_key, substituting number for later lights. Names are not persisted by this command.

Successful light edits additionally return bounded id_remap entries {before: Light, after_id} for each surviving original source. The engine uses original slot identity, not numerical-value matching: a duplicate is a new source even when its values equal its parent. CPU/GPU canonicalization puts the finite Sun first. The UI verifies each before record against its current draft, then remaps mute, solo and surviving unrelated selection; unmatched identities from a different settings override are cleared. Add/set/duplicate still select their actual result. Numeric editor drafts are invalidated. A source RenderSettings Arc tracks verified authoring provenance. Unverified structural Undo/Redo, checkpoint, replacement or same-shape reorder clears mute/solo, Light selection and parameter drafts, rather than guessing identity from ordinals or equal values. One bounded before/after Weak-Arc proof preserves the latest verified numerical light-set Undo/Redo; older or otherwise unproved transitions clear. Fallback labels remain ordinal (Key, Fill, etc.) and may change after insertion; this adds no persistent custom naming. Untouched original Sun/area rows retain their raw authored RGB rather than an unrelated common-editor divide/multiply round trip.

Colour is linear RGB. CPU colour/intensity retain their saved values. GPU hard directional colour/intensity also retain their exact saved values. Finite Sun RGB and GPU area RGB radiance is factored into its largest channel as intensity and normalized colour (black uses intensity zero and white colour). Their product recovers radiance; no photometric equivalence between methods is implied. All rectangle edges are full side vectors in millimetres, including GPU half-edges multiplied by two. Directional vectors point towards a source; spot axes point from it. The optional directional angular_radius_rad identifies a finite Sun (CPU requires explicit Indirect lighting).

render.lights.add, .set, .duplicate and .remove edit a named setup in one undo step. They accept name, id except for add, optional complete settings as an unsaved starting point, and optional expected_revision. Add/set accept set with kind, intensity_ev, temperature_k, softness, azimuth_deg, elevation_deg, distance_mm, size_mm, aim_at, width_mm, height_mm, position_mm, direction, edge_u_mm, edge_v_mm, radiance, colour, reference_distance_mm and minimum_distance_mm. These lower into the existing light fields; there is no new saved light metadata. Temperature is an original three-band, 6500 K white-balanced Planck tint approximation stored as linear RGB. Area softness changes emitter size; finite Sun softness changes angular radius. Hard CPU directional and point/spot sources refuse unsupported emitter softness. CPU and GPU each admit 8 directional, 8 point/spot and 4 areas. Directional sources include at most one finite Sun; CPU finite Sun requires explicit Indirect lighting. Point and Spot share eight slots. Both methods expose Spot emission axis and inner/outer half angles; the UI displays degrees while saved/runtime fields retain radians. A GPU feather needs cos(inner) - cos(outer) >= 1/1024; narrower authored CPU cones explicitly refuse on GPU rather than being widened or ignored. Materializing or duplicating the implicit GPU studio preserves all three hard source values; it does not replace them with a Sun. A directional source without angular_radius_rad is hard on either method. GPU Add offers both Directional and the existing Sun (.02-radian radius). Finite Sun duplication refuses; hard sources duplicate until the combined eight-source cap.

render.lights.solo {id?, solo} and render.lights.mute {id, mute} validate and echo view requests. Enabling solo requires an id; disabling solo clears it. The UI also verifies that the address exists in its current lighting draft. SolveApp::run applies these replies to per-document ViewState.lights, never to a design or undo history. Shot changes clear this transient scope. Saving, undoing and reopening settings retain the unfiltered numerical setup.

render_workspace_light::filter_request filters copied settings at both image_request and SolveApp::run's Check/Render boundary. Explicit sources keep their geometry and have zero intensity/radiance while off. Raster and the legacy GPU studio carry three optional studio_weights in the captured ImageRequest; they are finite 0..1 runtime values, never fields of RenderSetup. CPU raster uses them in studio::shade_weighted; the GPU path uses its captured uniform. CPU ray tracing and explicit GPU rigs refuse these fixed-studio weights.

The selectable Lights group runs view.render_select {kind: "lighting"} and opens Lighting: Light source, Shadows and sampling, then Budget. Its + still adds a light. CPU presets require review and consent before replacing directional lights; Custom materialises their existing values. GPU budgets show eight directional sources including the optional Sun and four Areas; CPU eight directional and eight point/spot plus four Areas. Counts are read-only sliders. Unsupported controls stay faded with a reason. No rig identity is saved, so there is no Rig row.

Browser eyes and solo actions run the same view commands. A selected light mounts render_workspace_light::editor in the Inspector's Lighting page. Without a selected light, that page calls the same group editor. Light has a name/type header, Area/Point/Sun segments, intensity, temperature and softness; Position; Shape for areas; Falloff for points; and Behaviour (Solo, Mute, Duplicate, Delete). Distances displayed as subject-size multiples lower to millimetres. Width U and Height V are full side lengths (GPU storage uses half-edges). Independent vector edits preserve the other side. Radiance and temperature lower to existing linear RGB fields. Sun directions remain world vectors. Every edit is bounded and finite, with the renderer validating the complete candidate. Opening an editor does not apply or save anything. Edits run the four light commands; Place by highlight stays disabled with its viewport-picking reason. The live product view receives bounded analytic light samples in Frame.product_lights; both PBR and non-PBR/transparent batches use them. This is an unshadowed preview, with area emitters sampled at their centre and constant ambient illumination. HDR transport and full emitter sampling remain the image renderer's responsibility.

Field	Default	Saved contract
backend	builtin	Valid R1 backend ID, at most 64 ASCII bytes; unavailable IDs survive reopen
mode	preview	R1 preview / final mode; availability checked by a future render request
camera	Existing Camera::default()	Snapshot of target, yaw, pitch, roll, distance, fov and up; mm/radians, existing Z-up default
width, height	1024, 768	Positive, each at most 4096; product at most 4,194,304 pixels
format	png	R1 output format (png / exr); saving EXR does not add an encoder
exposure_ev	0	One exposure authority: raster requires 0; CPU raytrace accepts -16 through 16; GPU path accepts -32 through 32. Legacy setups retain -32 through 32.
environment_rotation	0	Legacy finite radians, magnitude at most 1,000,000. A typed job requires 0.
environment_intensity	1	Legacy finite value, 0 through 100. A typed job requires 1.
background	[236, 240, 245]	Three sRGB byte values; display backplate, independent of illumination
job	absent	Optional typed active raster, cpu_raytrace or gpu_path configuration; absent/null keeps the legacy protocol

Camera target coordinates and positive distance are bounded to magnitude 1e9 mm; angles to 1e6 radians. FOV is finite, 0 <= fov < pi; zero means orthographic in the existing camera model. Both existing camera up axes are retained. Setup names are trimmed, nonempty, at most 128 UTF-8 bytes, without control characters. A document has at most 32 setups. Validation also runs during document deserialization.

The raster product-image executor (render.preflight / render.start without progressive) doesn't apply exposure or the environment controls. A setup that sets them still renders there; the reply's ignored_controls lists the ones that render leaves out (for example ["exposure_ev"]). A raytrace request with them is refused; progressive rendering applies the exposure, and a saved job passes it to its executor.

Complete numerical job intent

job is tagged by method. It saves the active method, rather than separate CPU and GPU drafts. All numbers use the existing renderer contracts: world distances are millimetres, angles are radians and light colours/radiances are linear RGB.

Method	Saved fields	Main limits and defaults
raster	transparent_background	Defaults to false; no nonzero exposure or raytrace controls
cpu_raytrace	transparent_background (default false), options: optional progressive, primary_samples, preset, lights, punctual_lights, area_lights, area_samples, seed, shadows, constant environment, embedded hdr, optional lens and output presentation	Primary samples 1/4/16 (default 1); shadows true; optional progressive/lists/preset/environment/HDR absent. At most 8 directional, 8 point/spot and 4 rectangular lights; progressive has the narrower contract below.
gpu_path	transparent_background, options: samples, max_depth, seed, tone_map, denoise, lens, lighting, sky environment, embedded hdr	Samples 1..4096 (default 64), depth 1..16 (default 8), seed u32 (default 0), Reinhard tone map, denoise false, optional values absent

CPU preset and explicit lights are mutually exclusive. An omitted/null light list remains unspecified; lights: [] explicitly removes the default directional lights. Point lights retain their optional spot cone, its world emission axis and both half angles. Rectangular lights retain full side vectors, sample count and seed; area_samples and seed require a nonempty rectangular-light list. Area samples are 1/4/16/64. Lists are bounded while deserializing and are never truncated. The CPU constant environment retains {color, intensity} independently of the backplate. See CPU light union for the spatial and light validation contracts.

CPU progressive: {samples_per_pixel, seed} stores bounded camera accumulation using the existing CPU transport. An absent/null value preserves fixed AA; an empty object defaults to 16 samples and seed 0. With the Compact profile, samples are 1..64 and the seed is u32. primary_samples must be 1, output is at most 1,048,576 pixels, and width × height × samples_per_pixel is at most 16,777,216. Saving checks these limits without a render host. Larger CPU profiles use their own bounds; for example, Studio admits 3840 × 2160 at 128 samples per pixel. Other memory, geometry and work limits still apply. See CPU resource profiles. Rectangular and continuous LED lights retain their bounded direct-light integral for each camera sample. Dielectric and anisotropic-face overrides retain the existing certified thin-sheet/axis-aligned-box and planar-face transport and geometry guards. Embedded HDR and one setup exposure remain compatible. See CPU progressive sampling for reflection limits, work admission and provisional/final publication. The top-level runtime progressive: true continues to select GPU.

CPU lens stores the same {aperture_radius_mm, focus_distance_mm} as GPU. Positive aperture requires explicit progressive sampling plus a bounded perspective setup camera. No second camera is saved; Frame lens edits preserve the saved camera and current navigation. Absent/null keeps pinhole behavior; an explicit zero aperture remains explicit and keeps the old fixed-AA/orthographic pixels. Whole-pupil glass clearance and bounded ray intervals are checked against the captured scene at render admission. See physical thin lens.

CPU output optionally stores {tone_map, finishing, backdrop, linear_exr} using exactly the shared presentation operators. It has no second exposure/background: setup exposure and background remain authoritative. Omission/null preserves the original CPU f64 PNG, as does identity presentation with optional raw retention. Nonidentity effects apply to every complete progressive pass; only final completion retains a raw master. The shared output envelope is 8192 per side and 16,777,216 pixels, independently of a larger CPU resource profile. See CPU output presentation.

GPU lighting retains the complete RGB ambient radiance, optional sun, at most four rectangular lights and a bounded directional_lights array of {direction:[x,y,z], color:[r,g,b], intensity}. Hard directions share the CPU contract: finite nonzero vectors with components within +/-1e9, linear RGB 0..1, relative intensity 0..64. The hard list and optional Sun total at most eight sources. Empty hard lists are omitted when saving; existing designs preserve their meaning. Omitted/null lighting keeps the renderer's legacy studio; an explicit all-zero lighting object means a black studio. Those values are not interchangeable. lens retains aperture radius and axial focus distance; nonzero aperture requires a perspective camera. An explicit zero-aperture lens remains explicit. Tone mapping and denoising retain their existing meanings and do not create new executor capabilities.

The portable procedural GPU environment is:

{"kind":"sky","gradient":{"zenith":[0.16,0.32,0.7],"horizon":[0.8,0.9,1],"ground":[0.12,0.1,0.08]},"rotation_rad":0,"intensity":1}

Gradient entries are finite linear RGB in 0..1,000,000; rotation is finite within ±1,000,000 radians; intensity is 0..100. Omitted gradient/rotation/intensity use the shown defaults. The original procedural gradient is not a calibrated atmosphere. An environment replaces the constant ambient-light term; it does not replace the display background. See environment rendering, thin lens and studio lighting.

An embedded HDR uses the separate options.hdr field and cannot coexist with a constant CPU environment or a GPU sky. It references immutable bytes in render.resources, not a file name. Saved HDR resources documents atomic file capture, CPU/GPU colour policies, strict container hydration and the offline save/reopen contract. Optional hdr absent/null means no HDR; when an HDR object is supplied, its resource and controls are required.

RenderSetup.exposure_ev is the only saved EV. CPU lowering copies it into the runtime raytrace.exposure_ev and resets the legacy common-settings EV to zero; GPU lowering uses it in JobOptions. CPU/GPU options.exposure_ev is rejected. The two legacy common environment fields must stay at 0/1 when job is present; the method's typed environment owns those values. Existing legacy values are preserved, and a conflicting conversion fails instead of clearing them.

Save, check and start

{"command":"render.settings.set","params":{"name":"CPU studio","set":{"width":1600,"height":900,"exposure_ev":1,"job":{"method":"cpu_raytrace","options":{"primary_samples":4,"preset":"warm_cool","shadows":true}}}}}
{"command":"render.preflight","params":{"setup":"CPU studio"}}
{"command":"render.start","params":{"setup":"CPU studio","replace":true}}
{"command":"render.settings.set","params":{"name":"GPU studio","set":{"width":1600,"height":900,"exposure_ev":0.5,"job":{"method":"gpu_path","options":{"samples":256,"max_depth":8,"seed":42,"tone_map":"aces_fitted","lighting":{"environment":[0.1,0.2,0.3],"area_lights":[]},"environment":{"kind":"sky","intensity":0.5}}}}}}
{"command":"render.preflight","params":{"setup":"GPU studio"}}

An inline {"settings": full_setup} has the same semantics as a saved setup name. The engine resolves the typed job before choosing CPU or GPU dispatch. A saved gpu_path method requires the gpu-path executor; another executor announcing progressive sampling cannot replace it. A missing or unsupported host blocks Check/Start while leaving the saved intent intact.

For a complete job, additional request fields are replace and optional transient studio_weights for a fixed studio. Parallel runtime controls such as progressive, integrator, raytrace, lens, environment or transparent_background fail, including explicit null/false values. They cannot silently override a setup. For legacy job absent/null, the existing runtime request API remains available; it has no inferred CPU/GPU method.

Explicit portability boundary

External HDR paths, texture maps, temporary GPU clear-coat/texture body bindings and CPU reflection, anisotropy, emission and surface-effect bindings are not part of this saved job format. Their fields are rejected, even when an unsupported list is empty. Runtime requests can still use those existing features with an inline setup whose job is null. Saving a complete setup must not discard them or turn a current body name/ordinal into a persistent identity. HDR bytes are portable through render.settings.capture_hdr; portable maps and durable body/face bindings still require separate contracts. Runtime requests can reference an existing HDR resource while supplying temporary bindings, without persisting those bindings.

No captured scene revision, worker, device, image result, JobId, host availability or external path is serialized. Reproducible input configuration does not promise bit-identical pixels across devices or renderer versions.

Persistence and evaluation

Named setups live in render: {setups: {name: setup}, resources?: {sha256: resource}}; empty render state is omitted. The optional numerical job adds the render-job-intent pending format descriptor. Embedded HDR adds its own render-hdr-resources descriptor. The optional CPU sampling field adds render-cpu-progressive. CPU presentation and physical lens intent share the cpu-output-presentation pending descriptor. No historical format number or migration step is rewritten. Older designs need no job transformation: an absent job keeps their common settings and runtime API. Builds without the descriptor open the newer design with a warning and preserve its saved options they cannot read. Plain JSON, design containers and document autosave snapshots carry all HDR bytes. A command-only crash replay before a new checkpoint still needs the source path recorded by capture_hdr; it must match the recorded digest. This unit does not make that journal self-contained.

The engine avoids geometry evaluation only after proving that the document differs solely in validated render settings, with unchanged active sketch and pending moves. The proof compares the complete document after normalizing the render field, so mixed geometry/appearance/placement edits take the usual conservative refresh path. It uses a document clone/comparison, not a constant-time or whole-application speedup claim. Unchanged render pointers short-circuit the check for normal modelling commands.

Render-only edits, undo/redo and checkpoint restore preserve model state, its stale marker, cached tessellation and the prepared world state. A stale live-drag result never becomes authoritative through a settings edit; the next model-reading command still settles it normally. Revision advances for consumers that track document changes. Geometry, physical materials and appearances retain their existing representations; the setup stores image configuration, not material assignments.

No new third-party dependency or asset is introduced. doc depends on the existing pure render crate for its shared camera and R1 identifiers, within the L2 → L1 rule.

CPU transparent_background is stored beside boxed numerical options, like Raster/GPU, and defaults to false for older designs. True requests straight-alpha primary geometry coverage in fixed/progressive PNGs; it does not alter engineering appearance opacity or raw EXR. Active bloom, backdrop and photographic operators still refuse with transparent output. The existing CPU output pending descriptor covers this saved flag. See transparent CPU PNG.

CPU spatial denoising

An explicit CPU job can save job.options.denoise: true. The default is false; false is omitted from the canonical wire representation, so older CPU setups keep their previous image and allocation path. It lowers only to the native CPU raytrace.denoise option. The corresponding GPU field remains separate.

The optional three-pass filter uses deterministic first-hit geometry guides, filters every complete published image pass before presentation, and preserves raw film, RNG/sample identity and final-only EXR. Its guide, ping-pong and task storage is admitted under the unchanged CPU profile. Filtering shares the 8192-side/16,777,216-pixel output envelope and never silently reduces size or changes the selected executor. Offline validation and save/reopen retain the flag without initializing a renderer. See spatial denoising for bypasses, bias, cancellation/work units and retained-master regrade limits.

CPU consumer of portable optics

Stable optics rows remain the same saved contract for CPU and GPU. An explicit CPU job validates at most eight IOR/Beer targets offline. Without explicit Path it refuses authored transmitted shadows/subsurface and keeps its strict sheet/box certificate. The separately prepared Path route adds general closed Glass and selected-medium scattering; its new source still needs qualification. On the original absent-Path route, a saved general closed boundary stays authored as closed_mesh and must prove the box subset. No boundary, target, effect or material is silently removed to make a job run. See CPU certified glass. Common Glass controls hydrate actual saved numbers without creating a runtime override on paint. Their unsaved edits overlay only the selected stable rows in captured image settings; Save/replacement and Remove remain explicit document commands with one undo. This consumes existing portable fields and adds no format number or new design metadata.

The optional CPU opaque path lighting consumer is part of the combined source and has executed renderer regressions. It adds bounded progressive diffuse/specular GI only when path is authored; existing restrictions and bytes above describe the absent-path route. Prepared general Glass/SSS, independent bounded Atmosphere and Sun/Sky have separate source/qualification notes. Mixing active Atmosphere with Glass/SSS, selected anisotropy and combined document/engine/UI/native qualification remain incomplete.

GPU lighting.punctual_lights preserves each existing PunctualLightOptions field. Intensity is the relative on-axis incident value at reference_distance_mm and falls by inverse square distance, multiplied by the cosine-space Spot smoothstep. This does not imply lumen/lux/IES calibration. Nearer-than-minimum or excessive (above 1e12 linear RGB) samples contribute zero and increment typed diagnostics; no inverse-square clamp is applied. Re-aimed finite shadow connections exclude the source, and offset crossings increment a separate omission count.

The registered worker publishes punctual_diagnostics through the existing job status. GPU counters are cumulative through the most recent complete image readback, including adaptive pilots and production Fresnel strata; an interrupted partial dispatch need not appear in that last snapshot. Each counter is 64-bit via two carry words, separate from unchanged medium-failure words 0..7. The existing host metadata/work-release lifetimes and retained-options lease apply.

CPU canonical quality chips use a separate render.quality.prepare projection, cpu_progressive_png, from the same three Q-* entries. It returns only size, progressive production count/seed and a bounded CPU profile; it does not enable GI, change denoise or replace authored optics/effects. Optional cpu context contains minimum_budget and the preserved adaptive policy. Profile selection includes pilot+production camera work and never lowers that minimum profile. The existing fixed_samples_png GPU and acknowledged imported-review contracts remain unchanged. These projections are read-only and do not certify convergence.

CPU saved sun and sky preserve the shared numerical domains and explicit method-switch/adoption policy described in CPU celestial lighting. The renderer, saved/runtime and UI tests have executed; dedicated native Sun/Sky image-quality acceptance remains pending.